Another Reason to Love Mushrooms - Bioremediation

Bioremediation - I had heard this word before but never really understood what it meant. An article in today’s New York Times gave me a great practical example and piqued my curiosity even further.

So what is bioremediation?  This page on the Cornell University website breaks it down (pun intended):

“Remediate” means to solve a problem, and “bio-remediate” means to use biological organisms to solve an environmental problem such as contaminated soil or groundwater.

The article in today’s Times focuses on how a town in California’s Mendocino County will be the first to attempt a biological clean up of dioxin, a carcinogen leftover from a lumber mill which closed in 2002.

While the mill is no longer functioning, dioxin has seeped into the soil creating numerous “hot spots” and a potential financial loss for the town:

Fort Bragg must clean the dioxin-contaminated coastline this year or risk losing a $4.2 million grant from the California Coastal Conservancy for a coastal trail. Its options: haul the soil in a thousand truckloads to a landfill about 200 miles away, or bury it on site in a plastic-lined, 1.3-acre landfill.

Alarmed by the ultimatum, residents called in Paul E. Stamets, author of “Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World.”

Now, unlike my husband, I love mushrooms, but at this point in the article I was wondering what, exactly, they would be able to do.

Typically, contaminated soil is hauled off, buried or burned. Using the mushroom method, Mr. Stamets said, it is put in plots, strewn with straw and left alone with mushroom spawn. The spawn release a fine, threadlike web called mycelium that secretes enzymes “like little Pac-Mans that break down molecular bonds,” Mr. Stamets said. And presto: toxins fall apart.

Ok. That sounds pretty cool. And it seems that the residents of Fort Bragg for the most part are also embracing the idea. Tests and smaller pilot projects are needed, since mushrooms have yet to be used on this particular toxin on such a large scale. But there is optimism:

Jim Tarbell, an author and something of a sociologist of the Mendocino Coast, said the enthusiasm for bioremediation showed a change in the culture at large.

“We are trying to move from the extraction economy to the restoration economy,” Mr. Tarbell said. “I think that’s a choice that a broad cross-section of the country is going to have to look at.”

Want to look at more information on bioremediation? Check out this quick lecture from the University of Arizona or this article from Bionewsonline.com.