My FNL Bioremediation talk notes, v 1.0
Posted: March 18th, 2009, 11:01 amDIY Bioremediation
This presentation takes a couple concepts for granted:
1. Permaculture: An open system for integrating agriculture, farming and design knowledge from all over the world to build low-maintenance, thriving and food-producing landscapes.
2. Swadeshi: Ghandi called for autonomous, activist, educated communities, and this approach emphasizes bottom-up collaborations over top-down commands.
3. Guerrilla Gardening: All humans own the earth, and abandoned/neglected land is open game.
Bioremediation = working with nature to eliminate toxins from the ecosystem.
The ultimate goal is decontamination, which comes in many forms.
The Ideal: Biodegradation, which breaks toxic compounds down into harmless, less complex compounds. Mushrooms have enzymes which are especially good at this.
2nd Best: Bioaccumulation, which uses leafy plants to literally suck up the toxins and store them in tissue until they can be harvested and disposed of, or used elsewhere.
2nd Best: Biofiltration, which uses dry/absorbent biomass to suck up, bind or block toxins from entering the soil, or continuing to flow downstream.
Best Case Scenario: still takes 5-10 years to get the results you want.
Where is this needed? Unfortunately, nearly everywhere that's had human beings for the past 40 years or more. Also possibly relevant: the Earth's land surface is 32% desert but only 13% arable land.
There's Two Kinds of Bioremediation: The kind that costs lots of money, and the kind that works.
a. The Kind That Costs Lots of Money
The "Biotreatment" Industry:
Patent Holders: the great men who invented plants and magic vegetable oil.
Remediation Contractors: mostly owned by defense contractors and investment firms.
Government Contracts: the biggest customer in the world is the US government + military.
Valdez Spill - detergent on rocks that killed fish and wiped out algae populations, massive petroleum-powered water vacuum systems, teams of people with sponges, toxic absorbents to soak up oil, endless vista of stupid, $287 million price tag.
Landfarming - widespread and well-funded, despite the many obvious drawbacks: steep space requirements, totally unable to treat inorganic toxins, constant particle + dust clouds drifting offsite, and most of all, the huge cost of transportation and equipment.
b. The Kind That Works.
The most important part of this discipline is the very first syllable -- remediation is ultimately just biology. The task is simple: help nature recover, refertilize and regrow.
Nature already knows how to do this -- we just create better conditions and assist the process.
There's a "bio" technical term for that, too: "Bioaugmentation."
Like most industries and sciences, Bioremediation comes with barriers to entry in the form of jargon.
"Windrows," "Landfarming" and "BioPiles" are all specialized terms for a mound of dirt. We shall call it a mound of dirt, then.
Basic Concept: "Just Add Nutrients." This is not only the easiest method for amateurs and non-scientists, it's also the most effective.
"Products" and Solutions
These are five of core products used by most Biotreatment contractors, all brand-names, with a short blurb about what they actually are.
Chitorem Complex: Ground-up seashells in flake form. Website calls it "crustacean sourced biomass." Used to bind toxins and provide electron donors.
Earth Magic: Basicaly Terra Preta humus mixed with worm castings, kelp liquid, rock dust and a proprietary blend of ground-up roots.
Insoluble Colloidal Buffers: Almost entirely vegetable oil suspended in water. The ratio is key - the product is liquid enough to be injected, but "becomes immobile under ambivalent flow conditions."
Slow-Release Electron Donor: Turns out to be primarily a vegetable oil emulsion, once again. Most sci. literature and corporate ads claims a 5 year feed cycle from a single dose.
Sodium Lactate Concentrate: 60% sodium lactate, which is dried-up lactic acid, the rest of the ingredients are for suspension and preservation, aka "more veggie oil, and chemicals."
The Problem With Cleaning a Dirty, Dirty World
"Hyperaccumulator Plants" are isolating the problem, not solving it.
Legally, your responsibility ends once you get the problem off your property.
Realistically, we have an obligation to finish the job and find ways to degrade all toxins.
"Toxic" creates problems, too: is all poison bad? What about Allelopathy?
OPEN TOOLKIT/PLAYGROUND
Allelopathy: This is the weaponized, total opposite of polycultures, guilds, or "symbiotic mutualism." Many species of plants actively wage biochemical warfare, and this is a brand new field for science. (Mostly - farmers have known about Juglone, the plant-killer active compound in Black Walnut, for thousands of years now.)
Bacterial Culture: Along with mushrooms, bacteria are the most effective tools for natural decontamination. Of particular interest are Oppenheimer's "Archaeobacteria," RNA-based and ancient bugs that eat hydrocarbons and excrete fatty acids.
Cardboard: A hugely abundant resource of special value for DIY bioremediation, both in sheet mulching and "mycoremediation" methods. Provides carbon, absorbent material AND a great buffer -- best of all, we're surrounded by it and it's practically free.
