Corporate irresponsibility abounds, so brownfield sites are abundant. And the ability of fungi to assist in their remediation is an option we believe in already. Thanks to Richard Schiffman and Yale e360 for this interview on a topic we have cared ab…
Researcher Danielle Stevenson digs up California buckwheat grown at a brownfield site in Los Angeles. PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Corporate irresponsibility abounds, so brownfield sites are abundant. And the ability of fungi to assist in their remediation is an option we believe in already. Thanks to Richard Schiffman and Yale e360 for this interview on a topic we have cared about since launching this platform, and which we believe will be of increasing importance in our future:
California buckwheat that has absorbed lead at a contaminated site in Los Angeles. PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Toxicologist Danielle Stevenson cleans up carbon-based pollutants and heavy metals from contaminated sites using fungi and plants. She's also training environmental justice and tribal communities in using these methods so they can remediate toxic sites on their own.
The United States is dotted with up to a million brownfields — industrial and commercial properties polluted with hazardous substances. These sites are disproportionally concentrated near low-income communities and communities of color, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and researchers predict that heavy rains and flooding due to climate change are likely to both spread and increase exposure to these contaminants.
For more than 15 years, Danielle Stevenson, who holds a PhD in environmental toxicology from the University of California, Riverside, has been pioneering a nature-based technique for restoring contaminated land, using fungi and native plants to break down toxins like petroleum, plastics, and pesticides into less toxic chemicals.
The usual way of dealing with tainted soil is to dig it up and cart it off to distant landfills. But that method is expensive and simply moves the problem somewhere else, Stevenson says in an interview with Yale Environment 360, "typically to another state with less restrictive dumping laws."
In a recent pilot project funded by the city of Los Angeles, Stevenson, 37, working with a team of UC Riverside students and other volunteers, significantly reduced petrochemical pollutants and heavy metals at an abandoned railyard and other industrial sites in Los Angeles. While her research is still in its early stages, Stevenson says she believes her bioremediation methods can be scaled up to clean polluted landscapes worldwide...
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