Exploring Phytoremediation at SUNY ESF

The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, founded in 1911, is now the only institution of higher learning in the United States dedicated solely to the study of natural resources and the environment. Hello and welcome to this edition of Improve Your World with SUNY ESF. I'm Dave White. We begin today's program on the roof of Illick Hall on the ESF campus in one of the several greenhouses atop the building. Follow this plant-filled path passageway and you reach a greenhouse being used for phytoremediation research. Welcome to Dr. Lee Newman, who was in charge of this project on phytoremediation. And I guess that's right where we should start is, what is phytoremediation? Well, phytoremediation is the use of plants to clean up environmental contamination in the environment. So we can look at using plants to take up and sequester heavy metals, or in the case of these poplar trees, to take up organic compounds and break them down into non-toxic byproducts. It's a safe way? It is completely safe, yes. How long has phytoremediation been around? Well, phytoremediation as a technology has only been around maybe about 20 years. But the background is that people in the mining industry used plants as environmental sentinels to let them know where metals were close to the surface and would be able to be easily mined and used in industry. And as they left waste sites behind from the mining industry, scientists came in and said, well, can we use these same plants to start cleaning up some of these sites? Is it kind of nature's own way of cleaning up itself? Absolutely. These plants are not engineered. They are not altered. in any way, but they have inherently in their makeup the ability to do this type of cleanup in the environment. So the process, I guess, has been, or the research has been, in finding out which plants work best where? Exactly. So we have certain type of plants that take up heavy metals. We have certain type of plants that nourish bacteria in the soil, and the bacteria do the cleanup. And we have certain type of plants that take up the contaminants and degrade them themselves. So it's understanding what is the contaminant, where is the site, and what plant is best for that job. Heavy metals, what are those and why are they so bad? Well, they are metals like lead, nickel, zinc, chromium, metals that are used in industry. And in high levels, they can be toxic to other biological systems. So this can be a problem. Deep in the ground, they're not toxic. Nothing is exposed to them. But when they're on the surface of the soil, now you... you can have exposure and toxicity. And how much planting would you have to do to, say, clean up a brownfield site? Well, on a brownfield site, you have the site to do the cleanup on. So if the trees or the plants can't do it within that site, it's not going to work. Other sites where we're trying to clean up large areas with contaminated groundwater, we might need larger sites to be able to reach and treat all of that water. And is there anything special? special that you do in planting to make the whole system work? Oh, absolutely. I mean, first and foremost, the plants have to survive. If the plants die, they can't do the cleanup. So you have to prep the site to make sure that your plants are going to survive. In the case of the poplars, we want to take care of any surface toxicity. If you're dealing with the metals in the soils, you might have to alter the pH of the soil so that the plants can survive. So yes, there definitely is prep that needs to be done. Now, in some cases, is it safe to use a poplar tree to harvest and use it for something after it has been in use in one of these remediation efforts? Yes, definitely. In fact, one of our field sites in Oregon, we harvested several of the trees and we used the University of Washington paper-making process plant, and we had paper made from our trees. And then we tested them to make sure none of the trees were in use. None of the contaminants that we were cleaning up were in the paper, and it was perfectly usable. So you could use that paper and not have any fear of contracting or contacting something that would be bad for you. Absolutely. Now, are there instances where you would want to keep something? sequestered? Oh definitely so if you're doing metal remediation where what is happening is rather than being broken down in the plant it's being accumulated in the plant then you would have to deal with those plants differently and you have to process them reclaim the metal that's in the plants. Alternatively, you can use the plants to sequester the metals in the soil. So rather than take it up, the plants are going to alter the soil chemistry and keep the metal in the soil in a non-biologically available form. Excellent. Now contrast this with what we know as the traditional landfill or containment method for an area that might be contaminated. Well, if you put something in a landfill, you are putting it in there and keeping it safe and not letting anything come in contact with it, which means whatever you put in there is staying in there. It's not going away. In these type of methods, we have the plants that are actually breaking down the contaminants. So it's no longer a a toxic chemical in the environment. If we're taking it up in the plants with heavy metal problems, we can take it up and then we can reclaim that metal by harvesting the plants and extracting the metals from them. So we're completely removing it from the environment rather than just putting it someplace and keeping it there for future generations to have to deal with. Now, here in this greenhouse, you have a number of different plants. Can you tell me about them? Well, the one that's behind us, the hybrid poplars, they have been used traditionally for about 20 years. 