Trial site, Trenton, New Jersey, United States

Magic Marker site, Trenton

A brownfield contaminated by lead-acid battery manufacture and other industry, abandoned since 1989. Soil lead between 200 and 1,800 mg/kg; 40% of the area was above 400 mg/kg.

Phytoremediation

Lead

Contaminants

Metals

Lead

Plants and fungi at this site

PhytoremediationField scale, 1996

Brassica juncea

Phytotech (later Edenspace Systems) grew three six-week crops of Indian mustard in 1996 on 4,500 square feet (about 420 m²), applying EDTA (200 mmol/m²) to make the lead available to the plants.

Outcome The area above 400 mg/kg shrank from 179 to 128 m² (from 40% to 28% of the treated surface). Mean lead in the 0–15 cm layer went from 429 to 373 mg/kg, 13% less. The result, often summed up as a successful clean-up, is a modest reduction in one season, obtained by adding a synthetic chelating agent.

Lead

Henry, An overview of the phytoremediation of lead and mercury, US EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Technology Innovation Office, clu-in.org, 2000

From the literature

Species that acted on one of this site's contaminants in at least one study. The list is automatic and takes no account of this site's soil, concentrations or climate.