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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Cleaning/Containing Mercury

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Cleaning/Containing Mercury
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:54:04 -0400

On 6/11/2010 12:26 PM, Cory Brennan wrote:
Per the microbiologist I discussed this with, microbes interact/bind
with mercury to make it inert, meaning it cannot absorb into living
tissue. Fungi can absorb it and then be removed and stored as toxic
waste - there may be some fungi that make it inert as well? Microbes
will work in soils and in water, both. This tribe is using these
microbes as an economic engine and this is one reason I recommend
their use as it contributes to the tribe economically as well as
environmentally.

Then maybe follow fungal bioremediation with plantings of tulip poplars and lemon-scented geraniums, within permaculture systems, of course,
just to clean up any remaining residues.

And a Google search on "Soil mercury remediation by transgenic trees"

http://www.google.com/search?q=Soil+mercury+remediation+by+transgenic+trees&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGLL_en___US365

Consensus is that these trees simply move the mercury to the atmosphere
and thus do not represent a good solution to the problem.

This article is interesting; don't know if it offers a novel approach to mercury remediation using transgenic trees but this statement about mercury-resistant bacteria is interesting. Can these bacteria alone be cultured on site to remediate mercury in soils?

Research Projects in the Merkle Lab
Development of transgenic trees for phytoremediation of contaminated soil and water
http://www.warnell.uga.edu/research/merkle/

"Mercury resistant bacteria express merA to convert highly toxic, ionic mercury, Hg(II), to much less toxic, elemental mercury, Hg(0). Expression of merA in transgenic plants might provide an ecologically compatible approach for the remediation of mercury pollution. Yellow poplar proembryogenic masses (PEMs) were transformed with three modified merA constructs via microprojectile bombardment."





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