Ron and his colleagues are really seeing the results of their life’s work.
It’s all about finding the right variety of the right species of tree for the problem at hand. Other species will work as well, depending on the problem and its location. “Bigger trees are like bigger straws, they can suck up more contaminants much faster than smaller, slow-growing trees,” Ron said. In fact, the faster and bigger a tree grows, the harder it works to take up pollutants from soil and nearby water sources such as surface streams and belowground aquifers.
They have the potential to take up a lot of waste water at water-rich sites, but they can also work without a lot of water on water-limited sites. The trees are mostly fast growing willows and poplars, which are ideal for phytoremediation because they grow quickly and have deep and extensive root systems.
Photo credit: Ron Zalesny, USDA Forest Service. Willows and poplars are ideal for phytoremediation because they grow quickly and have deep and extensive root systems. Poplars and willows grown for runoff reduction and phytoremediation. Altogether, there are 20,000 trees planted in 16 phytoremediation sites in the Lake Michigan and Lake Superior watersheds. So with the science maturing, and the success stories racking up, phytoremediation is becoming the solution of choice for many communities and corporations looking to cleanup polluted waste sites.įor instance in the Great Lakes Region, phytoremediation work is expanding on a massive scale mainly due to word-of-mouth endorsement, according to Ron Zalesny, a research plant geneticist with the Forest Service’s Northern Research Station. Map developed by Liz Rogers, USDA Forest Service. As part of a Forest Service research study, 20,000 specific tree types, referred to as “special trees” were planted in 16 phytoremediation sites in the Lake Michigan and Lake Superior watersheds, including the 16 landfills featured here. The practice of using trees as waste cleanup tools has been around for many decades and its early promise as a low-cost alternative to other cleanup methods has borne out. Through a process known as phytoremediation, green plants are used to remove, degrade, or stabilize pollutants and contaminants, such as toxic metals, from soil or groundwater. When it comes to ridding the earth of pollution leaking from dumps, closed landfills, and other waste sites, specific types of trees are quietly and efficiently absorbing the toxins. Both are international fellows sponsored by the Forest Service and as part of its International Forestry Fellowship Program (IFFP). David Karlsson (left, Sweden) and Aleksander Peqini (Albania) conducting physiological measurements at a landfill in southeastern Wisconsin.
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