Doing the NOLA Chimie!

Wrapup from Boulder

2006-07-10T18:21:00.000-06:00

Hi friends, I'm back in Boulder. I had a peaceful weekend reconnecting with people I care about, and am ready to share a final wrapup with you all.

I had a fantastic experience in New Orleans. The people, food, architecture, culture, and history are still there and still utterly unique.

I got some insight into how a lot of people really live in New Orleans - in residential neighborhoods of small and beautiful homes, many of which have been destroyed. Now lots of people live in FEMA trailers, pictured right. The FEMA trailers had not even been delivered to some places when I left.

I also learned about setting up a lab from scratch and doing science without boundaries, as human needs require it. The various projects that our lab will handle are soil analysis and remediation through sunflowers, mustard greens, oyster mushrooms, compost tea, and new soil creation using sheet composting. Although my knowledge is a centimeter deep and a mile wide, I realized that it was all driven by the immediate needs of the people of New Orleans.

Lots still needs to be done in New Orleans. Under the elevated interstate highway are hundreds if not thousands of wrecked cars that need to be towed away. Apparently it was easier to claim that one's car had been totaled and get the insurance money to buy a new car than it was to be compensated for damages to a house. And I heard that a lot of insurance companies were covering "hurricane" damage but not "flood" damage - how can those be separated given the root cause of the levee breaks?

Some of you may be interested in what you might do to help, or continue your interests in what you've read about here. Here are a few ideas.
1. Find out how your own interests can be pursued in New Orleans. Whether you like fine food, history, golf, hiking, or environmental analysis, google it and find out what you might enjoy here. The more people who are invested in some aspect of New Orleans, the more support it has for its rebuilding. If that's all you do, that's worth it.
2. Learn about your own state's soil testing lab. Every state should have a university extension service to which you can send a sample from your yard and get it inexpensively tested, just for fun. And find out what your state or city's standards are, like the Louisiana RECAP standard.
3. Consider taking your next vacation in New Orleans, or the Gulf South. They are rolling out the welcome mat for tourists. My hotel, International House Hotel, was delightful.
4. Of course, consider making a gift! Lots of wonderful groups are working down there, from Common Ground and the Red Cross to local churches and nonprofits in your own area.

Finally, New Orleanians still have their sense of humor. As you can see from the car on the right, "Everything is going swimmingly."

Thank you all so much for reading my blog these many days. Knowing you were there made this trip so much more fun. And laissez les bons temps rouler!

Last morning

2006-07-07T10:19:00.000-06:00

Hi y'all, this was my last morning. I breakfasted at Cafe du Monde (on beignets and iced coffee) and have packed a Central Grocery muffuletta for lunch. I'm going to take one last drive around town and then head to the airport. I'll try to blog from there!

A Day of Good Stuff

2006-07-06T22:54:00.001-06:00

Today was absolutely intense. The last time I blogged, I had just finished printing the field protocols and having lunch. I went from there to picking up Lovell Agwaramgbo at Dillard University, taking him to St. Mary's, and meeting Russ Schmehl of Tulane and Kurt Birdwhistell of Loyola. It was a regular pow-wow of professors, all chemists. Alec and Clark were waiting for us, and we gave the professors a tour of the lab. Of course the "tour" part took all of two minutes, but we all had lots to share about the purposes of the lab and the project.

Then we toured four different remediation sites. First we went to Deslonde Street, in the Lower Ninth Ward, where we saw sunflower gardens at a home and at the Common Ground center there. Lovell, Russ, Kurt, Clark, and Alec are pictured right. Then we went to the sunflower garden at the Martin Luther King Jr. School in the Lower Ninth. Then we went to the community garden in Gentilly, which has been an organic garden for at least the last 30 years. Finally we drove to a neighborhood further west called Gert Town, in which the Haywood-Thompson pesticide processing plant has been closed for at least twenty years, but in which cancer rates are higher than the norm. We looked at one more sunflower garden there.

