Science / Medicine : Microbes Used on Blast Debris
The U.S. Army is enlisting hungry microbes to do cleanup work on soil contaminated by residues of TNT and other explosives. The Army’s 19,700-acre Umatilla Depot near Hermiston, Ore., will be the testing site, officials said last week.
The system is a form of composting using microorganisms to eat the contaminants in soils and sediments, according to Capt. Craig Myler. Myler, project officer for the Army’s Toxic and Hazardous Materials Agency, said the microbes do not naturally feed on TNT particles at a very rapid rate, so they will have to be coaxed.
That will be accomplished, in tests at special greenhouses, by enriching the soil with additional food sources for the microbes, such as hay, straw, manure or livestock feed.
Myler said many of the contaminants come from two dry ponds that were used 25 years ago to settle out high-explosive residues. Composting costs $100 per ton, about one-third as expensive as the alternative, incineration.
