[CPEO-MEF] MUNITIONS: Modified switchgrass "Absorbs Toxic RDX Contamination"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Plant Absorbs Toxic RDX Contamination
Modified switchgrass can sop up weapons chemicals on military ranges

By Susan Cosier 
Scientific American
"August 1, 2021"


Chemicals from munitions have permeated soil across an estimated 10 million hectares of land used for firing ranges across the U.S. One such chemical, an explosive called RDX, can leach into groundwater and cause seizures and possibly cancer. Now a study in Nature Biotechnology shows that genetically modified switchgrass—a plant common in North American prairies—can absorb and break down RDX.

University of York biologists Neil Bruce and Liz Rylott and their colleagues altered a switchgrass variety to carry two genes from a bacterium that produces enzymes capable of reducing RDX into harmless components. After conducting lab tests, the researchers planted the modified switchgrass on New York State's RDX-polluted Fort Drum military base.

For three years the team tested soil and water pumped from plastic-lined plots where modified plants, wild plants or no plants grew, painstakingly removing seeds from the modified switchgrasses to prevent cross-pollination with local varieties. They found that the modified plants took up RDX, lowering levels significantly in the surrounding water, and broke it down—RDX did not appear in the modified plants' tissues, but it did in wild plants.
…

For the entire article, see
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plant-absorbs-toxic-rdx-contamination/

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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