20 years to clean up groundwater contamination, mainly because these plants grow very, very rapidly. They take up lots of water, and as they take up the water, they take up the contaminant. So they are very much the go-to plant for cleaning up groundwater. Now, some of the work we're also doing is going out and surveying contaminated sites. So some of the other plants that we have here in the greenhouse are plants that we have seen growing on contaminated sites, and we're looking to see what those plants are doing and comparing them to the hybrid. poplars. Basically seeing if those plants would be eligible for regrowth or replanting that spreading around. Exactly to move away from just a monoculture on these sites can we put other plants out on these sites as well. A monoculture could be a bad thing I guess if you had some kind of particular pest or something like that. Exactly look at the emerald ash borer that's coming in and it's devastating the ash trees in this country. Well if we had an entire plantation of ash trees you'd be in trouble. you could have a major problem here. So having a monoculture is not the ideal way to go. So you're looking for a little more diversity. Exactly. Now, you have several sites that you've worked on, one in particular where you've done some testing, and I'd like to talk about that with you. But first, let's take a little bit of a break, and we'll be right back with more Improve Your World after this. Power drills are handy tools, but they can hurt you if you're not careful. Make sure the drill is at a proper angle for the hole you need. And don't push too hard. That makes the drill bit wear out faster. Use the right drill bit for the materials. There are drill bits designed for wood, metals, concrete, and masonry. Keep your hand away from the trigger when tightening the drill bit in place. Many fingers have been damaged this way. Even drilling wood can heat up the drill bit, so let it cool before removing it. If you like the mobility of a battery operated drill, the better the battery, the longer it will operate. But that may mean a bigger battery that's heavier to lug around, so make sure it's fully charged before using it. And finally, always wear your safety glasses. A tiny piece of debris will feel like a boulder if it gets caught in your eye. Welcome back to Improve Your World with SUNY ESF. I'm Dave White and with me today is Dr. Lee Newman. And we're in this greenhouse on Illick Hall on the ESF campus and talking about phytoremediation. And these are some of the plants that are used in that. process to help clean up areas that are contaminated with a variety of different things and I guess the key is how do you know how well the phytoremediation is working well that is one of the challenges of being able to tell that it's working. How do we do the sampling? How do we look at the plants and determine, is this process actually working? And right now we have to do destructive harvesting, collect the leaves, collect branches, and bring them back to the lab. And one of the things that we're trying to develop are new ways to do in-field sampling that are not destructive to the plants and give us instant results. Is this plant working? Is it actually cleaning up the site for us? Making progress. Actually, yes, we are. We're working with NASA at the moment, NASA and the Naval Research Labs, to develop the use of hyperspectral imaging to image the plant leaves to determine whether or not they are taking up the environmental contaminants. Hyper what? Hypersexual imaging. You'll have to explain that one to me. Okay, well when we look at a plant the leaves look green to us but it's not that the leaf is inherently green. It's that the light that is hitting this leaf and reflecting on the leaves is green. off are the green wavelengths of light. But we can only see in a very narrow spectrum of wavelengths, the visible spectrum. But there's the infrared and the UV range and we don't see there. But what we can do with our imaging system is to look at all these broad ranges of wavelengths reflecting off the leaves. And is there something different in a plant that has been exposed to an environmental contaminant? Can we now image different different wavelengths of light reflecting off these leaves, and can we use this as a monitoring tool on these contaminated sites? With an instrument like this, you're kind of seeing the leaf in its real form as we would see it, say, in the fall when the chlorophyll leaves the leaf and the colors are left? Actually, even broader ranges. We're going beyond those colors. We're looking at the UV light reflecting off. We're looking at the infrared light reflecting off. So yes, we're going beyond the pigments in the leaf. leaf and looking at this whole broad spectrum of wavelengths reflecting off the leaves. UV ultraviolet? Exactly. Okay. Now, so what you have to do while you're still developing that process is go out in the field and take samples and bring them back into the lab for testing. Yes we did. This is the Keyport Undersea Naval Warfare Center and back in 1999 we installed a fighter remediation system on this site. And when we needed a test facility I I contacted the Navy base and they said they would be very happy to have us come out there. So this summer we packed up students and equipment and went out there and did some field sampling. Now how big a plantation is this? There are two plantations on the site, both about an acre in size, sitting on top of a contaminated landfill. And they took the students out and tell us who they were, what they did, and how the process worked. Well, we went out there with our collaborator from the Naval Research Labs, Dr. David Lewis and he brought the equipment we were using. And then the graduate student who was in charge of this project, Adam Hoffman, and an undergraduate researcher who was assisting on this project, Robert Hamilton, went out there and we did all the sampling right there on site. They actually had to go out and cut leaves off trees? Yes, we did. So what we did is we went out there and we cut leaves off the trees and we imaged them using this new imaging system that we're developing. We then took those leaves and processed them the way we wanted them to be. we would normally do it without the imaging system. So we froze them in liquid nitrogen to preserve the contaminants and their metabolites in the leaves, packed them on dry ice, and brought them back here to the lab for analysis. Is that a dangerous process at all? Not if done properly and with the proper safety precautions, not at all. Okay, because you're using liquid nitrogen, that could cause problems, couldn't it? It could cause burns if you're not handling it properly, but the students are trained on the proper handling procedures. We certainly don't want any accidents with the students doing it. this work. Do you take the leaf as a whole leaf or does it you have to take little