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Owners of historic oil property converting field to forest

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More than 6,600 native species trees are going into the ground on a former soybean field in Oil Springs.

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The first saplings were planted this spring on the 3.3-hectare plot on the Fairbanks Oil Fields property, said Fairbanks office manager Pat McGee.

She and husband Charlie Fairbank have been working with the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority on a 20-year managed forest plan to return at least part of the area to what it was before it was cleared for oil production starting in the mid 1800s, she said.

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Fairbank and McGee are the fourth generation of the family in the oil business in central Lambton County, where the first commercial oil well was dug.

“Since we obtain revenue from beneath the surface when we pump oil, we think we ought to give something back to nature,” Fairbank said in a news release.

About 350 historic oil wells dot the 243-hectare property – about 40.4 hectares is woodlands and 40.4 is tilled farmland. Black Creek flows through the site.

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Naturalizing the 3.3-hectare plot connects existing woodlots on the property, McGee said.

“There’s woods on the west and there’s woods on the east. This is kind of the missing middle piece.”

Species being planted include oak, hickory, silver maple, sycamore and black walnut, the couple said.

Forty per cent are oak, including red, bur, swamp white and pin oak. Hickory species include big shagbark, bitternut and shellbark.

Lambton County has about nine per cent tree cover.

“Any additional woodlands is key to preserving and enhancing wildlife,” Fairbank and McGee said in the release, noting 30 per cent is the number Environment Canada recommends to maintain biodiversity and healthy ecosystems.

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