Compost Tea: there's about 100,000 different recipes, but the basic idea is to feed oxygen and nutrients to microbes in water. This will create a diverse, liquid habitat full of bacteria, protozoa, and of course fungus, all of which help to enrich soil, feed your plants, and even actively degrade toxins.
Effective Micro-Organisms: Another patented recipe sold under many names but basically composed of the following: lactic acid (for the bacteria that thrive within it), yeast, Filamentus fungi, and Actinomycetes, some of the most common soil bacteria on Earth.
Ground Covers: A permaculture staple that really shines for bioremediation, growing ground covers will accelerate the processes and provide compost biomass afterwards. Especially good on Other People's Property.
Growing Clean Air: here's the basic recipe...Areca Palm Chrysalidocarpus lutescens, Money Plant Epipremnum aureum, and Mother-in-law's Tongue Sansevieria trifasciata. At least, that's the version they teach in Kerala, India -- other great plants for air purification are: Bamboo, Boston fern, English Ivy, Lady palms, Mums, Peace Lily, Reca palms, and the Umbrella Tree.
Hyperaccumulators: plants that excel at sucking up and storing toxins, especially metals and petroleum products. Although this is hardly a solution, it's also an amazingly useful trick for any bioremediation project.
Fungus: One of the single most promising technologies Nature has to offer, mycelium is ubiquitous and essential to soil and plant health. Soil innoculation is a bedrock foundation for biotreatment work. The single best resource for both learning and getting ahold of supplies is: www.fungiperfecti.com
Living Machines: water purification systems build from sequential tanks filled with sand filters and hyperaccumulator aquatic plants. The concept has been promoted by wife-husband team John and Mary Todd. Proven for decades, installed in office buildings, breweries, Vegas resorts and a beautiful specimen at the University of Vermont.
Mycofiltration: Fungi-innoculated bales of hay/straw are used for river and ocean cleanup. Stamets has decades of experience in stream/river projects, and detailed but un-tested plans for and ocean spill operation.
Molasses: Used constantly by major bioremediation contractors, country farmers and indiginous people alike, for the carbon and sticky, viscous texture.
Municipal Compost: Ideally this would be truly "municipal" (city-funded) but the core concept here is just community compost centers for the synergy value. Increased biomass means faster turnover and better product. It also offers the potential for the production of specialized compost varieties.
Polycultures/Guilds: the miracle of plants working together, this is both an ancient tradition and a brand-new science we've only just begun to explore.
Prehn Method: most Biotreatment companies rack up expenses with injection and extraction systems, but this provides a low-tech means of "milking the landscape" in
Sheet Mulching: Provides raised beds for growing food when it's impossible to wait for soil to detox, this also creates benefits for the contaminated ecosystem underneath.
Solar Ovens: Need crispy biomass and carbon in a pinch? Solar ovens aren't the best cooking tools, but as a passive method for turning waste into resources, it's hard to beat 'em.
Terra Preta: nicely defined as "a fine-grained charcoal high in organic carbon and largely resistant to decomposition." Famous as the deep black, richly abundant soil of the Amazon, which exceptionally high nutrient counts and carbon content.
Xeriscaping: this is the technical term for gardening, landscaping and agriculture in dry, low-water climates. Obviously useful in desert settings, this is also a valuable toolkit for situations with groundwater contamination or parched/damaged soils.
Water Hyacinth: An "invasive" super-abundant hyperaccumulator, easy to grow, hard to kill, and the highest-performing species for phytoremediation of water toxins. Clearly nature is trying to tell us something.
Swadeshi-Style Bioremediation
The mass media debate about sustainability is, like any other mass media debate, a binary trap. Pitched as a contest between consumerism and sustainability, this makes "sustainable" sound like it's a solution when it's neutral at best. In reality, sustainability is the middle ground on a spectrum between being a Net Consumer and a Net Producer.
Not only do we have to be Net Producers, we have to over-compensate and clock in a few billion extra hours to make up for a culture full of Net Consumers and "green" consumers who are proud of breaking more or less even.
Observe, Observe, Observe: the permaculture mantra that reminds us to pay more attention to what we see in nature than to what we read in books. Look around the community for what works and start by protecting and assisting those processes.
Generate Abundance: using greenhouses, "bioshelters," intensive methods as core infrastructure to over-grow everything and stockpile the nescessary ingredients for offsite projects.
Improvise and Innovate: the toolkit/playground is incomplete, and components can be arranged in any order or combination.
Open Questions:
What are the biggest problem areas in Springfield?
Will the city be interested in a Municipal Compost operation? Who should we approach?
What are our primary barriers right now? Access to plants and seed? Money and time? Tools?
What are the easiest methods in the toolkit for those getting started?
