[This is a continuation of an earlier post ("With my own eyes") I made while I was down in Ecuador. I wrote this while I was there, but was waiting on some pictures before I posted]
You have to be aware of where you’re putting your weight. Test the ground before you put it down with each step. Use the fallen branches, roots and organic debris to help distribute your mass, sort of like snow shoes. One hasty step or misplaced, and you’ll be knee deep or even hip high in a mixture of crude oil, asphalt and water. And just like with quicksand - if you do go down, your best bet is to throw your weight forward or back so as to not find out how deep the pool is. And be sure to remember your Tyvek suit, volatile organics respirator, big rubber boots and gloves, and a whole lot of duct tape.
Do this while trying to spot and recognize dozens of plants and mushrooms, large and small, passing new samples to your team mates who are out on the surface of the oil pool with you, digital cameras and notebooks in (oily) hand. This was my life for three long days.
We were performing an ecological survey to begin answering these questions: In these toxic environments left behind in the Amazon rainforest by negligent oil companies decades ago, what is growing? Which plant and fungal species are tolerant of or even thrive in the oil waste? Which species are colonizing this most inhospitable blemish in the process of succession? And ultimately, how can we work with them to further this healing?
Life is beautiful and persistent, even on top of this layer of aged asphalt and oil waste.
These are big questions to ask, and many grad students could surely be flown under them. Two of our team members (Julia and Megan) are currently in school, and will be using this initial field research as ground to pursue further, more extensive work. I was most interested in seeing what species of fungi were growing on or near the oil waste. Could these be possible allies in future efforts of mycoremediation?
We set up a series of randomly-placed two meter circles over the surface of three “piscinas” (pools). Some circles were right in the middle of the swimming pool-sized pits, some were along the edges. We would then tread carefully on the viscous surface of the pool to catalogue each plant and fungal species we could find in each circle. None of us are botanists or mushroom experts, so we ended up making up our own names for
specimens we found, like “elephant ear,” “spiral” and “orange cup.” They were all numbered, photographed and documented for later identification.Megan (pictured right) was the one with the notebook who cataloged the species, and by the end of it, she could identify plants by number within a fraction of a second (walks through the jungle were fun, afterwards, with her calmly acknowledging each familiar friend with the number or “name” we had used). It was difficult work, and as described above, it was kind of sketchy. We really have no idea what is in that brew of drilling waste and crude. It was surely dangerous, but such is science!
Fortunately I didn’t get too much contamination on my skin, although some of the questionable water leaked through my poorly-duct taped boot on the second day. I did have one close call when my foot sunk in way more then expected (up to about my knee). When I pulled it out, it wasn’t just covered in dirty water or a little asphaltene like before, but in glistening, flowing crude oil! I had stepped into a pool of oil that was coming out of some sort of drainage pipe. This pool is 30 years old, and there is somehow still fresh-looking oil pouring into it.
Staring at the bubbling crude and picking it up with our gloves, it really hit us. WTF. This was the most beautiful tropical rainforest and the oil companies came in here and messed it all up for a quick buck. It’s still being contaminated, even as we stand here.
It’s interesting to me to reflect on our work ethic, as a team. Four of us were out there on the oil pools. These were long days in stuffy masks and Tyvek suits. We all worked our asses off and recorded a lot of information, and we didn’t have anyone in charge or supervising. We would take breaks here or there, sometimes just a few minutes to poke a termite mound with a stick. And then we’d continue with our work. It was a great example of a non-hierarchal, cooperative endeavor.
In the end we recorded more than 100 plant species and 50 fungal species (although there are likely some duplicates). We’re going to be working over the next few months to identify them all, with the help of university experts and online forums. There’s no telling what kind of valuable ecological information we may have harvested. We also identified a few recurring species of apparently petro-tolerant fungi. On future trips (and with more resources), we will seek to culture these species and use them in controlled experiments.
It was an honor and a privilege to work with other members of the Amazon Mycorenewal Project to advance solutions for the oil-contaminated Amazon, and I look forward to continuing our efforts and expanding our mycelial network! If you’d like to support these efforts or join in on the next trip to Ecuador, please visit amazonmycorenewal.org.
Below are a some pictures of just a few of the interesting fungi we found in an around the toxic oil pit.
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