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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 11, 1993                   TAG: 9304110093
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY
DATELINE: TROUTVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

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MOUNTAIN'S SCAR GETTING TREE COVER

That big ugly scar on the side of Tinker Mountain where the new truck scales for Interstate 81 are being built won't last forever.

Volunteers were out Saturday planting the last of some 2,500 tree seedlings - mostly pines - on the steep bank.

"It'll look a lot more pleasant in a few years," said Rob Trickel of the Virginia Department of Forestry, the area forester for the Roanoke Valley. "It'll probably be two to three years before you start noticing green clumps sticking up, and in five to six years it'll be really apparent there's a forest growing there."

Helping out Trickel were three volunteers from the Vietnam Veterans of America and six juvenile offenders working off their community service.

This is the fourth year that valley court systems have been referring juvenile offenders to the Virginia Department of Forestry for community service. In that time, Trickel says, they've planted about 30,000 seedlings that were donated by the Izaak Walton League, the Lumber Manufacturers Association, the National Park Service and the state.

Most have been along highways, and by some estimates, these roadway forests-of-the-future will save the state some $12,500 each year in mowing costs.

But probably the biggest planting in the Roanoke Valley has been at Roanoke County's Green Hill Park, where some six to seven acres of seedlings have been planted.

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