Minor oil spill remediation help

[Yeti101]

Hi all. I've got a situation where neigbours have 'accidentally' spilt old motor oil on their side of the fenceline and it's now coming through into my garden . Because this area has trees in it I'm not sure if I can dig up much of the contaminated soil - that and I don't really want to if I can avoid it.

I'm not so worried about the hydrocarbons - those will break down eventually, but if it's motor oil from old cars there might be heavy metal contmaination to consider as well.

At the moment my plan is to aerate the soil, inoculate with friendly bacteria and plant specices that are know for absorbing heavy metals - repeatedly grow and dispose.

For the record, those neighbours moved on before I realised what was happening - so revenge is not an option, I just want to be able to use that part of the garden again.

Any hints or helpful information would be greatly appreciated.

[whitewind]

Bamboo is good for absorbing heavy metals from the soil, I believe. I suppose it could also be used for construction purposes too, it is quite fast growing and should do a quick job, easy to dispose of. Bamboo also absorbs 30% more CO2 than your average tree owing to it's quick growth, so it acts as a carbon sequester. It's great on a fence line as it's attractive and acts as a visual and wind barrier.

Treating the soil with oil dispersants might help to get things started.

[Sallubrious]

Compost, mulch(colonised with mycelium) and sunflowers.

If you can find some woodchips colonised with mycelium the mycelium will break down most contaminants. Dig some of the woodchips in and use the rest as a mulch. Stamets has had excellent result remediating industrial waste with mushroom mycelium and was happy to feed vegetables grown in the remediated soil to his family after less than a year of inoculation with mycelium.

Sunflowers are out of season now but they are used a lot for cleaning up contaminated soils. They have even been used to reclaim radiation contaminated soils.

[Yeti101]

Thanks whitewind & SallyD.

Bamboo isn't going to work in this spot, though I can see how it would be good for a different situation.

Thanks for the tip regarding mycelium! The results that Stamets got with oyster mushrooms semed pretty impressive. I'm not sure how they go with heavy metals but I would certainly be willing to give them a try, even though I've no ieda where to start.

I had heard about Sunflowers - they absorb heavy metals into their roots. I will be sure to plant some in Spring.

I found a couple of papers on using various plants for lead remediation and decided to go with what I had access to - so now this spot is planted out with Brahmi andKalanchoe pinnata and is well mulched with semi rotted Acacia leaves.