Can Oyster Mushrooms Save Us from the BP Oil Spill Contamination?

I am not kidding. According to the book World Changing: A User´s Guide to the 21st Century, mycologist Paul Stamets (From the Pacific Northwest) did a study in which oyster mushrooms were planted to clean up a diesel oil spill. No kidding, since the role of mushrooms in nature is to decompose matter and enrich the soil, they did their job. Beautifully too. Apparently, after a while the ´shrooms themselves tested non-toxic, as did the soil they were in.

Further, it was said in the above-referenced book that the mushrooms worked better than anything else that had ever been tried. Amazing! Based on the amazing powers of these mushrooms, Stametz has coined the term mycoremediation. Look out for this on the Internet.

You can watch a video here, in which Paul Stametz talks, explaining how and by what chemical process the mushrooms work on the contaminated soil, showing side-by-side slides in which other methods had failed and yet the mushrooms beat other commonly-used land cleanup methods to the punch. The difference in effectiveness between the other methods and the mushrooms is phenomenal: Have a peek at this short video! It is less than five minutes long:

http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2010/06/02/mycoremediation-and-its-applications-in-oil-spills/

See also Paul Stametz's website, containing photos and detailed science-based information:

http://www.fungi.com/mycotech/petroleum_problem.html

And in case the first video appears dark on your computer, see one more video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0qY3_n1kI&feature=related

In fact, according to the above-mentioned book, scientists are now thinking they might try out the ´shrooms for mercury cleanup. And the book says that the mushrooms indeed can (positive) clean up PCB´s, E. Coli bacteria, alkaloids, petroleum products and yes, drumroll….BP Oil Spills (??) Along the shoreline that is, and after the worst of the floating stuff has been (siphoned off??? Can this be done? Just wondering out loud. Experts, knowledgable sources, please respond!)

FYI I talked about this mushroom phenomenon to a secretary in an environmental organization, who said that "it will never go anywhere". She mentioned funding, the need for further proof positive, and that officials simply won´t spend the time or money to figure out whether or not it works. So, the thing to do, she said, is to have citizens do it themselves.

Well that´s what the Little Red Hen said.

I will just do it myself.

And she did.

School kids, volunteers ahoy?

Oyster mushroom plantings, anybody?

To really get this to fly, we would need to coordinate with parent boards and highschool principals et al. (Why worry our younger kids with this kind of emotional burden, anyway?) Please pass word along!

We also could recruit adult volunteers somehow. Churches? Synagogues?

Also, perhaps sending the video above to your US Representative or Senator would be helpful. Even your local State Senators and Representatives might be convinced to get on board, if their aides see this video and learn the key facts.

As for funding in the private cross-sector, the Foundation Center Library's website has an email series devoted to the subject of social justice giving. I am sure they have environmental donors listed too. The Foundation Center Library is not a grant-making entity itself, but it is a database of nothing but wall-to-wall grants, in every category under the sun. They have 7 physical libraries in the larger cities around the country (such as in New York, San Francisco and Dallas, if I am not mistaken) plus their online d-base. There is no charge for using the libraries, in their physical locations. You can email the librarians free of charge, or call and talk with them. A subscription to the grant series online costs nominally: For the Online Grants to Individuals series, it is about $25 per month. For non-profits, I do not know because I have never signed up. I did, myself, receive 3 out of 4 grants I applied for on this site, and can vouch from experience that this is a very legitimate source and no scam by any stretch of the imagination. Grant sizes can vary enormously: The first intake page question is "What size grant are you looking for? Under $5,000 or over $500,000?" Their website address is www.fdncenter.org

Please pass this article around by email, and post it to blogs, etc (only free of charge please). Start doing your own research and write about this on the Internet. Dial in to radio talk shows. Etcetera! If we all spread word, and we all share ideas about how we can actually do this, then maybe it will actually happen!

Why not prove it to the world that it works? Done! Big Problems, Simple Solutions, that is my motto. And guess what. Almost always, almost every time, it proves to be the truth.