On the advice of a Florida Hemp Business that I have been in contact with about the
remediation of the nuclear waste at the Bridgeton Landfill that is causing adverse health issues to the people living and working in the area.
It was suggested to find a St Louis Grad Student that would take on this enormous task of: writing a paper and joining the study on the way using Phytoremediation to rid the affected areas of the Manhattan Projects Nuclear Waste.
Here are 2 email replies I've received recently and what has prompted me to send this request to the World.
I've been following whats going on a believe I have a possible solution to removing the radiation. I have contacted a few of the greater minds who have been using Hemp for many things and have been getting a little feedback here are 2 of the latest emails.
The first reply:
As it grows, hemp absorbs heavy metals including radioactive ones and pushes them into its leaves. If you run a harvester over the plant tops, you can collect the leaves and sequester them. You will have a large volume of material which must be dried to reduce the volume. Then it must be bagged/baled for disposal. I recommend a metal smelter for that. For this work, the hemp need not grow longer than 75 days and you might get two crops a year. Winter hemp has been done, but it is dormant in the winter. Hard freeze kills hemp.
Any coal-fired power plant produces radioactive fly-ash so it may be possible to send material there. Fly-ash containment ponds are radioactive, probably no more so than your leaves.
Hemp is being used in this way at Chernobyl to remove radioactive Cesium from the topsoil. Fukushima is said to be studying the method for their solution too. Notice that both of these are dealing with surface pollution, not buried pollution. The method could remove any toxins or heavy metals.
Hemp roots go down 2 feet, sometimes as much as 8 feet. Below that level, I doubt the method would help. You would have to study the root depth in your cultivar and soils.
Paul Stamets is a noted mycobiologist (studies mushrooms). His book, “Mycelium Running” available on Amazon describes in chapter 7 “Mycoremediation” how mushrooms do much the same thing so you might combine the two methods. Use hemp to draw it up and use mushrooms to consolidate it from the dried leaf material.
Paul’s book also describes Mycofiltration in Chapter 5 where he cleaned up a stream runoff, but that was manure.
It depends on how deep your material is, but you could concentrate on some water run-off from the land-fill or leachate pumped to a bed of hemp core bedding and mushrooms.
The Federal Farm Bill of 2014 only allows “research farming” of hemp, but this is clearly a research project of many years’ duration. I suggest you work with your department of agriculture and its research stations. Sounds like the feds should pay for it anyway.
This BTW, is a serious problem at Federal labs at Hanford, Oak Ridge and South Carolina so you might find some help there.
Good luck in your efforts.
- The stalks might not be very contaminated and might be suitable for animal bedding or hempcrete so you might get something to pay for the work. It must be studied to be sure.
The second email reply
UPdate 12/10/2015 On the advice of an employee of Cleantech Open it was suggested that I enter the concept, idea, and process of removing the toxins from the soil with Phytoremediation.
While promoting the Idea Scale submission of Hemp for Soil Remediation of Nuclear Waste + sustainable insulation I was contacted via a Google Plus post and it was suggested that I should also submit the information to the CleanTech Open that boasts -who finds, funds, the most innovative cleantech startups on the Planet.
If you are interested in learning more about the people and organization who are directly involved in bringing new technologies on the market that will assist in helping the planet and people as a whole in the fight against climate change.
I have 4 verbal committments that support the project and havfe been in contact with Fluke Radiation testing meters for personal safety as well as for widespread field testing.
Here is a link to a few of the Radiation Testers from Fluke
RaySafe i2 personal dosimeter staff monitoring system
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- See more at: http://www.flukebiomedical.com/Biomedical/usen/radiation-safety/Personal-Dosimetry/RaySafe-i2-personal-radiation-dosimeter-system.htm?PID=79051#sthash.Shf3fkQ7.dpuf
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RaySafe i2 personal dosimeter staff monitoring system
RaySafe i2 is an active personal dosimetry system that gives real-time insight about personal radiation exposure, as well as access to time stamped dose data. By providing easily accessible information about radiation exposure, RaySafe i2 allows medical staff to immediately change their behavior in order to minimize their radiation dose.
Components of the system:
- real-time display
- 4 dosimeters
- cradle and storage rack
- dose viewer software
- mounting material
Additional dosimeters, rack and the dose manager software can be ordered separately.
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- See more at: http://www.flukebiomedical.com/Biomedical/usen/radiation-safety/Personal-Dosimetry/RaySafe-i2-personal-radiation-dosimeter-system.htm?PID=79051#sthash.Shf3fkQ7.dpuf