From there I returned to St. Mary's with Alec and Clark, and I watched them transfer mycelia from a well-grown culture to fresh millet. I will describe this in detail tomorrow - it's totally fascinating. They have built a glove box/cell culture hood out of a Rubbermaid tub, a piece of plexiglas, rubber gloves, and duct tape. They are the true MacGyvers of this project! Clark is pictured right putting his hands into the gloves. On the left you can see Alec's hands spooning mycelia-millet from a jar on the right into a new jar of millet on the left. The Lysol spray disinfects the inside of the sterile box.

After the mycelia transfer, Alec, Clark and I headed to UNO to return some library books, and we drove through the Lakeview neighborhood, which was also hard hit by the storm. I could see floodwater marks on the houses that looked at least 8 feet high, and that's where the water settled - it probably rose 2-4 feet higher.

Our final journey was for Vietnamese food. Alec knew of a Vietnamese neighborhood on the far eastern end of New Orleans, off Chef Menteur Highway, just before the Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge. When he spotted Saigon Drive on the map, we figured we were headed in the right direction. We found a small neighborhood of Vietnamese shops and had dinner at a restaurant there. I had a very tasty charbroiled beef over steamed rice, with delicately chopped and sauteed scallions on top. We wanted to order durian fruit for dessert but they were out of all their fruit. Here we are in the restaurant, me, Clark and Alec (right to left).

This neighborhood was an enclave of sorts. All the restaurant clientele seemed to be Vietnamese, and they were singing karaoke to Vietnamese songs. There was a long table of men, enjoying hot pots over gas burners and drinking icy beers, and one of them had a birthday, so we all sang Happy Birthday (in English). The whole experience was an amazing cultural departure from the rest of my time here; I had to remind myself that I was actually in New Orleans.

I have a lot more I want to share about today, but it's getting late and I should get some rest. Tomorrow I'll post pictures and update more. Today was just fascinating - I could think about what I learned for hours ...

Writing protocols

2006-07-06T12:22:00.000-06:00

I've had a busy morning and will have a busy rest of the day! This morning I wrote up nine protocols, methods of doing various procedures that the bioremediation team is doing. Here's a list.

Sunflower Remediation of Lead
Arsenic Remediation using Mustard Greens
Soil Sampling
Organochlorine Pesticide Remediation
Oyster Mushroom Cultivation
Organic Waste Disposal
EM (Efficient Microorganisms)
Making Compost Tea
Sheet Composting

Alec and Clark dictated these to me yesterday at the community garden, and I typed them up and will place them in our field manual.

I had a very quick and delicious lunch at Herbsaint, one of Susan Spicer's restaurants. I ate a wonderful lamb sausage sandwich with mint salsa verde - I considered the catfish as a more "local" specialty, but I just had to have the lamb. Last night I had a light dinner at Susan Spicer's other restaurant, Bayona, in the French Quarter. The cream of garlic soup was tasty, really smooth and rich with the sweetness of roasted garlic, not pungent at all. The goat cheese crouton with mushrooms in madeira sauce was out of this world. Definitely something I'd order again. It had a deep mushroom flavor and a creaminess that I just loved. Tasted very French.

This afternoon I will give a tour of our lab to some local chemistry professors, and then Alec is going to show us some soil sites. I'm really excited about this whole thing and hopefully will have some good pictures to post tonight!

Taking dictation and Vietnamese food

2006-07-05T16:05:00.000-06:00

Today was busier than I expected! I connected an extension cord for the bathroom lab, and now our fridge is working. I then went to the Sun Done Community Garden, where the bioremediation team was working, and I took dictation from Clark and Alec on all their different procedures. I'll report on that later today.

Lots of rain today - I wish it would rain this hard in Colorado. I want to go out to eat, but am hesitant to get soaked... But I'm running out of evenings, and still so many things to try: Bayona, the Indian place a few blocks up, the best Vietnamese place. There has been a lot of Vietnamese immigration to New Orleans. I read a really good book of short stories by Robert Olen Butler last year, mostly tales of Vietnamese in this city making their lives here. It's called A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. I highly recommend it. It used to be that when I thought of New Orleans, I thought of cultures like French, African American, Spanish, Indian (because there are Indians like me almost everywhere!), Cuban, Haitian, Caribbean in general. But this book opened my eyes to another group that has made a mark here.

