Living Machine...

As school has started, I am a little behind in all the things I wanted to blog about. So, I thought I'd take a moment to look back and cover some cool things that have happened.

The first week of school we went on an orientation trip all over Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. We saw so many cool things and continue to learn a bunch every day. As my year progresses, I am committing to sharing all the amazing things I'm learning so we can all join in the process of being more earth-friendly.

On our last day of the orientation trip, we went to see a living machine in Grafton, Massachusetts called the Living Systems Laboratory. A living machine is defined as a form of ecological wastewater treatment designed to mimic the cleansing functions of wetlands. You can read all about this specific one here and here. The story of this site is based on the industrial history of the river.  There was a mill located upstream that produced various types of things over the 150+ years it was in operation on the Blackstone River. It was closed in 1986 and the structure subsequently burned down in 1999 leaving a toxic rubble. Since then the mill site has leeched oils and contaminants into the ground, heavily polluting the river.

In response to this issue, John Todd Ecological Design built a living machine to help with the cleansing of the river. Here's how it works:

First, the water is skimmed and cleansed by passing through these floating islands of vegetation. At this part of the river, the water is murky and when the temperature outside increases, you can see the oils in the river bed rise to the surface creating a nasty film.

They are made to float on the buoyant material below and planted with water-loving plants and fungi that help take up the harmful toxins in the water through their roots, thereby starting the cleansing process.

The water then moves through piping at the bottom of the river and is pumped into the main core of the living machine in this greenhouse.

When it's pumped in, the first station is the fungi station. Water is pumped successively through these fungi-inoculated trays.

Here's a close-up of the fungi in action!

The water then moves to a series of large planted vats resembling ponds. They too are planted with various water-loving plants and fungi. Most of the greenhouse is filled with these large vats containing water and filtering plants/fungi.

  

Here's a close-up of the plant life in the containers.

Just like the fungi trays, the water is successively pumped from vat to vat where it is moved further along the cleansing spectrum.

After the water moves through all these stages, it is pumped back into the river, better than when it came in. This living machine is constantly in motion which is very cool. The plants and fungi that were originally placed in every stage of the machine have changed and other plants have taken over. That is the beauty of nature - it changes and adapts to best work with the situation.

The best thing about this project is that they have measured a considerable reduction in toxins downstream from the living machine. How amazing plants and fungi are. Just think how our world could be improved if we incorporated more of this technology into our everyday lives. It's out there. People have systems even in their own homes where all their grey water is filtered and cleansed so that it can be re-used. Water is a limited resource, something that is hard for especially those of us in the Northwest to comprehend. It should be treated as the precious commodity that it is. I'm so glad places like this living machine are out there doing the hard work to repair what damage humans have done every day.