pieces? Well what we do is we take the entire leaf and image it and then we put it in a bowl, add liquid nitrogen, grind it up and then put the whole leaf in a jar and bring it back here with us. So we are sampling the entire leaf. And have you picked up any preliminary results as to how phytoremediation is working? On that particular site it looks like it's working quite well. We the trees are very large, taking up lots of water, and we're seeing the metabolites for the contaminants and all the leaf samples that we've analyzed. So now what we need to do is go back to all our imaging data and try to correlate the amount of metabolites to the images that we've received. And then you'd just be able to eliminate a portion of that in-the-field type of processing? Exactly. Exactly. So all we would have to do is go out and image the leaves without having to do the liquid nitrogen freezing and the dry ice shipping and the... in lab analysis of these leaves. Is this something that is beginning to, phytoremediation is beginning to take hold and more people are turning to that instead of the traditional landfill to contain contaminated sites? It depends on where in the country you're standing. So in certain areas of the country where they were more progressive about accepting innovative technologies, phytoremediation is very well accepted and has been installed on a number of sites. Other areas that took a more conservative view. of accepting innovative technologies? Not so much. And this is the challenge for us to go out and educate people in those areas, the regulators, the site owners, the engineering firms, of what phytoremediation can do and what it can't do. It's not going to solve every problem, but it is certainly a low-cost option for remediating a lot of these sites. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dr. Lee Newman, working on phytoremediation here at SUNY ESF. We'll be back with more. Improve your world after this. One of the two most commonly used tools is a screwdriver. Screwdrivers are made to drive specific types and sizes of screws. This is the flat head screwdriver. The flat blade varies in size which is selected based on the size of the screw slot. The closer the match the easier it is to tighten the screw. The Phillips head screwdriver is designed to be used with screws with an X-shaped slot. Again, the closer the match, the easier it is to tighten the screw. Which screw to use? The Phillips head screw is designed for the application of extra torque, so it provides a tighter fit. Use it when tightness is... is critical. The Allen key or Allen wrench, a hexagon shaped screwdriver, is often used to put together furniture. It's often L-shaped. Power screwdrivers come in two forms. One is a socket driver approach that can be used with power drills. Many drills have special speed settings for driving screws. The second is a stand-alone cordless electric or power screwdriver. Welcome back to Improve Your World with SUNY ESF. As you can see, we have left the greenhouse and relocated to a former industrial property now under remediation. What we're looking at, what we call an alternative landfill cover system. That means an alternative to what is specified in the regulations in terms of the technical requirements. And those technical requirements were put in place in order to do, as I said earlier, which is to restrict the movement of water, keep people from coming in contact with the environment. underlying waste. And yet what we as engineers also recognize is that you need to put a lot of maintenance into those systems. You need to, in perpetuity, that system needs to be there. And the nice thing about these willow based systems is that they will be here in perpetuity and they're a little bit more adaptable to the changing climate. Our environmental regulations were written to address waste disposal and to essentially keep the water from coming in contact with the waste because when that happens you get chemicals, you'll get particulates that will be become transported by the water as the water moves through the waste material. So we're trying to keep those contaminants, particulates, and whatever else might be of concern from being transported outside these boundaries and into the ground waters and surface waters that are adjacent to the site. This particular site, the primary primary concern is associated with chloride transport and because chloride moves relatively easily and only will move with the movement of water, as we obstruct the water flow, we obstruct the movement of the chloride. The technical definition when water comes in contact with the waste, that water is technically regulated as what we call leachate. And our objective first and foremost is to minimize the formation of leachate and restrict the movement of the water. of any leachate that has formed. Well, where we are right now, we're in about the eighth year of research and demonstration projects that the college has been involved with. We started with very small little pots in greenhouses, and we have now brought this up to the 10 acres that's behind me. We've got 25 acres to the west of me that was planted this year, and another 25 acres or more will be planted next year. The area out in this direction here is about five acres of a salt marsh restoration demonstration project. The idea here was that the water typically is flowing into this relatively low-lying area, and we are continuing to do that. research into the water uptake, water movement in this wetland area to hopefully show that we're moving and controlling the water in an effective way that meets the regulatory requirements. In addition to that the salt marsh restoration, salt marshes, inland salt marshes were common in Syracuse over a hundred years ago, but with urban encroachment, you saw the loss of these relatively uncommon habitats. So we're restoring an uncommon habitat here in Syracuse. Stephanie Lewis is a master's student studying with me and she's an environmental engineer. I got her BS from Syracuse University, environmental engineering. He's interested in looking at fluxes, the nutrient fluxes, the carbon fluxes in this material out here. Our resident biogeochemist, Dr. Mitchell, believes that these, this area, these waste beds are actually functioning as a carbon sink, that they're sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. And that's a thought, an