And I bet I can find some great crispy duck! David and I are always looking for a good dish of that.

Ventilation, pipettors, and St. Bernard housing

2006-07-04T18:43:00.000-06:00

Let me start with the loveliest piece of wrought iron in the French Quarter, pictured right.

Well, I've learned more about laboratory ventilation today. Basically a lab needs to have 6-12 air exchanges per hour. The ACS Handbook of Chemical Health and Safety suggests using six exchanges as a good guideline. This is separate from airflow provided to a fume hood; this is just air flow throughout the lab. I calculated that the bathroom lab has about 5,100 cubic feet of air, so if I want 6 exchanges per hour at 60 min/hr, that means I need a blower or fan that moves 510 cubic feet per minute.

I'm going to share these estimates with Lauren, but since the trailer is coming, I don't want to set up too much infrastructure in the bathroom lab. I'm also going to direct her toward some simple hoods, in case we need them.

I learned another interesting thing yesterday that might be old news to some of you. A positive displacement pipettor is specially used for volatile or viscous liquids, as opposed to the air displacement pipette, which we use all the time for aqueous solutions. The positive displacement pipettor's disposable tips are actually these mini-pistons, where the tip holds the liquid and a piston actually contacts the liquid and pulls it upward. These pistons are more expensive than the usual pipet tips.
Today I did the ventilation research, and I also went to the St. Bernard housing development, which has not been reopened since Katrina. Here are some pictures of the rally there today. There was food, and music, and people were dancing. There was also a lot of political expression.

Happy Fourth of July!

2006-07-04T08:47:00.000-06:00

Happy Independence Day, everyone! Today I'm going to continue my research on ventilation. Then I'm going to spend my afternoon and evening out. I definitely want to see fireworks over the Mississippi River tonight!

Big shopping and my kit choices

2006-07-03T18:04:00.000-06:00

Today was a big shopping day, both in person and online. I bought a 1.6 cuft fridge for the lab, along with extension cords, fire extinguisher, surge protector, and a lock. I also sent Lauren a much longer list of items to buy for the lab.

I selected two kits: the Ensys PAH kit and the Envirogard Chlordane kit. Both are immunoassays made by Strategic Diagnostics. They use a differential photometer to quantify a color change - I'll find a Spec 20. I'll either buy one online or from the state of Louisiana surplus warehouse (that sounds like a barrel of laughs, doesn't it?). Actually, glancing at their website tells me that it's probably a waste of time.

The kits measure several different PAHs and chlorinated pesticides respectively, and I can't distinguish between, say, fluorene and pyrene. The detection limits (or Method Detection Limit, MDL as they call it) vary for the analyte. Fluorene's MDL is 1.5 ppm, lower than the Louisiana RECAP standard of280 ppm. So we can measure below that standard.

What is the RECAP standard, you ask? The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) runs the Risk Evaluation/Corrective Action Program (RECAP) , which sets standards for pollutant concentrations that require some kind of corrective action. These numbers provide the benchmarks above which the LDEQ initiates some sort of management option. One purpose of our screening is to note whether our sites exceed these benchmarks.

Otherwise, things are peaceful here. I spent most of the day doing internet research, although in the morning I set up the new equipment I bought in the lab over at St. Mary's. Things are shaping up over there. At the end of the week, before I leave on Friday afternoon, I'm going to give a short orientation on the lab to the bioremediation team.

Some of you are dying to know what awesome New Orleans food I ate today! Aa, my friend and blogger, suggested Mother's in one of his comments, so I walked over today - it's only three blocks from my hotel. I ordered a Ralph sandwich (baked ham, roast beef, cheese, beef debris and au jus, and mayonnaise) and pecan pie. Wonderful! I ate half of it for lunch and will finish the rest off for dinner tonight.

