[CPEO-MEF] FUEL: Ft. Drum (NY) phytoremediation

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

News Release
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
October 17, 2008

As These Willows Grow, Pollution Shrinks

Newswise - At the sprawling Fort Drum military installation in New York, 
23,000 willow plants are cleaning up the site of a 164,000-gallon plume 
of fuel that has been spreading underground for more than 50 years.

Energy for the cleanup is provided by the sun, negating the need to 
construct a treatment plant that would have cost up to $8 million.

Dr. Christopher Nowak, a silviculturist at the SUNY College of 
Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) in Syracuse, N.Y., believes it 
is the largest phytoremediation effort - the process of using plants to 
remediate contaminated soils and groundwater - in North America.

The trees are part of an aggressive cleanup strategy to remediate 
groundwater contamination caused by fuel that leaked from the tank farm 
along Fort Drum's "Gasoline Alley." The military installation, home to 
the Army's 10th Mountain Division - Light Infantry, covers more than 
107,000 acres. This year, the base is marking its 100th year as a 
military training site.

...

For the entire release, see
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/545332/

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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