Reclamation consultants got started in the 1970s
Instrumental in developing practical regulatory requirements and operational practices
Len Knapik assessing grass growth and rooting depth on a reclaimed industrial site, Strathcona County. 2006
Soils take hundreds to thousands of years to form and are vulnerable to degradation from erosion, contamination, industrial disturbance and urban development. Soil is a mixture of minerals, organic materials, air and water, responding to climate, organisms, relief, parent material and time.
Daniel Hillell in Out of the Earth provides this insight: “Perhaps our most precious and vital source, both physical and spiritual, is the most common matter underfoot which we scarcely even notice and sometimes call “dirt”, but which is in fact the mother-lode of terrestrial life and the purifying medium wherein wastes are decomposed and recycled, and productivity is regenerated”.