New digs and shopping

2006-07-02T20:42:00.000-06:00

I have moved to new digs! Pictured on the left is my new home, the International House Hotel, where I am cooler, less mosquito-bitten, and more easily able to work on the internet without traveling from cafe to library to university to restaurant to cafe.

Tomorrow I will do some shopping for essentials: extension cords, power strips, a digital timer, and a few other lab items that I can find in a hardware store. I'm getting close to the final decisions on the other kits.

I learned today that the mobile lab is arriving soon! Apparently Lauren found someone to drive it from Austin to New Orleans sometime after July 4th. This is good news, because it means less infrastructure I have to build at St. Mary's (the school where the girls-bathroom lab is located). I hope it arrives before I leave, but I'm not counting on it.

I've also learned that the Dexsil PetroFLAG kit is on its way! I hope it gets here before Thursday, so I can open it up and try it out.

Commencement exercises at Dillard University

2006-07-01T12:35:00.000-06:00

This morning I attended Commencement at Dillard University. This university was submerged after Katrina and has been holding classes at a Hilton hotel downtown. The dorms are also in the Hilton; faculty offices are in an office suite in a nearby high-rise. I visited them yesterday. The campus is being renovated, and they managed to hold graduation on their own campus instead of in their hotel. I admire their courage in marching forward despite all the problems caused by the storm. Here are some pictures.

The students are holding banners bearing the names of universities that hosted them this year. The white flag with red lettering in the middle of this picture says, "Christian Brothers University," which I posted because my friend Chad from CU graduated from there. 354 students graduated - a record number.

Also, Bill Cosby was the commencement speaker, pictured here in the middle, with University President Marvalene Hughes (left) and Mary Frances Berry (right), awardee of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. Fortuitous coincidences: last week I checked out a book by Dr. Berry about ex-slave reparations called My Face Is Black Is True, and she was the Chancellor of CU-Boulder back in the 1970's.
Bill Cosby's speech was short and directed mainly to the graduates. He told them to take care of the garden we all live in. He was very good at keeping the proceedings relaxed and greeting the students and their parents.

It was a fun event, one I could relate to myself, and with similarities and differences from UCCS. Dillard has many first-generation college students, like UCCS, and so graduation is a very important family milestone. The ceremony was on a beautiful lawn with arching oaks on either side, unlike our ceremony at the World Arena (Colorado weather is so unpredictable!). The faculty marched by in their regalia, and I almost wished I was among them. Nearly everybody I saw was African-American, a big cultural difference from Colorado Springs. I was really happy to be there.

I went because on Friday I spoke briefly with the provost, Bettye Parker-Smith, and she invited me to come. She, the president, administration and faculty have worked really hard to keep the university going after Katrina. Only half the students have returned to Dillard.

I also had a very good meeting with a chemistry professor named Lovell Agwaramgbo, who has experience with phytoremediation of soil and expressed some interest in working on this project. I hope that comes together.

A Good Read

2006-06-30T14:18:00.000-06:00

Here's a really moving article on the current state of New Orleans:
Ten Months After Katrina: Gutting New Orleans
Thanks to David for sending it to me.

I'll try to post some pics of the FEMA trailers he describes. They are everywhere, in people's front yards, back yards, and in "FEMA-villes" like he says. There is a former playground near where I'm staying that is full of them.

In other news, I'm meeting faculty at Dillard University and University of New Orleans today, and seeing if there's room for collaboration. Stay tuned!

Narrowing it down

2006-06-29T19:56:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm narrowing down my analytical tests. My analytes of interest are total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), lead, arsenic, and organochlorine pesticides. I don't have any big instruments or the capability to house and support them, so I can't do GC/MS or AA or ICP-MS or ICP-AES.

Turns out the EPA has a pretty good website cataloging Test Methods: EPA: Index to EPA Test Methods
I've been looking up my analytes there and finding test kits that are simple, inexpensive, and self-contained. Many are colorimetric yes/no, and some are photometric quantitation. I can find a used Spectronic 20 anywhere, for free or cheap.

