Rehabilitation on mine dumps

Greg Martin wrote:Biochar has proven itself as a great soil additive for heavy metal laced mine tailings.  The following link will show you before and after pictures of Hope Mine in Colorado:  www.cdsbiochar.com/biochar.html#HopeMine

The Biochar sequesters the heavy metals while also holding water and supporting soil microbes.  Seems to be the perfect material for mine reclamation.  

Bryant RedHawk wrote: It is not the actual Biochar that sequesters anything, what biochar is, is a medium that harbors bacteria, amoeba and other microorganisms.

Redhawk

maphokeng metseeme wrote:Good day Permies,

Me again, so sorry I missed out on the posts. I have attached the snapshots from facebook of a friend that was looking for disused land in and around Soweto for the development of small scale farming activities.  He mentioned that the dams were blue from the decaying copper and lead, with the big storm there was water spillage into rivers where livestock drink, residents bathe and draw cooking water, and I am told residents in the area suffer from respiratory disorders of some kind.  


Chris Kott, thanks for the RedHawk links, they are so full of insight, I will pass them on.  Cecile and John, thank you for the document on how to take lead out of water.

Regards,

The brake fern, Pteris vittata (Fig. 19), was also studied as a way to draw out arsenic from the soil. (See the section on “Remediation” for more information on phytoremediation and the brake fern.) A nontoxic chemical agent, EDTA, was applied first to “loosen” the metals from the surrounding sand and clay, making them more available to the plants (Quillin, 2000). Fern shoots, grown in contaminated soil, had arsenic concentrations up to 20 times higher than the soil arsenic concentrations found in the soil (Salido et al., 2003).

Giant reed is adapted to a wide variety of ecological conditions, but is generally associated with riparian and wetland systems. It is distributed across the southern United States from Maryland to California. Plants can grow in a variety of soils, from heavy clays to loose sands and gravelly soils, but prefer wet drained soils, where they produce dense monotypic stands. Giant reed was found to grow rapidly in soil contaminated with arsenic, cadmium and lead; limited metal translocation from roots to shoots accounted for its strong tolerance to heavy metals.[11] The same study determined that accumulations of As, Cd and Pb were high in roots but low in shoots, where SEM images showed thick and homogeneous stem tissue characteristics. In Pakistan, where the presence of arsenic has made risky the use of ground waters as a source of drinking water, a research study highlighted the phytoremediation potential of A. donax when grown in hydroponics cultures containing arsenic concentrations up to 1000 µg l−1.[12] Giant reed was able to translocate the metals absorbed into the shoot and to accumulate metals in the stalk and leaves above the root concentration, showing no toxic effects at As concentrations up to 600 µg l−1.

What's bizarre is that this plant is so demonized. This certainly reminds me of the permaculture saying I'm only familiar with from Geoff Lawton (not sure if he coined it, though), "The 'problem' is the solution." Definitely!

The same study determined that accumulations of As, Cd and Pb were high in roots but low in shoots, where SEM images showed thick and homogeneous stem tissue characteristics. In Pakistan, where the presence of arsenic has made risky the use of ground waters as a source of drinking water, a research study highlighted the phytoremediation potential of A. donax when grown in hydroponics cultures containing arsenic concentrations up to 1000 µg l−1.[12] Giant reed was able to translocate the metals absorbed into the shoot and to accumulate metals in the stalk and leaves above the root concentration, showing no toxic effects at As concentrations up to 600 µg l−1.

What's bizarre is that this plant is so demonized. This certainly reminds me of the permaculture saying I'm only familiar with from Geoff Lawton (not sure if he coined it, though), "The 'problem' is the solution." Definitely!