idea that we need the scientists to identify those ideas, we need the engineers to identify how to. how to maybe take advantage of those ideas. So Stephanie is out here today she's looking at the movement of water from the root zone into what we call lysimeters. We're measuring the volume of water that moves through the soil into these lysimeters so we can check that against our computer models and in the future we can just use our computer models so we don't have to have our students out here on cold days collecting water. Willows are supposed to be acting as a cap for the waste that's under underneath so we don't want the water to be going down into that waste because if it goes into that waste it can contaminate groundwater and get into other water sources. So the water, the willow are acting as a pump for the water because they're using the water that's going into the upper level of the ground. So the fact that the water that was beneath the root zone in the willow plot is greater than that that was outside of the willow plot, it means that the willow are doing their job and that the waste isn't . going down into our groundwater. We're pumping out lysimeters that are 18 inches under the ground. So basically when it rains the water goes down through the soil and then if it goes past the root zone it's going to go into that pan and the pan is connected to a wick which is connected to this little right here and so every week I have to come out and empty them so that we can determine the percolation rate through the soil and the goal of this is to determine whether the ones that are outside the willows have a greater amount of water than the ones inside the willows because we we want the willows to be using the water and therefore they should have less percolation through the soil. So this is just the pump that I use and you hook it up to this wire or tube that goes down into the water and you just turn it on and time how long it takes for the water to come out and since we know the volume of water that comes out every second we can determine the total volume of water that's in the tube. We don't always collect water. many and most times during the summer that there is no water to be collected. It's being used up, evaporated from the soil, transpired by the plants. We are working with the forestry people at ESF. We are working with the biologists, and by we I mean the engineers, but they're working with us also. And that's an important part of this project as well, is the interdisciplinary nature, the bringing together of the scientists and the engineers in order, because this is a... system and it needs to function as a system and everybody has a role to play in making sure that we optimize that system to again meet those desired outcomes. The research that we're undertaking is a combination of applied science and hydrology, applied science and biology. I have graduate students that are working and looking at carbon flux out here. I have students that are looking at the movement of water. This is a This is not a, it's a soil, but it's a soil-like material. It's unique within the United States. And by its very unique nature, it defies us. It defies definition. This whitish grayish material that you're looking at here, this is the salve waste in its unamended form. And we're in the field that was amended last year. mixed with a rototiller and so what we've tried to do is accomplish more of the organic looking material that's kind of brownish to mix in with the salve waste. And so as you look around here you can see see we're getting plenty of weeds growing in where we don't have the willows that have come in. And then if you look over here to this side of me, we've got, this is grown this year, this is just one of the willow cuttings that was planted in the spring. It's only gotten about this high though because the deer like to browse on them. Without the amendments in the soil, organic amendments, the biosolids and the leaves and the yard debris. Without that in this waste material, you will still see some pretty pathetic looking plants growing out here. And if you scan around, even at this time of the year, right now we're out here at the beginning, end of October, beginning of November, and you'll notice that most of the trees have lost their leaves. Those that haven't are brilliant orange or yellow, and they're not photosynthesizing anymore. They're not using water because they're not photosynthesizing. The willows that you see behind me are the ones that have lost their leaves. me are still green. They're still photosynthesizing. They're still growing and they're still using water. And they break out buds earlier in the year and they hold on to the leaves later in the year. We're getting a longer beneficial period out here. We have taken a waste material, a chemical process residue. We have taken what's often considered a waste material from wastewater treatment plants in the form of sludges or biosolids. We have taken yard waste debris and we've brought... all that here, mixed it all together in order to farm something that will support plant life and thereby support other wildlife, the generation of energy from biomass, a generation of beneficial chemicals from the biomass, and other recreational and wildlife opportunities out here. If the project succeeds then it's possible the area can be opened up for public use as a park and a recreation area. One of the two most commonly used tools is the hammer. Hammers are used to drive nails, brads, anchors, and assorted other fasteners into a variety of materials like wood, gypsum, ball board, masonry. The most common is the claw hammer. Pounding the men in one side. pulling them out on the other. The claw hammer can also be used as a pry bar. Choose a size and style that's comfortable and easy to handle. You don't want it slipping out of your hand. Ball peen hammers are used for shaping metals and closing rivets. It's not a safe substitute for driving nails. Sledge hammers are used for larger jobs such as driving fence posts or breaking up concrete. A joiner's mallet, an all wood hammer, usually made of beech, is used for tapping wood joints together or driving chisels. Hammers produce fine debris, so you should always wear protective clothing and safety glasses. Thanks for watching this edition of Improve Your World with SUNY ESF. We hope to see you next time.

