Tribe Plants Trees to Soak Up Toxins in Polluted Land

Story first appeared in the Record Eagle.

A northern Michigan Indian tribe will plant thousands of black willows on a contaminated site, hoping the trees will help cleanse the area by pulling toxic chemicals from the ground, a leader said Wednesday.

The 1.5-acre parcel near Manistee was an industrial site for decades, and the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians acquired it in 1998. A sawmill was located there in the 19th century. Later came a salt mining operation, chemical companies, and plants that manufactured asphalt and fiberglass.

Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, a nonprofit group that clones some of the world's biggest and oldest trees to preserve their genetics, is donating the black willows. Between 3,500 and 4,000 will be planted, said Meryl Marsh, the organization's director of operations.

Scientists say some trees and other plants can remove heavy metals such as zinc and cadmium from the soil through their roots and store them in stems, shoots and leaves-- a process known as phytoremediation.

It's a far cheaper option than scraping up the contaminated dirt and replacing it with fresh soil, Mitchell said. This is a far simpler, and more natural approach to ridding the area of the contaminants.

The tribe will take core samples yearly to analyze how well the trees are performing. The tribe is hoping that eventually the land can be used for something else.

The fast-growing black willow, with its netlike root systems, is among the most widely used species for phytoremediation. It's also well-suited to the moist soils of the polluted site near Manistee Lake, a swollen river mouth that flows into Lake Michigan.


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Made in Northern Michigan

Up North Live

With so much bad economic news these days, we love to get the chance to report on something positive.

Nearly 14 years ago, two people with professional careers came to Northern Michigan wanting a change. So, they decided to open up a pie shop.

And what started as something pretty simple has turned into quite the little empire.

Mike and Denise Busley came to Traverse City from San Diego, California back in 1996.

He was in the aerospace industry and she was in pharmaceutical sales.

But, they wanted to do something different with their lives and being natives of Michigan, they always wanted to move to Traverse city and open up a business...getting their inspiration from a tourist area in California, "There were three pie shops. They're known for apples and people would drive either for day of they'd come up for the weekend and apple pie of some kind was definitely in their car on the way home," said Denise Busley, Co-Founder of The Grand Traverse Pie Company.

That's when Mike got the idea to open the Grand Traverse Pie Company.

From there, they opened stores downstate in Brighton and Okemos.

That's just a little of background of how the company got its beginning.

The business has grown by leaps and bounds since it opened and there are now 17 locations, "All over Michigan. In Indianapolis, Evansville and Terre Haute, Indiana," said Mike Busley, Co-Founder of the Grand Traverse Pie Company.

In 2005, the Busleys along with a business partner, decided to sell Grand Traverse Pie Company franchises, "We thought the Grand Traverse name based on pies with a bakey/cafe setting, wi-fi, warm, comfortable would resonate even in Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Midland and Indiana," explained Mike Busley.

Along with being Michigan-based, Grand Traverse Pie Company is also dedicated to using as many Michigan grown farm products as possible....doing their part to help Michigan's economy, "We buy over a million pounds of Michigan agricultural products every year," said Mike Busley.

As with many businesses, Grand Traverse Pie Company's growth began to level off with the economic downturn, but they're still expecting a 12 to 15 percent increase in 2010.

They plan to open one or two more store this year.