URANIUM-​​SUCKING TUMBLEWEEDS

For years, the U.S. mil­i­tary and its allies have relied on depleted ura­nium (DU) for their anti-​​tank rounds. Twice as dense as lead, the stuff does a mean job pierc­ing armor. But it comes with a price. Tons of DU lit­ter bat­tle­fields around the world; the British fired almost 2 tons of DU around Bara dur­ing the Iraq inva­sion, for exam­ple. And unex­plained ill­nesses always seem to fol­low in the rounds’ wake. Nothing’s been cat­e­gor­i­cally proven. But a vari­ety of ail­ments — from “Gulf War Syndrome” to lung can­cer — have all been linked to the mate­r­ial. Cleaning it up has been an almost impos­si­bly messy task.
But now, a New Mexico researcher may have found an answer to the prob­lem in, of all things, the tum­ble­weed. A pre­lim­i­nary study shows that the plant, and some other flora com­mon to dry, Western lands, “have a knack for soak­ing up depleted ura­nium from con­t­a­m­i­nated soils at weapons test­ing grounds and bat­tle­fields,” accord­ing to a state­ment from the Geological Society of America.

The fact that plants absorb ura­nium is not news, since old ura­nium prospec­tors used to use Geiger coun­ters on junipers to find buried ura­nium lodes. But find­ing a plant that grows fast on lit­tle water and can be eas­ily har­vested to carry away the depleted ura­nium that’s another story…
In her study, [New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology geol­o­gist] Dana Ulmer-​​Scholle and her col­leagues… sought out DU con­t­a­m­i­nated soils at an inac­tive muni­tions test­ing ground in New Mexico. Then they planted selected native and non-​​native plants in a test gar­den and in pots to see how much DU the plants absorbed from the soil.

The tum­ble­weed, or Russian this­tle did par­tic­u­larly well. So did the grain crop quinoa and the pur­ple ama­ranth. None of the plants need much water or care. But “sprin­kling the ground with cit­ric acid” did seem to bol­ster the plants’ abil­ity to suck up DU.

As for why some plants absorb ura­nium, that’s still a mys­tery, says Ulmer-​​Scholle. It could be that the plants use the metal to cre­ate pig­ments. One way she hopes to test that pos­si­bil­ity is to grow native plants used for dyes.

Either way, Ulmer-​​Scholle cau­tions, plants will only work as a slow-​​burn solu­tion to DU. For imme­di­ate clean-​​ups, “no plant species appears to offer a short-​​term alter­na­tive to tra­di­tional reme­di­a­tion.“
THERE’S MORE: Defense Tech reader TH notes “the mys­te­ri­ous lack of
Gulf War Syndrome in areas where nat­ural ura­nium (which is chem­i­cally iden­ti­cal, and more radioac­tive), is present in con­cen­tra­tions far exceed­ing those found on battlefields.”

November 10th, 2004 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.