We begin today's program on the roof of Illick Hall on the ESF campus in one of the several greenhouses atop the building. Follow this plant-filled path passageway and you reach a greenhouse being used for phytoremediation research. Welcome to Dr. Lee Newman, who was in charge of this project on phytoremediation.

And I guess that's right where we should start is, what is phytoremediation? Well, phytoremediation is the use of plants to clean up environmental contamination in the environment. So we can look at using plants to take up and sequester heavy metals, or in the case of these poplar trees, to take up organic compounds and break them down into non-toxic byproducts. It's a safe way?

It is completely safe, yes. How long has phytoremediation been around? Well, phytoremediation as a technology has only been around maybe about 20 years. But the background is that people in the mining industry used plants as environmental sentinels to let them know where metals were close to the surface and would be able to be easily mined and used in industry. And as they left waste sites behind from the mining industry, scientists came in and said, well, can we use these same plants to start cleaning up some of these sites?

Is it kind of nature's own way of cleaning up itself? Absolutely. These plants are not engineered. They are not altered.

in any way, but they have inherently in their makeup the ability to do this type of cleanup in the environment. So the process, I guess, has been, or the research has been, in finding out which plants work best where? Exactly.

So we have certain type of plants that take up heavy metals. We have certain type of plants that nourish bacteria in the soil, and the bacteria do the cleanup. And we have certain type of plants that take up the contaminants and degrade them themselves. So it's understanding what is the contaminant, where is the site, and what plant is best for that job. Heavy metals, what are those and why are they so bad?

Well, they are metals like lead, nickel, zinc, chromium, metals that are used in industry. And in high levels, they can be toxic to other biological systems. So this can be a problem.

Deep in the ground, they're not toxic. Nothing is exposed to them. But when they're on the surface of the soil, now you... you can have exposure and toxicity. And how much planting would you have to do to, say, clean up a brownfield site?

Well, on a brownfield site, you have the site to do the cleanup on. So if the trees or the plants can't do it within that site, it's not going to work. Other sites where we're trying to clean up large areas with contaminated groundwater, we might need larger sites to be able to reach and treat all of that water.

And is there anything special? special that you do in planting to make the whole system work? Oh, absolutely.

I mean, first and foremost, the plants have to survive. If the plants die, they can't do the cleanup. So you have to prep the site to make sure that your plants are going to survive. In the case of the poplars, we want to take care of any surface toxicity.

If you're dealing with the metals in the soils, you might have to alter the pH of the soil so that the plants can survive. So yes, there definitely is prep that needs to be done. Now, in some cases, is it safe to use a poplar tree to harvest and use it for something after it has been in use in one of these remediation efforts?

Yes, definitely. In fact, one of our field sites in Oregon, we harvested several of the trees and we used the University of Washington paper-making process plant, and we had paper made from our trees. And then we tested them to make sure none of the trees were in use.

None of the contaminants that we were cleaning up were in the paper, and it was perfectly usable. So you could use that paper and not have any fear of contracting or contacting something that would be bad for you. Absolutely. Now, are there instances where you would want to keep something?

sequestered? Oh definitely so if you're doing metal remediation where what is happening is rather than being broken down in the plant it's being accumulated in the plant then you would have to deal with those plants differently and you have to process them reclaim the metal that's in the plants. Alternatively, you can use the plants to sequester the metals in the soil. So rather than take it up, the plants are going to alter the soil chemistry and keep the metal in the soil in a non-biologically available form.

Excellent. Now contrast this with what we know as the traditional landfill or containment method for an area that might be contaminated. Well, if you put something in a landfill, you are putting it in there and keeping it safe and not letting anything come in contact with it, which means whatever you put in there is staying in there. It's not going away.

In these type of methods, we have the plants that are actually breaking down the contaminants. So it's no longer a a toxic chemical in the environment. If we're taking it up in the plants with heavy metal problems, we can take it up and then we can reclaim that metal by harvesting the plants and extracting the metals from them.

So we're completely removing it from the environment rather than just putting it someplace and keeping it there for future generations to have to deal with. Now, here in this greenhouse, you have a number of different plants. Can you tell me about them? Well, the one that's behind us, the hybrid poplars, they have been used traditionally for about 20 years.

20 years to clean up groundwater contamination, mainly because these plants grow very, very rapidly. They take up lots of water, and as they take up the water, they take up the contaminant. So they are very much the go-to plant for cleaning up groundwater.

Now, some of the work we're also doing is going out and surveying contaminated sites. So some of the other plants that we have here in the greenhouse are plants that we have seen growing on contaminated sites, and we're looking to see what those plants are doing and comparing them to the hybrid. poplars.

Basically seeing if those plants would be eligible for regrowth or replanting that spreading around. Exactly to move away from just a monoculture on these sites can we put other plants out on these sites as well. A monoculture could be a bad thing I guess if you had some kind of particular pest or something like that.

