People in many places have to deal with toxic soil because it’s hard to tell if the earth under plants and crops is toxic or not without technology.
Volunteers were taking care of plants in a spot at Taylor Yard in Los Angeles. These volunteers didn’t know, though, that the dirt they were digging in by the Los Angeles River was dangerous and full of heavy metals, lead, cadmium, diesel, and benzene.
People helped dig through the ground and pull up plants with roots that went as deep as twelve feet. They were wearing safety gear and were careful not to touch the dirt because even a small amount could hurt them a lot.
At the moment, brownfields are a big problem in California. Brownfields are big areas of land that have been left empty or not used because of pollution from factories. In the United States alone, there are almost 500,000 brownfields that have been listed.
Right now, Taylor Yard is going to be turned into a park with a nine-billion-dollar city grant. But before that can happen, the dirt has to be cleaned of all its impurities, which can take a long time.
Volunteers learned that even though there were chemicals in the dirt, some weeds and plants were still growing in these places. Experts say that they need to do a lot of research and gather more data in order to fully comprehend these dirt problems.
The office of the brownfields program said in a statement, “After the end of her study, we were excited to see the results show promise.”
The office said that they are open to this process, even though it might be hard in some places, and they hope that it will lead to change.
That being said, it can be hard to clean up places that have a lot of pollution. In one part of the old Santa Susana Field Laboratory, rocket tests, studies on Liquid Metal, and even nuclear tests were done.
This new way might help people show that the soil can heal itself and that there is hope for soil that can’t be used right now because of these nasty things.
