Objective 5.02 Understanding biotechnology in the environmental science industry
A. Environmental Biotechnology 1.Biotechnology is playing a large part in detecting and monitoring pollution and in determining how much is present. It is also involved in solving other environmental problems.
Examples: a)Indicator species- lichens are widely used as environmental indicators or bio-indicators. If air is very badly polluted with sulfur dioxide, there may be no lichens present, just green algae may be found b)Bioremediation- using bacteria to clean up oil and fuel spills.
1.Oleophilic (attracted to oil) bacteria used to clean up oil spills. Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 employed this technique. 2.Hanahan, SC, a suburb of Charleston, had an 80,000 gallon jet fuel leak from a military fuel storage facility. The fuel entered the ground and used groundwater. Bacteria were successfully used to remediate this problem.
c. Biostimulation- the Exxon Valdez clean-up effort used the addition of nutrients to feed the oleophilic bacteria in this incident. d. Biodiesel- is made from oilseeds such as soybean and canola oil and had been proven to decrease harmful emissions.
e. phytoremediation- oregon poplar site (illegal industrial waste dumping site) and J-Field at aberdeen proving ground (disposal site of chemical warfare agents, munitions and industrial chemicals) in Maryland each used hybrid popular trees to remove to remove VOC’s ( volatile organic compounds) from contaminated soil with success at each site.
e. Genetic engineering- bacterial strains are under development to convert solid wate from humans and livestock into sugar and fuel.
Limitations of using bio and phytoremediation a.time- often considered slower than chemical techniques b.Applicability- they do not apply to all situations c.Fear- those who live near plants often would rather have contaminated soil removed than treated on-site. The fear is that the process will not uncontaminate the soil, or the organisms used will have a detrimental effect on the environment.