Imagine you had a green solution for cleaning up oil tainted with petrochemical waste. Now imagine your green solution was relatively inexpensive, not only cleaned, but enriched the soil, and provided the possibility for further alternative fuel, medicine, and maybe even food sources. Now if you were to take that imagining, and use it to develop real-world applications with uses ranging from repairing damage caused by old logging roads to breaking down dangerous toxins and carcinogens, then your name just might be Paul Stamets.

Stamets, a practicing mycologist for the past thirty years in the forests of Washington, has discovered varieties of fungus that seem to break down the molecules that make petrochemicals so dangerous to the environment. For their trouble, the fungus gets the nutrition they need, and provide the world with CO2 and a variety of soil enriching enzymes in the process.

The process, called mycoremediation, hinges on a plant biopolymer called lignin. Responsible for the durability and stiffness of plant tissue, lignin is indigestible to animal enzymes. Certain species of fungus produce an enzyme called ligninase, which can break down the polymer chains, allowing it to be used for food.

The ability of ligninase to break down long hydrocarbon chains allows fungus to break down other complex hydrocarbon molecules, using them for nutrients as well. Many such complex “hydrocarbon rings” are found in herbicides, pesticides, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), and perhaps most important, the mutagenic and carcinogenic PAHs (poly-aromatic hydrocarbons) found in many petrochemical products.

Mycoremediation went from the theoretical to the practical just over a decade ago, when Stamets, in collaboration with Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratories, participated in a soil contamination cleanup for the Washington State Department of Transportation. Stamets’s group was one of several brought in to try out different remediation technologies to assist in cleaning up a lot of petroleum soaked earth. In addition to mycoremediation, bacterial and standard chemical bioremediation techniques were also deployed. Each group was given a large pile of contaminated soil covered with tarps to protect cross method-contamination.

At the 4-week mark, the fungal pile had sprouted a coverage in oyster mushrooms, some of them as large as 12 inches in diameter. At the end of the 17-week testing period, the fungal soil pile no longer stank of diesel, no longer appeared sludgy and claylike, and most importantly the pile was able to support the growth of numerous native plants. Mycoremediation had invited in its own bacterial remediation once the mushrooms rotted, which then brought in insects, birds, and then plants. As Stamets put it, “the berm was an oasis of life - a green zone”.

The current crisis in the Gulf of Mexico has drawn new attention to Stamets’s methods, but rather than rushing to the rescue, Stamets seems to be taking a slow and cautious approach to the problem in this excerpt from his statement “ON MYCOREMEDIATION AND ITS APPLICATIONS TO OIL SPILLS”:

“While we will need a wide array of efforts to address this complex problem, mycoremediation is a valuable component in our toolset of solutions. Mycoremediation has demonstrated positive results, verified by scientists in many countries. However, there is more oil spilled than there is currently mycelium available. Much more mycelium is needed and, fortunately, we know how to generate it.”

Encouraging a program of web-based public education on the benefits presented by fungi, Stamets hopes to increase awareness of the utilities of fungus, and increase funding for further research and mycelium farming. More information on Stamets’s work and a copy of his statement can be found on his website Fungi Perfecti.