University of Ottawa researchers hope the echinacea flower can be used to decontaminate polluted soil.
Ottawa’s polluted old industrial sites may be cleaned up with echinacea – a flower normally used to cure colds – after a research project carried out on Victoria Island showed “promising” signs that the plant can help break down toxic soils.
A number of properties monitored by the National Capital Commission are not used because of contaminated soil..
“Now the NCC is searching for natural ways to clean these areas,”says University of Ottawa researcher Jules Blais. “They are especially interested in bioremediation, using plants to break down toxic remains.”
Blais and fellow U of O biologist Christiane Charest began their research on echinacea last summer. “The results are really promising,” says Blais. “Most of the polluted sites age back to the beginning of the 1900s. Especially around the railroads and the big factories, there the soil is polluted.”
Much of the central-west area of Ottawa, including LeBreton Flats and the area around the Chaudière Islands, was covered by factories by the end of the 19th century.
The NCC has started to develop a better picture of the number of contaminated sites that they manage and the type of contamination. That is why, the federal agency says, it has started the research now.
“The approach is a potential solution that is worth investigating in this context”, says Mario Tremblay, an NCC spokesman.
“Because there were no rules on the dumping of toxic leftovers, these areas are polluted now. The flowers can bring a solution in cleaning these areas”, says George Neville, president of the Historical Society of Ottawa.
“But NCC can’t get rid of the polluted soil,” says Neville. “They just move it to another site. That is why the flowers are really promising.”
The NCC started looking for a natural way to clean up the soil, because moving soil is expensive and finding locations to manage large volumes of soil is a challenge.
“We move soil when it is absolutely necessary,” says Tremblay. “We prefer an in-situ approach as part of this research project.”
While the research is still in its early stages, Blais says the idea is to test whether “the flower can take up the polluted soil into the branches. We use fungus to accelerate the process.”
The researchers are testing echinacea because it doesn’t require re-planting every year. The work is being done at a test plot on Victoria Island and in a university laboratory.
While it appears that the echinacea can be used in the cleaning process, it will take years to clean up everything. The NCC has chosen such a long-term resolution because the process of remediating sites by excavation is expensive and has to be paced through time.
“We have to consider the environmental risk and (funding) availability,” says Tremblay. “This approach is a solution that needs to be investigated. It is an interesting solution for contaminated sites that we are not planning to remediate in the short-term, but are still considered contaminated.”