Meanwhile the City Manager and Council wasted over a $100,000 on pursuing commercial and residential development jointly with the mill site’s owners Mendocino Railway; on land contaminated with life threatening toxins and heavy metal poisons. PS - development according to the city’s own economic consultants would require millions in additional expenditures for city improvements for new roads, water and sewage treatment infrastructure, sidewalks, police and fire service. While at the same time, over 50 acres of already zoned residential and commercial land already improved with roads/water/sewer/etc, in the city remains available to build on. Remember this when you go to the polls at next November’s City Council election and you find yourself hard pressed to pay your monthly bills. Taxpayers should revolt!
I heard through the grapevine they had said in a proposal they were going to have Paul Stamets use mushrooms to help clean up the area. Someone I know saw him in peraon and asked him if he ever did and he said no one ever got him out there to do it.
Maybe another reader can answer this? The use of mushrooms for bioremediation came up in the q&a. Aguilar said mushrooms were used in an early trial at the mill site to determine if they could assist in breaking down dioxin concentrations in the sediment and soil. Aguilar said a variety of different mushrooms were tested in a laboratory setting, that they "didn't do a very good job." "I think they couldn't take it down to the level that would be considered safe," she said.
Thank you for adding that detail—it’s good to know this was already looked at.
It sounds like mushrooms weren’t able to bring dioxin levels down to what would be considered safe, which makes sense given how persistent those compounds are. I’m curious whether there’s still any value in using them in a more limited way, such as in buffer areas or less contaminated zones, where the goal is more about stabilization and preventing spread.
With the local knowledge and interest in mycology here, it seems like something that could be explored in a small, research-oriented way alongside the main remediation work.
Meanwhile the City Manager and Council wasted over a $100,000 on pursuing commercial and residential development jointly with the mill site’s owners Mendocino Railway; on land contaminated with life threatening toxins and heavy metal poisons. PS - development according to the city’s own economic consultants would require millions in additional expenditures for city improvements for new roads, water and sewage treatment infrastructure, sidewalks, police and fire service. While at the same time, over 50 acres of already zoned residential and commercial land already improved with roads/water/sewer/etc, in the city remains available to build on. Remember this when you go to the polls at next November’s City Council election and you find yourself hard pressed to pay your monthly bills. Taxpayers should revolt!
I heard through the grapevine they had said in a proposal they were going to have Paul Stamets use mushrooms to help clean up the area. Someone I know saw him in peraon and asked him if he ever did and he said no one ever got him out there to do it.
Maybe another reader can answer this? The use of mushrooms for bioremediation came up in the q&a. Aguilar said mushrooms were used in an early trial at the mill site to determine if they could assist in breaking down dioxin concentrations in the sediment and soil. Aguilar said a variety of different mushrooms were tested in a laboratory setting, that they "didn't do a very good job." "I think they couldn't take it down to the level that would be considered safe," she said.
Thank you for adding that detail—it’s good to know this was already looked at.
It sounds like mushrooms weren’t able to bring dioxin levels down to what would be considered safe, which makes sense given how persistent those compounds are. I’m curious whether there’s still any value in using them in a more limited way, such as in buffer areas or less contaminated zones, where the goal is more about stabilization and preventing spread.
With the local knowledge and interest in mycology here, it seems like something that could be explored in a small, research-oriented way alongside the main remediation work.