This probably isn't the right place for this topic, but I couldn't settle on where it might fit best and it seemed kind of appropriate to put it here- moderators, please forgive me!
I've been thinking a lot lately about bioremediation- it seems that as the global ecological situation grows worse and worse (leaving out any mention of particular or global political shiftings
), and so many systems approach or have already crossed the threshold of collapse, there's a need for more drastic action. I think that extraordinary phyto/myco remediation, not as isolated strategies but as the cornerstone of large scale initiatives, are both essential to compensate for rampant pollution and present huge opportunities. I was hoping to get thoughts from some seasoned
permaculture goofballs on this idea.
The problem is the solution.
So often I've heard in videos both Bill and Geoff say this, and it's become a mantra of mine. I'm sure others may disagree but the way I've always understood this idea is that systems are inherently dynamic and changing, living systems even more so, so a 'problem' is a moment of imbalance, excess or shortage. As designers it is our job to facilitate system change such that the imbalance is rectified or the structure of the system is shifted so that imbalance is no longer so imbalance-y. Each problem is an opportunity for change, and each moment of change can be guided to the benefit of all. It's always brought to my mind one of my favorite lines by the German poet Holderlin, which translates to something like "but where danger is, grows the saving power also". This principle is easier to understand, I think, when considering a hostile comfrey takeover of a field, or a similar abundance of something. I think it's more difficult to apply to an ecological disaster. I think doing so, however, is much more important.
Disaster farming
So with that in mind, consider the idea of farming our ecological disasters. What if one were to take the current situation of, say, the Mississippi River eutrophication as a starting place? As most Americans probably know, excessive crappy farming, ranching, industry practices, septic systems, etc dump absurd amounts of nutrient rich runoff into the Mississippi and all its tributaries each year, so much so that each year
an algae bloom 6,000-7,000 square miles is formed on it. All of that growth absorbs all of the available oxygen in the
water, suffocating everything else. We know exactly what causes this, and its continued existence is a purely economic one- if farmers, ranchers and stuff makers stopped intentionally or unintentionally dumping nitrogen and phosphorous into the watershed, the dead zone would disappear. That doesn't seem likely to happen, though.
A farm established on the banks of the Mississippi could, through multiple avenues, act as a giant sponge on all of this incredibly fertile water. Some of the excess dissolved nutrient could replace the need for any basic NPK fertilizer, and the excessive life already growing in the water would go a long way to long term enrichment of the fertility and structure of the soil. The farm would act as a giant sponge to clean up the river, breaking the cycle of death and decomposition in the river that was starving the life in the river of oxygen (or at least contributing to it. It's a big river.) From there you could integrate aquatic species, maybe even extending the riparian zone- by maybe adding rocks? Dredge up the soil to one or two inches below the water level for ten feet out from the river at the Northern end of the property (upriver) and replace it with gravel. In the gravel grow reedbeds, water chestnuts, then rice paddies or something similar. I an envision a miniature version of the Tonle Sap, a lake off the Mekong river in Cambodia that expands and contracts every year as the waters of the river 'backflood' into the lake bed. It actually lies kinda parallel to and upstream from where it meets the river. It's an ecological hotspot because of this unique relationship to the river. Mimicking that shape would probably allow for a similar process, maybe one that naturally floods more regularly, achieving the flood and drain method of farming traditionally used for rice fields. This extended river bed, not continuously inundated with fertilizer, could also provide spawning grounds for fish, the shallower water would remain oxygenated much better (more surface area per volume) and could be incredibly productive. Not only that, but increasing the amount of edge, the amount of space where river and
land meet, would increase the opportunities for riparian system growth.
In another
thread here, I proposed something similar with the blue-green algae problems on the Florida coast. And these are more mild examples, that don't even get into the kind of circumstances under which you would have to cultivate new strains of species to handle different situations (see mycoremediation stuffs on culturing
mushrooms for diesel, or radioactivity).
I know one major objection to this kind of effort would probably be that whatever came from there would be dangerously polluted. Maybe. But would it really be so much worse to supply to the world than all the toxic gick that's already sprayed, pumped and salted in its cultivation? I know many, especially conservationists, feel that the precautionary principle
should come first, but ecosystems are incredibly resilient- just take a look at
Chernobyl. Bathe an environment in radiation and it can roll with the punches- it's when humans come in and systematically cut, burn, poison, pave and starve every species at every trophic level of an entire system that it falls apart. Besides, we're not talking about doing something to a "pristine" ecosystem- we're talking about life support and risk taking for ravaged, terminal systems. To paraphrase Jacke and Toensmeier in their Edible Forest Garden
books, 'shouldn't we leave the parts of our land already in good shape be, and focus our attention on the areas that need our help?'
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I'm guessing the grasses absorb the N material present much like they scavenge mineralized N from the soil?
But I like the metaphor of a pest. "It's not a slug problem, it's a duck deficiency." Well if you have a horrifying endless cascade of slugs, glorping about and mucking everything up as far as the eye can see, you can have a whole duck farm! Similarly I see these impossibly vast streams of 'pollution' leaking out of the global capitalist economic machine (not that there's anything wrong or right with it, hoping this doesn't run afoul of the cider press rules), and can only think 'boy oh boy, what a resource!'. At least I'm trying to see them that way, because I think doing so will allow for closing a lot of loops and ending a lot of that pollution. 