Exactly look at the emerald ash borer that's coming in and it's devastating the ash trees in this country. Well if we had an entire plantation of ash trees you'd be in trouble. you could have a major problem here.

So having a monoculture is not the ideal way to go. So you're looking for a little more diversity. Exactly.

Now, you have several sites that you've worked on, one in particular where you've done some testing, and I'd like to talk about that with you. But first, let's take a little bit of a break, and we'll be right back with more Improve Your World after this. Power drills are handy tools, but they can hurt you if you're not careful. Make sure the drill is at a proper angle for the hole you need.

And don't push too hard. That makes the drill bit wear out faster. Use the right drill bit for the materials. There are drill bits designed for wood, metals, concrete, and masonry. Keep your hand away from the trigger when tightening the drill bit in place.

Many fingers have been damaged this way. Even drilling wood can heat up the drill bit, so let it cool before removing it. If you like the mobility of a battery operated drill, the better the battery, the longer it will operate. But that may mean a bigger battery that's heavier to lug around, so make sure it's fully charged before using it.

And finally, always wear your safety glasses. A tiny piece of debris will feel like a boulder if it gets caught in your eye. Welcome back to Improve Your World with SUNY ESF.

I'm Dave White and with me today is Dr. Lee Newman. And we're in this greenhouse on Illick Hall on the ESF campus and talking about phytoremediation. And these are some of the plants that are used in that.

process to help clean up areas that are contaminated with a variety of different things and I guess the key is how do you know how well the phytoremediation is working well that is one of the challenges of being able to tell that it's working. How do we do the sampling? How do we look at the plants and determine, is this process actually working?

And right now we have to do destructive harvesting, collect the leaves, collect branches, and bring them back to the lab. And one of the things that we're trying to develop are new ways to do in-field sampling that are not destructive to the plants and give us instant results. Is this plant working? Is it actually cleaning up the site for us? Making progress.

Actually, yes, we are. We're working with NASA at the moment, NASA and the Naval Research Labs, to develop the use of hyperspectral imaging to image the plant leaves to determine whether or not they are taking up the environmental contaminants. Hyper what?

Hypersexual imaging. You'll have to explain that one to me. Okay, well when we look at a plant the leaves look green to us but it's not that the leaf is inherently green. It's that the light that is hitting this leaf and reflecting on the leaves is green.

off are the green wavelengths of light. But we can only see in a very narrow spectrum of wavelengths, the visible spectrum. But there's the infrared and the UV range and we don't see there.

But what we can do with our imaging system is to look at all these broad ranges of wavelengths reflecting off the leaves. And is there something different in a plant that has been exposed to an environmental contaminant? Can we now image different different wavelengths of light reflecting off these leaves, and can we use this as a monitoring tool on these contaminated sites? With an instrument like this, you're kind of seeing the leaf in its real form as we would see it, say, in the fall when the chlorophyll leaves the leaf and the colors are left? Actually, even broader ranges.

We're going beyond those colors. We're looking at the UV light reflecting off. We're looking at the infrared light reflecting off. So yes, we're going beyond the pigments in the leaf.

leaf and looking at this whole broad spectrum of wavelengths reflecting off the leaves. UV ultraviolet? Exactly.

Okay. Now, so what you have to do while you're still developing that process is go out in the field and take samples and bring them back into the lab for testing. Yes we did. This is the Keyport Undersea Naval Warfare Center and back in 1999 we installed a fighter remediation system on this site.

And when we needed a test facility I I contacted the Navy base and they said they would be very happy to have us come out there. So this summer we packed up students and equipment and went out there and did some field sampling. Now how big a plantation is this? There are two plantations on the site, both about an acre in size, sitting on top of a contaminated landfill.

And they took the students out and tell us who they were, what they did, and how the process worked. Well, we went out there with our collaborator from the Naval Research Labs, Dr. David Lewis and he brought the equipment we were using. And then the graduate student who was in charge of this project, Adam Hoffman, and an undergraduate researcher who was assisting on this project, Robert Hamilton, went out there and we did all the sampling right there on site. They actually had to go out and cut leaves off trees?

Yes, we did. So what we did is we went out there and we cut leaves off the trees and we imaged them using this new imaging system that we're developing. We then took those leaves and processed them the way we wanted them to be. we would normally do it without the imaging system.

So we froze them in liquid nitrogen to preserve the contaminants and their metabolites in the leaves, packed them on dry ice, and brought them back here to the lab for analysis. Is that a dangerous process at all? Not if done properly and with the proper safety precautions, not at all. Okay, because you're using liquid nitrogen, that could cause problems, couldn't it?

It could cause burns if you're not handling it properly, but the students are trained on the proper handling procedures. We certainly don't want any accidents with the students doing it. this work.

