Recent posts on Buffalo Rising have dealt with the issue of brownfields in our community and throughout the Great Lakes. These large, former industrial sites pose great challenges and amazing opportunities for our communities. Land contamination, however, does not stop when a property has a different zoning class code. Commercial and residential sites throughout many neighborhoods come into contact with chemical substances daily. While the many highly contaminated sites in Western New York obviously require extensive clean-up and reclamation, is there anything the average western New Yorker can do about reducing low levels of chemicals in their yards?
Land contamination can come from a variety of sources. If a house was formerly painted (or still is) with lead paint, there is a chance the surrounding soil has higher than normal levels of lead in it. Runoff from driveway and parking lots often contain a variety of petrochemicals from cars. Many lawns are sprayed with chemical pesticides that kill weeds but may present risks to other life forms like pets. While the risk of these chemicals is not anywhere near the level of living on Love Canal, efforts to beautify your yards can also help clean up the soil you and your family live on.
Phytoremediation is the process of removing pollution from soils, water or air with plants by containing, degrading or eliminating them. It’s best used on soils with low levels of contamination. Pollutants that can be remediated by plants range from metals, pesticides, solvents, crude oil, and other contaminants.
Basically, you can use certain plants that will take out chemicals like lead from your soil- making your garden beautiful and the soil cleaner at the same time. While planting a few trees isn’t the solution to large-scale contamination, it is a way for the average citizen to take positive steps to cleaning up Buffalo.
The next Great Lakes United post will have more details on how you can test your soil and what plants remove which pollutants.
Blogging for Great Lakes United is Nate Drag.
NBJOHN would like to point out the Elmwood/Hertel corner as prime example of a property in need of a solution. See the post that he is referring to.
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