What are the methods most likely to amaze and engage people?
What important questions are nowhere on this list?
This presentation takes a couple concepts for granted:
1. Permaculture: An open system for integrating agriculture, farming and design knowledge from all over the world to build low-maintenance, thriving and food-producing landscapes.
2. Swadeshi: Ghandi called for autonomous, activist, educated communities, and this approach emphasizes bottom-up collaborations over top-down commands.
3. Guerrilla Gardening: All humans own the earth, and abandoned/neglected land is open game.
Bioremediation = working with nature to eliminate toxins from the ecosystem.
The ultimate goal is decontamination, which comes in many forms.
The Ideal: Biodegradation, which breaks toxic compounds down into harmless, less complex compounds. Mushrooms have enzymes which are especially good at this.
2nd Best: Bioaccumulation, which uses leafy plants to literally suck up the toxins and store them in tissue until they can be harvested and disposed of, or used elsewhere.
2nd Best: Biofiltration, which uses dry/absorbent biomass to suck up, bind or block toxins from entering the soil, or continuing to flow downstream.
Best Case Scenario: still takes 5-10 years to get the results you want.
Where is this needed? Unfortunately, nearly everywhere that's had human beings for the past 40 years or more. Also possibly relevant: the Earth's land surface is 32% desert but only 13% arable land.
There's Two Kinds of Bioremediation: The kind that costs lots of money, and the kind that works.
a. The Kind That Costs Lots of Money
The "Biotreatment" Industry:
Patent Holders: the great men who invented plants and magic vegetable oil.
Remediation Contractors: mostly owned by defense contractors and investment firms.
Government Contracts: the biggest customer in the world is the US government + military.
Valdez Spill - detergent on rocks that killed fish and wiped out algae populations, massive petroleum-powered water vacuum systems, teams of people with sponges, toxic absorbents to soak up oil, endless vista of stupid, $287 million price tag.
Landfarming - widespread and well-funded, despite the many obvious drawbacks: steep space requirements, totally unable to treat inorganic toxins, constant particle + dust clouds drifting offsite, and most of all, the huge cost of transportation and equipment.
b. The Kind That Works.
The most important part of this discipline is the very first syllable -- remediation is ultimately just biology. The task is simple: help nature recover, refertilize and regrow.
Nature already knows how to do this -- we just create better conditions and assist the process.
There's a "bio" technical term for that, too: "Bioaugmentation."
Like most industries and sciences, Bioremediation comes with barriers to entry in the form of jargon.
"Windrows," "Landfarming" and "BioPiles" are all specialized terms for a mound of dirt. We shall call it a mound of dirt, then.
Basic Concept: "Just Add Nutrients." This is not only the easiest method for amateurs and non-scientists, it's also the most effective.
"Products" and Solutions
These are five of core products used by most Biotreatment contractors, all brand-names, with a short blurb about what they actually are.
Chitorem Complex: Ground-up seashells in flake form. Website calls it "crustacean sourced biomass." Used to bind toxins and provide electron donors.
Earth Magic: Basicaly Terra Preta humus mixed with worm castings, kelp liquid, rock dust and a proprietary blend of ground-up roots.
Insoluble Colloidal Buffers: Almost entirely vegetable oil suspended in water. The ratio is key - the product is liquid enough to be injected, but "becomes immobile under ambivalent flow conditions."
Slow-Release Electron Donor: Turns out to be primarily a vegetable oil emulsion, once again. Most sci. literature and corporate ads claims a 5 year feed cycle from a single dose.
Sodium Lactate Concentrate: 60% sodium lactate, which is dried-up lactic acid, the rest of the ingredients are for suspension and preservation, aka "more veggie oil, and chemicals."
The Problem With Cleaning a Dirty, Dirty World
"Hyperaccumulator Plants" are isolating the problem, not solving it.
Legally, your responsibility ends once you get the problem off your property.
Realistically, we have an obligation to finish the job and find ways to degrade all toxins.
"Toxic" creates problems, too: is all poison bad? What about Allelopathy?
OPEN TOOLKIT/PLAYGROUND
Allelopathy: This is the weaponized, total opposite of polycultures, guilds, or "symbiotic mutualism." Many species of plants actively wage biochemical warfare, and this is a brand new field for science. (Mostly - farmers have known about Juglone, the plant-killer active compound in Black Walnut, for thousands of years now.)
Bacterial Culture: Along with mushrooms, bacteria are the most effective tools for natural decontamination. Of particular interest are Oppenheimer's "Archaeobacteria," RNA-based and ancient bugs that eat hydrocarbons and excrete fatty acids.
Cardboard: A hugely abundant resource of special value for DIY bioremediation, both in sheet mulching and "mycoremediation" methods. Provides carbon, absorbent material AND a great buffer -- best of all, we're surrounded by it and it's practically free.