Do you take the leaf as a whole leaf or does it you have to take little pieces? Well what we do is we take the entire leaf and image it and then we put it in a bowl, add liquid nitrogen, grind it up and then put the whole leaf in a jar and bring it back here with us. So we are sampling the entire leaf.

And have you picked up any preliminary results as to how phytoremediation is working? On that particular site it looks like it's working quite well. We the trees are very large, taking up lots of water, and we're seeing the metabolites for the contaminants and all the leaf samples that we've analyzed.

So now what we need to do is go back to all our imaging data and try to correlate the amount of metabolites to the images that we've received. And then you'd just be able to eliminate a portion of that in-the-field type of processing? Exactly.

Exactly. So all we would have to do is go out and image the leaves without having to do the liquid nitrogen freezing and the dry ice shipping and the... in lab analysis of these leaves. Is this something that is beginning to, phytoremediation is beginning to take hold and more people are turning to that instead of the traditional landfill to contain contaminated sites?

It depends on where in the country you're standing. So in certain areas of the country where they were more progressive about accepting innovative technologies, phytoremediation is very well accepted and has been installed on a number of sites. Other areas that took a more conservative view.

of accepting innovative technologies? Not so much. And this is the challenge for us to go out and educate people in those areas, the regulators, the site owners, the engineering firms, of what phytoremediation can do and what it can't do. It's not going to solve every problem, but it is certainly a low-cost option for remediating a lot of these sites.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dr. Lee Newman, working on phytoremediation here at SUNY ESF.

We'll be back with more. Improve your world after this. One of the two most commonly used tools is a screwdriver.

Screwdrivers are made to drive specific types and sizes of screws. This is the flat head screwdriver. The flat blade varies in size which is selected based on the size of the screw slot.

The closer the match the easier it is to tighten the screw. The Phillips head screwdriver is designed to be used with screws with an X-shaped slot. Again, the closer the match, the easier it is to tighten the screw. Which screw to use?

The Phillips head screw is designed for the application of extra torque, so it provides a tighter fit. Use it when tightness is... is critical. The Allen key or Allen wrench, a hexagon shaped screwdriver, is often used to put together furniture. It's often L-shaped.

Power screwdrivers come in two forms. One is a socket driver approach that can be used with power drills. Many drills have special speed settings for driving screws. The second is a stand-alone cordless electric or power screwdriver. Welcome back to Improve Your World with SUNY ESF.

As you can see, we have left the greenhouse and relocated to a former industrial property now under remediation. What we're looking at, what we call an alternative landfill cover system. That means an alternative to what is specified in the regulations in terms of the technical requirements.

And those technical requirements were put in place in order to do, as I said earlier, which is to restrict the movement of water, keep people from coming in contact with the environment. underlying waste. And yet what we as engineers also recognize is that you need to put a lot of maintenance into those systems. You need to, in perpetuity, that system needs to be there.

And the nice thing about these willow based systems is that they will be here in perpetuity and they're a little bit more adaptable to the changing climate. Our environmental regulations were written to address waste disposal and to essentially keep the water from coming in contact with the waste because when that happens you get chemicals, you'll get particulates that will be become transported by the water as the water moves through the waste material. So we're trying to keep those contaminants, particulates, and whatever else might be of concern from being transported outside these boundaries and into the ground waters and surface waters that are adjacent to the site. This particular site, the primary primary concern is associated with chloride transport and because chloride moves relatively easily and only will move with the movement of water, as we obstruct the water flow, we obstruct the movement of the chloride.

The technical definition when water comes in contact with the waste, that water is technically regulated as what we call leachate. And our objective first and foremost is to minimize the formation of leachate and restrict the movement of the water. of any leachate that has formed. Well, where we are right now, we're in about the eighth year of research and demonstration projects that the college has been involved with. We started with very small little pots in greenhouses, and we have now brought this up to the 10 acres that's behind me.

We've got 25 acres to the west of me that was planted this year, and another 25 acres or more will be planted next year. The area out in this direction here is about five acres of a salt marsh restoration demonstration project. The idea here was that the water typically is flowing into this relatively low-lying area, and we are continuing to do that.

research into the water uptake, water movement in this wetland area to hopefully show that we're moving and controlling the water in an effective way that meets the regulatory requirements. In addition to that the salt marsh restoration, salt marshes, inland salt marshes were common in Syracuse over a hundred years ago, but with urban encroachment, you saw the loss of these relatively uncommon habitats. So we're restoring an uncommon habitat here in Syracuse.

