Starhawk and The Bioremediators
The San Francisco Gate has a good article up on bioremediation efforts taking place in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. The volunteers (along with Pagan activist and author Starhawk) are hoping that their efforts will help counteract the high levels of arsenic and lead in the soil.
“This attempt to restore the health to the city’s soil, much of it highly contaminated before the hurricane struck in August, was started by longtime San Francisco pagan leader Starhawk, who brought a small team of volunteers on her first visit in October. Starhawk joined forces with the Common Ground Collective, which has set up health clinics, legal aid, day care and various other services for residents in the most battered parts of the city, to organize the effort to replant community and home gardens and as an experiment that can be duplicated elsewhere.”
This is the first time bioremediation has been tested on such a large scale, and it looks like initial results have been positive.
“The Sun Done garden passed its soil test with flying colors, Shafer-Rickles said, probably because it was functioning as an organic garden before the storm. The garden’s crops are distributed to the public at the Common Ground community center in the Lower Ninth Ward.”
The next step is the training of local residents in bioremediation techniques, for those looking for more information on this effort check out the Common Ground Collective. These efforts seem like an excellent application of modern Pagan values by Starhawk, and should be help up as an example of how our faiths can approach problems of this magnitude.
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