The first test I really like is the Dexsil PetroFLAG for TPH - about $730 including a little turbidimeter in a compact briefcase! I'm looking at some other kits too: the PAH and organochlorine stuff looks like I'll do it via immunoassay. And for Pb and As, I might be able to do a simple anodic stripping voltammetry experiment! I'm thrilled to do some electrochemistry. It really is incredibly useful - no smirking, you spectroscopists and bio people.

Still working on proper lab ventilation, safety, and waste disposal. Tomorrow I'm checking out some books at the Univ New Orleans library on lab management - Prudent Practices and the ACS lab safety guide. Big thanks to Laurie Williams and Janet Murphy, the Interlibrary Loan librarians at the UCCS and UNO libraries for making this happen!

I probably forgot to tell you all that Lauren, the patron saint of the whole soil analysis project, has gotten a donation of a trailer, which will ultimately be a mobile lab and home to all the equipment we collect. Right now the trailer is parked at the University of Texas at Austin, and she'll bring it out here later this year. So the girls bathroom lab is probably just a stopgap to last until then.

On another note, I love your comments! Please keep writing them - they brighten my day so much! And if you're comfortable with it, please do sign your name. I don't know who writes them unless you sign it!

Finally, I am writing this from a gorgeous restaurant called the Marigny Brasserie. I had the Crispy Leg of Duck Confit with Gouda grits, onion mermelade, and wilted spinach - wonderful, very rich. I enjoyed a Pimm's Cup before dinner: a New Orleans cocktail made of Pimm's (a liqueur), mashed cucumber, and ginger ale. And now I am ending it with a coconut raisin bread pudding and a cup of decaf. Totally sated.

My hostess and server have been very friendly, and the hostess' mom, who happened to be dining here, came over to my table and wrote down a full list of restaurants-not-to-be-missed. How will I get through them all? I love New Orleans.

A Day of Research and Organizing

2006-06-29T07:53:00.000-06:00

Today I hope to finalize some research on lab setup and techniques, and then organize all the paperwork for the soil remediation project. I'm at a nice cafe called Flora's in the Marigny neighborhood. It's actually very close to where I am living.

Speaking of which, here's my home and my cot.

The Library Shuffle

2006-06-28T16:00:00.000-06:00

So today, Wednesday, I'm doing the Library Shuffle. I need to get on the internet and assemble a suite of appropriate analytical techniques, and figure out the ventilation and waste disposal needs for them, and photocopy some soil analysis protocols, and honestly, I need some air conditioning too! I went to Common Ground's media center to get onto the net, and the power went out. It was out in a big swath of eastern New Orleans, and even the traffic lights were out.

Thus I headed west to the New Orleans Public Library. I got myself settled at about 3:35 pm, and started copying (one page at a time, add 15 cents per page, and no, you cannot add $1.00 of change and have it count down the pages). And then the librarian announced that the library closes at 4:00 pm. I was really sad. This is the major downtown branch of the public library of a major U.S. city, they had relatively much less damage than the other branches, and they close at 4. The reference librarian said they were very short-staffed.

So I rambled further west to Tulane University Library. Via phone I was assured that there was public parking at one of four metered spaces, and shockingly, they were all occupied. I then found a space a few blocks away and sat in the car for a moment to take a breath. The scrubs-wearing doctor in the house in front of my car approached me politely and asked me to move my car up a little so his contractors could park there. Obligingly but tiredly, I agreed, moved up, and noticed his silver BMW coupe holding the precious space. When I trudged past his house, I saw the rest of his fleet: both BMW, both silver, one SUV and one sedan. Where's the convertible?

Tulane does not permit non-Tulane users to access their wireless network, so I'm on a public computer. I just want to cool off and plan my next move.

I have learned a lot about the overall process of soil analysis here at Common Ground, and I understand the level of identification and quantitation needed for different purposes.

