Academy Scientist and Foremost Authority on Delta Bulrush Says 'His' Plant Could Help Ease Oil Spill

[jpak]

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/academy-scientist-and-foremost-authority-on-delta-bulrush-says-his-plant-could-help-ease-oil-spill-crisis-97301454.html

A revered botanist at the Academy of Natural Sciences who first profiled and then named the delta bulrush says the plant has natural properties that could help reduce the impact of the Gulf oil spill on the Mississippi delta.

Dr. Alfred Ernest Schuyler, the Academy's curator emeritus of botany and a prominent botanist in the international science community, is urging all sides involved in the crisis to give this slender sedge family member a hard look as they weigh their spill-fighting strategies.

Schuyler described and named Scirpus deltarum, now known as Schoenoplectus deltarum the delta bulrush, in 1970 after doing field research in the Mississippi delta. Based on the detoxification properties of similar bulrush species, Schuyler thinks the delta bulrush could be instrumental in decomposing the oil and reducing its impact on other threatened marsh plants.

He says a close relative of the delta bulrush, the common three-square (Schoenoplectus pungens), can transmit oxygen to underwater microorganisms capable of decomposing oil. "Presumably, the closely-related delta bulrush can do the same thing," Schuyler explains..

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[izquierdista]

1. One more tool in the toolkit

This and other bioremediation methods need a boost like the space program got from Sputnik to solve the problem of the oil spill.