I had a brief discussion with one of the people from the local Sierra Club about the project and working together. He had an interesting fact. I have been promoting the fact that wildflowers help with pollution. What I did not know is that on sites such as the one I have proposed for site number 6, the old Firestone plant, the plants themselves suck up heavy metals from the soil and trap them in the plant fibers.
What needs to be done is every 14 weeks (about 3 1/2 months) through the growing season, the plants need to be cut down and removed. The plant matter itself is hazardous waste and will be transported and disposed of as such.
If we can put together a group willing to go harvest these plants gather them for disposal, I believe the Sierra Club will get on board and we can start developing a blueprint to clean up areas of Memphis that are otherwise unusable.
It does take about three years of this type of treatment to remove the heavy metals from the soil. The other option is to just pave over the land and seal the pollution in for future generations to deal with.
So, who will enlist and help with this?
An idea, a mission, whose time has come. Let's do it!
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