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TODAY Thursday 5 February 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Thursday 5 February 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Clean Water, Naturally
Richmond, California, is a city on the northeastern shore of San Francisco Bay and rarely is included in tourist brochures. The residents of Richmond are poorer than their neighbors in nearby places and, not coincidentally, the city has for most of its history been a manufacturing and shipping center. Most conspicuous of Richmond landmarks is a stunning array of oil tanks climbing the hills above the Bay. They are part of the great Richmond refinery of Chevron Oil.
Chevron does not like to be regarded as anti-environmental. Ten years ago they converted 90 acres of unused refinery land into a built-to-order wetland at the shores of the Bay. It was an environmental beautification project, undertaken for public relations and internal morale. It has now become an interesting demonstration of the capacity of marsh plants to absorb and then transmute toxic chemicals.
A report in Monday's summary from the Environmental News Network tells the story. A research team from the University of California has found that the synthesized wetland is absorbing 89 percent of the toxin selenium from the refinery's wastewater before it reaches the Bay. About two-thirds of the selenium is stored within the plants; the rest is "volatalized" by the plant and released harmlessly into the air.
Selenium is a nasty bit of business removed from crude oil during refining and often found in runoffs from agricultural chemicals. Birds exposed to selenium have shown marked birth deformities; it can't be very good for humans. Oil companies have said that there is no cost-effective way to remove selenium from refinery wastewater, and have endured EPA fines to show they mean it.
The Cal researchers are confident that the accidental benefits from the Richmond marsh could be multiplied significantly if wetlands could be designed with pollution-removal in mind: the kinds of plants, the arrays in which they're planted, the rate and direction of water flows.
People who've followed this field for a little while will call to mind the pioneering work of John Todd and Ocean Arks. It was Todd who first produced simulated wetlands for water purification, and his Living Machines (described here in J. Baldwin's report on river-cleaning in Philadelphia) are elegant, sun-driven aquatic systems that do a remarkable job of cleaning municipal wastewater. It's not easy to create such systems on a scale big enough for a middle-sized city, and the federal government makes it financially attractive for a municipality to treat its wastes through an expensive, engineered, chemical facility. But here's an anti-technology technology of real promise: non-toxic, local, cheap, beautiful.
TODAY ON THE SITE
Here's a basic headscratcher. You want to preserve open space during a time of population growth and economic expansion. Where do you put the new buildings? Most of us feel self-congratulatory when we arrange for some kind of planned development where the builder gets to erect new structures on X acres and the enviros get to preserve the woods on Y acres. Sprawl Lite. Our Fred Hapgood is more radical. He says put the new buildings underground and let the surface go natural. The technology of digging becomes every year more sophisticated and less expensive, Fred reports in his latest update on the underground world, and enviros should learn more about the possibilities of burying the developments we now protest. Then we can deal with the ensuing problem of making them attractive.
Recent "Today" columns:
2/4: Roll, Storms, Roll
2/3: Land Purchase Fever
2/2: Groundhog Day in the Persian Gulf
1/30: Trees and Hormones
1/29: Things To Come (2)
1/28: Things To Come
1/27: 'Bye, 'Bye Brazil
1/26: Jaywalking and Jaydriving
1/23: Good Biotech, Bad Biotech
1/22: No More Roads
1/21: Swordfish
1/20: Electromagnetic Sleuthing
1/16: Good News Way Down Under
1/15: Twenty-Four Forty or Fight!
1/14: Your Tax Dollars at Work
1/13: Johnny Mobil Appleseed
1/12: Superbowl, Scientific Uncertainty, and the Future of Al Gore
1/9: Goodbye, Delaware
1/8: Leaf Blowers, Old Cars, Class Conflict
1/7: The Great Improvement That Didn't
1/6: Proactive, Shmoactive
1/5: Mediocre Landscapes and Hope for the Planet
1/2: The Greatest Environmental Cause of the Year
12/31/97: The Top Twelve Environment Stories of 1997
To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.