Cleaning Polluted Groundwater

The Schoolcraft Project

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Dr. Michael J. Dybas, Assistant Professor, Center for Microbial Ecology and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Old contamination from carbon tetrachloride still pollutes groundwater sources nationwide. The conventional cleanup practice is expensive, time consuming, and unsatisfactory, and it produces chloroform, another biohazard. An MSU-Stanford team discovered a microbe that can transform carbon tetrachloride into harmless inert compounds without producing chloroform. Dybas and the MSU team partnered with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in a cleanup project to treat a contaminated portion of the St. Joseph Aquifer in Schoolcraft, Michigan. They found that the microbe and its biocurtain delivery system is a highly cost-effective, long-term solution, and, unlike existing treatments, it is ecologically sustainable. MDEQ has asked them to address other, more complex contamination problems within the aquifer.

Read a full description of this project

View the Schoolcraft Project Web site.

Sources: Schoolcraft Project Web site, Powerpoint presentation, and conversations with Michael J. Dybas.

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