Compost Tea: there's about 100,000 different recipes, but the basic idea is to feed oxygen and nutrients to microbes in water. This will create a diverse, liquid habitat full of bacteria, protozoa, and of course fungus, all of which help to enrich soil, feed your plants, and even actively degrade toxins.
Effective Micro-Organisms: Another patented recipe sold under many names but basically composed of the following: lactic acid (for the bacteria that thrive within it), yeast, Filamentus fungi, and Actinomycetes, some of the most common soil bacteria on Earth.
Ground Covers: A permaculture staple that really shines for bioremediation, growing ground covers will accelerate the processes and provide compost biomass afterwards. Especially good on Other People's Property.
Growing Clean Air: here's the basic recipe...Areca Palm Chrysalidocarpus lutescens, Money Plant Epipremnum aureum, and Mother-in-law's Tongue Sansevieria trifasciata. At least, that's the version they teach in Kerala, India -- other great plants for air purification are: Bamboo, Boston fern, English Ivy, Lady palms, Mums, Peace Lily, Reca palms, and the Umbrella Tree.
Hyperaccumulators: plants that excel at sucking up and storing toxins, especially metals and petroleum products. Although this is hardly a solution, it's also an amazingly useful trick for any bioremediation project.
Fungus: One of the single most promising technologies Nature has to offer, mycelium is ubiquitous and essential to soil and plant health. Soil innoculation is a bedrock foundation for biotreatment work. The single best resource for both learning and getting ahold of supplies is: www.fungiperfecti.com
Living Machines: water purification systems build from sequential tanks filled with sand filters and hyperaccumulator aquatic plants. The concept has been promoted by wife-husband team John and Mary Todd. Proven for decades, installed in office buildings, breweries, Vegas resorts and a beautiful specimen at the University of Vermont.
Mycofiltration: Fungi-innoculated bales of hay/straw are used for river and ocean cleanup. Stamets has decades of experience in stream/river projects, and detailed but un-tested plans for and ocean spill operation.
Molasses: Used constantly by major bioremediation contractors, country farmers and indiginous people alike, for the carbon and sticky, viscous texture.
Municipal Compost: Ideally this would be truly "municipal" (city-funded) but the core concept here is just community compost centers for the synergy value. Increased biomass means faster turnover and better product. It also offers the potential for the production of specialized compost varieties.
Polycultures/Guilds: the miracle of plants working together, this is both an ancient tradition and a brand-new science we've only just begun to explore.
Prehn Method: most Biotreatment companies rack up expenses with injection and extraction systems, but this provides a low-tech means of "milking the landscape" in
Sheet Mulching: Provides raised beds for growing food when it's impossible to wait for soil to detox, this also creates benefits for the contaminated ecosystem underneath.
Solar Ovens: Need crispy biomass and carbon in a pinch? Solar ovens aren't the best cooking tools, but as a passive method for turning waste into resources, it's hard to beat 'em.
Terra Preta: nicely defined as "a fine-grained charcoal high in organic carbon and largely resistant to decomposition." Famous as the deep black, richly abundant soil of the Amazon, which exceptionally high nutrient counts and carbon content.
Xeriscaping: this is the technical term for gardening, landscaping and agriculture in dry, low-water climates. Obviously useful in desert settings, this is also a valuable toolkit for situations with groundwater contamination or parched/damaged soils.
Water Hyacinth: An "invasive" super-abundant hyperaccumulator, easy to grow, hard to kill, and the highest-performing species for phytoremediation of water toxins. Clearly nature is trying to tell us something.
Swadeshi-Style Bioremediation
The mass media debate about sustainability is, like any other mass media debate, a binary trap. Pitched as a contest between consumerism and sustainability, this makes "sustainable" sound like it's a solution when it's neutral at best. In reality, sustainability is the middle ground on a spectrum between being a Net Consumer and a Net Producer.
Not only do we have to be Net Producers, we have to over-compensate and clock in a few billion extra hours to make up for a culture full of Net Consumers and "green" consumers who are proud of breaking more or less even.
Observe, Observe, Observe: the permaculture mantra that reminds us to pay more attention to what we see in nature than to what we read in books. Look around the community for what works and start by protecting and assisting those processes.
Generate Abundance: using greenhouses, "bioshelters," intensive methods as core infrastructure to over-grow everything and stockpile the nescessary ingredients for offsite projects.
Improvise and Innovate: the toolkit/playground is incomplete, and components can be arranged in any order or combination.
Open Questions:
What are the biggest problem areas in Springfield?
Will the city be interested in a Municipal Compost operation? Who should we approach?
What are our primary barriers right now? Access to plants and seed? Money and time? Tools?
What are the easiest methods in the toolkit for those getting started?
What are the methods most likely to amaze and engage people?
What important questions are nowhere on this list?
