Inco's aerial seeding program takes flight.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT: SUDBURY

As the leaves begin to fall, fertilizer has been flying at Inco Ltd. in recent weeks as part of an annual dedication to its aerial seeding program.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In consultation with the City of Greater Sudbury's Vegetation Technical Advisory Committee (VETAC), the program kicked off once again in late September in an attempt to re-vegetate and reclaim particular areas of local land which have been rendered barren through historic mining activity. Using what Inco officials refer to as miniature water bombers to deliver a specially engineered mixture.

This year, 500 acres of land between Inco's Murray Pit and the Frood-Stobie Complex are being targeted, a number that is up from the 300 acres that has typically been covered in areas such as Coniston and New Sudbury since the program began in 1990.

"We load planes up with a payload of grass seed, lime and fertilizer, and we aerially treat these areas by dumping this mixture onto a section of land that's relatively inaccessible by any other means," says Quentin Smith, environmental engineer, Inco's Environment, Health and Safety Department.

In order to implement the program, Inco contracts two planes from Supermarine Aircraft Inc., a southern Ontario company that has been working with the project since 2001. The aircraft are loaded up with their payload, which is dropped over the targeted areas, The planes then return for additional fuel and payloads before heading back out for another pass.

The process requires...