Conservationists and Native groups want to use mushrooms to clean up toxic waste spilled decades ago by government scientists on land belonging to the San Ildefonso Pueblo in northern New Mexico. The underground plume of chromium has spread to the Native land from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the highly secretive facility that brought about the atomic bomb. Hidden deep in the Jemez Mountains, the lab's workers dumped hexavalent chromium from power plant cooling towers into a nearby canyon for over 20 years. The Tewa Women United group is teaming up with Communities for Clean Water to persuade officials to test a bioremediation technique based on mushrooms, to decontaminate the aquifer.
Los Alamos
Called mycoremediation, the technique uses the underground body of fungus, known as mycelium, to extract heavy metals from soil and water.The process begins by growing molds in agar from seaweed, or another suitable medium. These molds are then inoculated with mycelium, which grow into a brick or bead shape, and then placed around the contaminated area. Mycoremediation has been used to break down diesel fuel, remove deadly bacteria clean up heavy metal contamination. Recently, the method was used to clean up billions of gallons of oil drilling waste dumped into unlined pits in the Ecuadorean Amazon, by Chevron Oil.
Other methods being tested by Los Alamos include pumping certain bacteria into into the plume, along with molasses (for the bacteria) that convert chromium-6 to chromium-3. Hexavalent chromium is highly carcinogenic, but chromium 3 is less of a hazard. Using mushrooms could be a much cheaper and more environmentally friendly solution, however.
The advocacy groups will be proposing their ideas in a Los Alamos public hearing in early November. New Mexico granted the lab a waste discharge permit several years ago, and locals claim that no public input was considered. The groups hope the mycoremediation efforts will be a community-wide activity, with locals working together to create the mycelium bricks and installing them in an artistic way around the contaminated sites.
As usual, government officials are skeptical about any useful solutions, instead making further plans to discharge waste into the environment.