RECLAMATION SUCCESS

Rinker Materials Corporation’s 474 Sand Mine, located in Clermont, Florida, has been presented with the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association’s Gold Environmental Eagle Award.  The company has also been presented with the Wildlife Habitat Council’s Corporate Lands for Learning award.

 The Environmental Eagle Award was created in 1992 to provide national recognition for aggregate-producing companies actively contributing to the maintenance of the environment in and around their operations, as evidenced by a corporate commitment to the full use of environmental controls and systems. 

The 1,400-acre mine property includes about 1,100 acres of undisturbed forest, herbaceous wetland, pine flatwood, and improved pastures. But most of the upland areas have been replaced with deepwater lakes — the remnants of mining. 

One 26-acre lake, known as Engstrom Lake, is the focus of Rinker’s Corporate Lands for Learning (CLL) program. Rinker maintains 200 acres of the 474 Sand Mine property as an environmental education center, including a portable classroom. Students from local elementary, middle, and high schools and a community college are working with Audubon of Florida, Southeast Environmental Solutions, and The Nature Conservancy to restore habitat areas. This work includes planting a pine flatwood ecosystem, creating food plots, developing and implementing a butterfly garden, restoring shoreline areas, stocking the lake, controlling invasive species, and monitoring species. 

Alicia Hughes, a science teacher at Bethune Academy who led the school’s partnership with Rinker, received WHC’s Community Partner of the Year award. Bethune Academy is a primary magnet school in Haines, Fla., specializing in technology and science. Hughes developed multi-disciplinary activities and promoted the program to other local schools. According to WHC, more than 1,000 students have participated in educational programs at the 474 Sand Mine.

The 474 Sand Mine also took a look at the character of the surrounding natural landscape. Then re-contoured the 100- acre site, covered it with topsoil, and re-vegetated the land to match the surrounding landscape. Forty of the newly restored site’s acres have been set aside as a habitat for the endangered gopher tortoise, which commonly resides in the land surrounding the site.

Students from Bethune Academy build bird boxes as part of Rinker Materials’ Corporate Lands for Learning program at its 474 Sand Mine. Reclaimed Lake Engstrom is in the background

The tortoise’s new habitat will be at Rinker Materials’ 474 Sand Mine in Central Florida

A few years ago, thirty students had the chance of a lifetime. The students were invited by Rinker Materials to work with an environmental consultant and receive training on measuring, marking and relocating gopher tortoises. The objective of the relocation was to create a new habitat for the endangered species.  The previous habitat at the Gator Sand Mine required excavation work that could have been disruptive, and even deadly, to the tortoises.