KBTX - HomePage - Headlines

Final Day for Aggie Students in 'Replant' of Bastrop State Park

Print
By: Alex Lotz Email
Updated: Mon 3:11 PM, Feb 25, 2013

A state park destroyed by a wildfire is getting some much needed help. For the past two weekends, hundreds of Aggies have taken it upon themselves to help replant the Bastrop State Park.

"It was definitely a huge deal to see all of the devastation," said Texas A&M senior Julia Griswold.

Over a year and a half ago, smoke could be seen from miles away as flames destroyed the park. It ranked as one of the most destructive wildfires in Texas history and burned thousands of acres. Texas A&M students are hoping to spring life from the ash that remains in the forest.

Julia Griswold grew up hiking with her parents in the state park. She said she didn't realize the true destruction of the fire until she was standing there first hand.

"I have seen the devastation before from the highway, but I didn't realize that over 96 percent of the forest was destroyed by the fire until I got there," Griswold said. "Just to see how many seedlings were there... and even though we won't get to see the direct influence of that, in 80 years they will be fully grown."

Griswold says her service organization, Maggies, planted more than 500 pine tree seedlings per nine acres on Sunday. They joined other volunteers from Aggie Replant on the final day. Aggie Replant is headlining the effort and plans to plant 30,000 pine tree seedlings in hopes to restore the state park.

"To know we were part of that and our kids and grand kids will experience it, it was really cool," Griswold said.


We ask that the following Community Standards be followed:
  • Comments must not be profane or vulgar.
  • Comments must not use hate speech, racial slurs, or violent descriptions.
  • We encourage varying views to be shared. We do ask commenters to not personally attack other readers, groups, people featured in our stories, or other posters for disagreeing with their views.
  • Comments must not contain negative, comparative debates between community standards of cities or towns.
  • Comments must contribute to the discussion, flaming and/or trolling will not be tolerated.
  • Comments must be truthful and not intentionally falsified. Providing a source link is encouraged.

If you find that a comment violates the above rules, please use the flagging option located to the right of the comment to notify the moderators.
For a complete list of guidelines, please follow this link:
http://www.kbtx.com/home/misc/Online-Commenting-Policy-181579421.html
powered by Disqus

Highlights

Most Discussed

powered by Disqus

JobSearch Recent Listings

The following list shows the 5 most recent jobs posted on JobSearch on KBTX.com

AP Video

Reason to Smile

Click here to view more pictures!
Click Here to Submit Your Pictures

Upload your photo, with a caption of your reason to smile, then watch the last half hour of BVTM from 6:30A - 7A Monday mornings to see if your photo makes it.

KBTX-TV Channel 3 4141 E. 29th Street Bryan, TX 77802 Phone: (979) 846-7777 Fax: (979) 846-1490 News Fax: (979) 846-1888
Gray Television, Inc. - Copyright © 2002-2013 - Designed by Gray Digital Media - Powered by Clickability
User Agent: CCBot/2.0 - 192941221