I also did something fun today: I delivered lunch to several Common Ground work crews gutting houses in the Ninth Ward. I had a buddy named Rob for this task. Lunch was vegan and non-vegan pasta salad, sandwiches of tuna salad or textured vegetable protein, and chocolate chip cookies. We served this wonderful repast out of the trunk of my car. It was delightful! All these tired people came up to us and we gave them tasty food. I have never used so much hand sanitizer in my entire life.

We have a lab!

2006-06-27T17:46:00.000-06:00

Today I worked on setting up the lab. Yesterday it looked like these pictures at the top. It's a girls bathroom in which the toilets don't work and only one sink works.

I mixed up some disinfectant and swabbed the whole bathroom from the tiles to the floor. Then Clark, a member of the bioremediation team, rounded up a few other guys, and they moved some lab furniture from other parts of the building into our lab. Here's how it looks now!

Sort of like a real lab, huh? No electrical outlets whatsoever, and no proper ventilation. But in time we can build an exhaust pipe with a fan, and we can get power with extension cords. And if you can see it, the desk has not one but three microscopes on it. Soon we'll be cooking with gas! (not literally of course.)

That was pretty much my whole day. That and replacing the J pipe on the drain of the one working sink - no more leaks! Tonight I'm going to get something to eat and call it a day. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some analytical soil chemistry to share.

Seeing both extremes

2006-06-27T07:23:00.000-06:00

Good morning on Tuesday! I had a full day yesterday and want to share it.

I had a very nice brunch at St.Mary's school - pancakes, bacon, potatoes. Then I did reconnaissance around the school. The girls bathroom where our lab will be is roughly 15' by 35' or so. The seven toilets don't work (which made it available for us), and the one working sink (out of two) leaks from the trap. So today I'll repair that.

I also found some good furniture in the kids' science room - two movable lab benches, a nice small bookshelf, brand new petri dishes and test tubes. I even found a small microscope with 4x, 10x, and 40x objectives - it works! I'm going to move that into our lab.

Some of you may wonder - will the kids need their science equipment back? St. Mary of the Angels Catholic School (grades K-8) was functional until Katrina. The first floor was completely flooded. I've been told that right now there is neither enough money nor enough children in the area to reopen it. Hopefully the kids and their families will move back, and the diocese will help them out.

Anyway, yesterday after my reconnaissance, I went out with Alec, Elizabeth, and Lucy, three Common Ground volunteers. First we collected soil samples at a home. We dug a 6-8" hole, filled a ziploc bag about one-fourth full with a clean spoon, noted each sampling location on a site map, and preserved them in a cooler with ice. (Picture - Alec on left, Lucy on right). They will be sent to a lab in Texas via FedEx.

Then Alec showed us several other Common Ground sites: mostly people's homes that are being gutted and rebuilt, and gardens with sunflowers and vegetables that we're eating at St. Mary's.

Alec took us along Deslonde Street in the lower Ninth Ward, right where the levee of the Industrial Canal broke. I saw at least 20 lots where a concrete slab was all that was left of the house. Everything else was totally obliterated. Some houses had the slab and the porch steps, and nothing else. Some houses were pushed over to the side, like a house of cards, and one or two houses had boats on the roof. A church had simply collapsed on itself and was only about 15 feet high.

The lower Ninth also has virtually no electricity or drinking water. The upper Ninth (where I'm staying) has some electricity but also no potable water.

I was absolutely stunned. The storm occurred ten months ago, and this neighborhood is still utterly devastated. It could have happened yesterday, except that the water is gone. The emotional impact of this was like seeing the World Trade Center site - history happened here, lives were destroyed. But here, very little is being done to move this neighborhood forward.

From what I understand, the city of New Orleans has given residents until August 29 to either gut their houses or get on a house-gutting list. If they haven't done this, apparently the city can raze what's left and claim the land. I don't have a direct source on this, just hearsay, but it's incredible. A land grab is happening here. I heard Donald Trump has just bought a lot of real estate here and wants to put a casino along the Mississippi River. This is especially tragic because it's actually a beautiful residential area: small homes with classic New Orleans architecture, gingerbread millwork, shutters on the windows. And this neighborhood had one of the highest rates of African-American homeownership in the U.S. before the storm.

