Waste water is passed over reeds and bulrushes to transform waste solids into dry humus. Another example of bioremediation is the addition of nutrients to oiled shorelines after oil spills to accelerate the natural degradation of oil hydrocarbons. This facility will be used by scientists from throughout the southeastern United States to develop bioremediation methodologies and to test their application under simulated field conditions. The focus is on a superfund site located near Brunswick, Georgia. Some of the strategies to be tested include acceleration of the dechlorination of PCBs by stimulation of PCB degrading microbes and the use of transgenic plants to remove mercury.
Elemental mercury is volatile and exits to the atmosphere via the leaves.
It is predicted that these transgenic plants will take up and degrade the methyl mercury produced in the contaminated site and thus prevent or slow the transfer of methyl mercury into fish and shellfish of the area. The amount of mercury released by the plants is very small and will not contribute a significant amount of mercury to the air above the marsh. The work on transgenic plants at the BERM facility will be done by Dr. Richard Meagher, who is chairman of the Department of Genetics at the University of Georgia. Dr. Meagher has been working on transgenic plants for almost two decades. Another project currently underway at the BERM facility is the work by Drs.