Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
MURRAY -- An underground experiment at the site of a dry cleaners in Murray has proven the worth of a unique organism modified by Brigham Young University scientists.
KSL visited the site in March of this year. The Ellis Environmental Group used a technique called "Subsurface Metabolism Enhancement" to fire up the bug.
Once the new aerobic bacterium got oxygen and nutrients, it began to multiply, cleaving off chlorine and eating the hydrocarbons. The solvents were left behind from a dry cleaners that was built long before the government controlled disposal of these chemicals.
Tuesday, KSL visited BYU labs. It took microbiologist Alan Harker and his students six years to get the organism to the point where it could take on this new job, then it sat in cold storage for another decade, waiting to make its debut.
According to Harker, "It's been at minus 80 degrees for a decade now. We take it out every once and a while to make sure it's doing what it's supposed to do."
On a cold day last March, Mark Ellis and his company put BYU's creation to the test. Since then, the organisms have been growing and consuming.
Harker and Ellis evaluated the data last week. "We had eliminated 92 percent of what was originally detected there," Harker says. "That's awfully good, and in a very short time."
The bacteria may work not only for cleaning up sites but in stopping underground toxic plumes from migrating to other locations. As Harker describes, "We may be able to create actual bio-curtains across that plume, so even though you can't take care of the original source site, you can keep it from moving to other places."
With encouraging data from the small Murray site, experiments might now take on the big boys. Harker says it may be possible to cultivate and grow the organism in 50 gallon drums--on site--for larger cleanups. Since the bacterium detoxifies chemicals underground, site owners would have no need to excavate or remove soil.
E-mail: eyeates@ksl.com
