Sunflowers

A quick explanation of our Sunflower Project:

Sunflowers are hyperaccumulators when it comes to lead, which means that the plants soak up lead that is in the soil. How does lead get into the soil? Lead-based paints that are scraped off/sanded off buildings. As with every city New Orleans has significant amount of lead contamination in the soils. This is not a problem associated with Katrina, but has been a chronic problem of the last 50 years.

In a turn on environmental justice, it happens that poorer sections of town have less soil contamination than the richer parts of town when it comes to lead. The reason for this is that the richer people were able to afford the more costly lead-based paint than the poorer sections. Of course children putting their hands in their mouth after playing in the soil is the most important vector of contamination, and the number of children with lead poisoning in New Orleans is truly sad.

So we plant sunflowers in the Lower Ninth to take out the lead. And we will plant mustard greens next growing season to take out arsenic that is also in the soild. In places where there is more contamination, the professor we're working with simply covers the contaminated soild with a foot thick layer of virgin topsoil-too contaminated to try to remediate. I'll let you know how the remediation goes.

The water supposedly doesn't have any lead in it. The Sewerage Board's latest report is from 2005. The Lower Ninth Ward was the last area in the city to have their water turned on. Meanwhile, water leaks from pipes in vacant lots turn parts of our street into mini-wetlands. Okay, it seems like I'm kavetching.