Stephanie Lewis is a master's student studying with me and she's an environmental engineer. I got her BS from Syracuse University, environmental engineering. He's interested in looking at fluxes, the nutrient fluxes, the carbon fluxes in this material out here. Our resident biogeochemist, Dr. Mitchell, believes that these, this area, these waste beds are actually functioning as a carbon sink, that they're sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. And that's a thought, an idea that we need the scientists to identify those ideas, we need the engineers to identify how to.

how to maybe take advantage of those ideas. So Stephanie is out here today she's looking at the movement of water from the root zone into what we call lysimeters. We're measuring the volume of water that moves through the soil into these lysimeters so we can check that against our computer models and in the future we can just use our computer models so we don't have to have our students out here on cold days collecting water.

Willows are supposed to be acting as a cap for the waste that's under underneath so we don't want the water to be going down into that waste because if it goes into that waste it can contaminate groundwater and get into other water sources. So the water, the willow are acting as a pump for the water because they're using the water that's going into the upper level of the ground. So the fact that the water that was beneath the root zone in the willow plot is greater than that that was outside of the willow plot, it means that the willow are doing their job and that the waste isn't . going down into our groundwater. We're pumping out lysimeters that are 18 inches under the ground.

So basically when it rains the water goes down through the soil and then if it goes past the root zone it's going to go into that pan and the pan is connected to a wick which is connected to this little right here and so every week I have to come out and empty them so that we can determine the percolation rate through the soil and the goal of this is to determine whether the ones that are outside the willows have a greater amount of water than the ones inside the willows because we we want the willows to be using the water and therefore they should have less percolation through the soil. So this is just the pump that I use and you hook it up to this wire or tube that goes down into the water and you just turn it on and time how long it takes for the water to come out and since we know the volume of water that comes out every second we can determine the total volume of water that's in the tube. We don't always collect water. many and most times during the summer that there is no water to be collected.

It's being used up, evaporated from the soil, transpired by the plants. We are working with the forestry people at ESF. We are working with the biologists, and by we I mean the engineers, but they're working with us also.

And that's an important part of this project as well, is the interdisciplinary nature, the bringing together of the scientists and the engineers in order, because this is a... system and it needs to function as a system and everybody has a role to play in making sure that we optimize that system to again meet those desired outcomes. The research that we're undertaking is a combination of applied science and hydrology, applied science and biology. I have graduate students that are working and looking at carbon flux out here.

I have students that are looking at the movement of water. This is a This is not a, it's a soil, but it's a soil-like material. It's unique within the United States.

And by its very unique nature, it defies us. It defies definition. This whitish grayish material that you're looking at here, this is the salve waste in its unamended form. And we're in the field that was amended last year. mixed with a rototiller and so what we've tried to do is accomplish more of the organic looking material that's kind of brownish to mix in with the salve waste.

And so as you look around here you can see see we're getting plenty of weeds growing in where we don't have the willows that have come in. And then if you look over here to this side of me, we've got, this is grown this year, this is just one of the willow cuttings that was planted in the spring. It's only gotten about this high though because the deer like to browse on them. Without the amendments in the soil, organic amendments, the biosolids and the leaves and the yard debris.

Without that in this waste material, you will still see some pretty pathetic looking plants growing out here. And if you scan around, even at this time of the year, right now we're out here at the beginning, end of October, beginning of November, and you'll notice that most of the trees have lost their leaves. Those that haven't are brilliant orange or yellow, and they're not photosynthesizing anymore.

They're not using water because they're not photosynthesizing. The willows that you see behind me are the ones that have lost their leaves. me are still green. They're still photosynthesizing. They're still growing and they're still using water.

And they break out buds earlier in the year and they hold on to the leaves later in the year. We're getting a longer beneficial period out here. We have taken a waste material, a chemical process residue. We have taken what's often considered a waste material from wastewater treatment plants in the form of sludges or biosolids.

We have taken yard waste debris and we've brought... all that here, mixed it all together in order to farm something that will support plant life and thereby support other wildlife, the generation of energy from biomass, a generation of beneficial chemicals from the biomass, and other recreational and wildlife opportunities out here. If the project succeeds then it's possible the area can be opened up for public use as a park and a recreation area.

One of the two most commonly used tools is the hammer. Hammers are used to drive nails, brads, anchors, and assorted other fasteners into a variety of materials like wood, gypsum, ball board, masonry. The most common is the claw hammer.

Pounding the men in one side. pulling them out on the other. The claw hammer can also be used as a pry bar.

Choose a size and style that's comfortable and easy to handle. You don't want it slipping out of your hand. Ball peen hammers are used for shaping metals and closing rivets.

It's not a safe substitute for driving nails. Sledge hammers are used for larger jobs such as driving fence posts or breaking up concrete. A joiner's mallet, an all wood hammer, usually made of beech, is used for tapping wood joints together or driving chisels. Hammers produce fine debris, so you should always wear protective clothing and safety glasses.

Thanks for watching this edition of Improve Your World with SUNY ESF. We hope to see you next time.

Transcript for:Exploring Phytoremediation at SUNY ESF

Transcript for:
Exploring Phytoremediation at SUNY ESF