Case in Point
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Cleansing Tainted Soil Naturally
Photo courtesy of Steve Rock, USEPA.
There are many sites across North Carolina where years of leakage from underground gas storage tanks have contaminated soil. Environmental Technology professor Dr. Elizabeth Nichols is currently involved with research to better understand how plants can be used to prevent this subsurface contamination from reaching waterways and what plants can tolerate and even thrive in soils contaminated by petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel fuel.
For example, Nichols and FER graduate students are working with collaborators from NCDENR, the USGS, and the US Coast Guard on a demonstration site of phytoremediation in Elizabeth City, NC. A mixture of shrubs and fast-growing trees with deep root systems like poplars, river birches, and willows are or will be planted prevent fuels in the soil from entering the Pasquotank River.
“There is much to learn about how trees can impact residual, aged contamination” she says, “We still don’t know how much of the chemicals are absorbed by the trees and what impact it has on them.”