Anyway, after we returned to St. Mary's, Lucy and I needed a nice dinner out, so we drove to the French Quarter. We walked by antiques stores, chandelier galleries, fine art dealers, and we remarked that we couldn't buy anything here without paying months of our salary. And then I realized that we had seen two huge extremes that day: a destroyed neighborhood still nearly untouched ten months later, and a booming, glamorous tourist district where honestly, you can't even tell there was a hurricane. A few restaurants have signs: "We're back in business!" but overall I couldn't even tell.

And what's also amazing is that Deslonde Street is about 3.5 miles from the French Quarter. We saw both extremes a very short distance in miles but worlds apart.

So yesterday was a busy day. Today I'm going to work toward setting up the lab. Hopefully I can blog again and post some more pictures.

Bonjour from Nouvelle-Orleans!

2006-06-26T08:27:00.000-06:00

Today's Monday, June 26, and I'm in the Crescent City. I got in late last night and crashed on my cot. I'm staying in a classroom at an elementary school called St. Mary of Angels in the upper Ninth Ward. We have electricity, but the tap water in the bathrooms is not potable, so we have several water coolers stationed around the building with clean water. The toilets are aboout 50/50 working/not working. The showers are actually kind of refreshing: outdoor, plywood separators, water's cold but in this climate it feels just fine.

We are served meals in the school's gym, and brunch today is at 10 am. We also have TONS of snack bars called Detour bars - that was my early breakfast.

The other volunteers are a mix: some college-age folks on break, some experienced organizers, some older folks. I've met Clark, the bioremediation guy who contacted me about lead in sunflowers. Today I'm going to check out the second-floor girls bathroom, which will likely be our lab.

Hope everyone's doing well!

Lead, Sunflowers, and EDTA

2006-06-24T11:49:00.000-06:00

Today's Saturday, and I'm doing last-minute things before leaving tomorrow. One thing is a brief literature survey of how lead (symbol Pb) bioaccumulates in sunflowers (Helianthus annuus). Sunflowers are good potential hyperaccumulators, or plants that will take up more than 100 mg/kg dry weight Cd, 1000 mg/kg dry weight Co, Cu, Cr, Pb or Ni, or 10,000 mg/kg dry weight Mn or Zn. Sunflowers accumulate Pb in their leaves and stems, not their seeds. So they're pretty amazing!

One of the limits on how much Pb they can take up is how bioavailable (or mobile, essentially) the Pb is in the soil. So soil amendments can be added to the soil, much like the fertilizer we put on our African violets to bloom profusely, in order to free up more lead.

One good soil amendment is EDTA, or ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid. EDTA is often used in foods as a preservative, processing aid, or color stabilizer. Moderate amounts of EDTA can increase lead uptake by sunflowers factors of 4 to 140. But too much EDTA stunts the plant's growth and possibly mobilizes metals to the extent that they are too available, over time and to other plants. So I'm trying to figure out whether it's a good thing to add EDTA.

Getting ready to go

2006-06-23T20:57:00.000-06:00

I'm leaving Sunday, June 25, so I'm packing my stuff. Here I am with my backpack and sleeping bag.

This trip should be a great insight into how to do analytical chemistry from a very goal-oriented standpoint. We want to analyze for soil contaminants, and so whatever analytes and techniques are easiest and cheapest are what we'll do.

Welcome to Radha's blog!

2006-06-23T09:33:00.000-06:00

Hello and thanks for reading! This blog will keep you up-to-date on my travel to New Orleans, Louisiana, to help set up an analytical chemistry lab in the Ninth Ward. I'll be posting text, links, and hopefully pictures. Please feel free to enter comments.

I leave for NOLA on Sunday evening. So soon I'll be doing the New Orleans Chimie! (Chimie is the French word for chemistry).