PH10 Soil Ecotoxicology and Risk Assessment
Exhibit Hall
8:00 AM - Thursday
(PH133) Application of Soil Health and Microbial and Fungal Diversity Assays in Smelter Reclamation Soils.
Bens, C.1, Humphries , J.2, Cox, S.2, Neuman , D.3, Zak, J.2, Hooper, M.2, 1 USDA, National Wildlife Research Center, Ft. Collins, CO, USA2 Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA3 Montana State University, Bozeman, UT, USA
ABSTRACT- After one hundred years of milling and copper smelting operations that discharged wastes high in arsenic and metals [copper, cadmium, lead and zinc] over a wide area in the southern Deer Lodge County, Montana, much of the area surrounding the Anaconda Smelter was placed on the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund National Priorities List in September 1983. Since then, significant soil reclamation, relocation and stabilization actions have been taken. This study evaluated rapid microbial and fungal diversity assays for their ability to assess soil health as a function of various soil reclamation activities. Microbial and fungal diversity results from soils taken from a number of soil reclamation scenarios are being compared to more typical soil health measures including standard soil chemistry profile measures [pH, organic matter, N, P, K, Mg, Ca, cation exchange], soil metal contaminants of concern analysis [arsenic, copper, cadmium, lead, zinc], and Daubenmire vegetation profiles. Lime and fertilizer treatments on remediated sites have led to higher soil pH and N (as NO3), P, and Mg levels than on non-remediated, spontaneously-revegetated sites. Organic matter levels, however, do not differ significantly across the sites in a manner suggesting a remediation cause and effect relationship. Daubenmire assessments showed that duff, grass and forbes predominated on all sites, with little variability between remediated and spontaneously vegetated sites, though a control, non-remediated site and several less successful remediated sites has greater proportions of bare ground, rock and gravel. To assess the role of microbial and fungal populations in the apparent success of remediated sites, site-specific correlations of these findings with those from microbial (Biolog) and fungal (Fungilog) diversity assays will be presented. Sponsored in part by NIEHS grant P42ES04696
Key words: soil remediation, microbial communities, multivariate analysis