Pristine Earth and Waters

The Session Overview below is provided as a courtesy to those who prefer to read than listen, yet on each call additional insights are given which round out the subject.

Two things are required to accelerate the natural abilities of the earth to clean up mankind's pollution:

1) Adding a high concentration of naturally occurring microbes (bioaugmentation) - fungi, bacteria, etc. to inoculate the polluted location.

2) Adding a food source which increases microbial populations (biostimulation) to over 100,000 times the normal background levels in the environment.

Microbes, then do the rest. This is the basis of bioremediation.

What is a Microbe?
A microbe is an organism that is microscopic, meaning too small to see with the naked eye. Classifications of microbes typically include naturally-occurring:

A vast and complex variety of microbes exist throughout Nature, in the air, in the soil, in the waters of the earth, and within the bodies of every living thing. Their role is to digest, or break down, natural and chemical compounds, heavy metals and natural metallic compounds, rock minerals, organic matter, radiation, etc.

The Diet of a Microbe
Microbes require more than just environmental pollution to stimulate a population explosion large enough to consume the pollution; they also need other forms of food to be most productive. Think of this as something similar to a balanced diet for humans, only for microbes.

Each set of microbes has a different diet, all designed to meet the complex needs of Nature's own recycling program. Most microbes require a balanced array of sugars, minerals, air, moisture, vegetative matter, and a natural environment like soil or water to perform best.

Some survive best in high temperatures, like volcanic vents. Others prefer extreme conditions like deep within the rocks of the inner earth, or high in the atmosphere.

A Vast Microbial Army
Microbes work together like a vast army to provide a balanced and progressive approach to the environmental issues presented to a local area. The infinite intelligence behind this vast network of microbial influences keeping our environment together is held within the mysteries of Nature, of which modern science is just beginning to understand and appreciate.

Microbes require the presence of a variety of other microbes to be most effective - for in many instances, they also consume the dead bodies of each other as a primary source of food.

Microbes are Self-Regulating
Microbes grow and die off based on the food source availability and a natural self-regulating population control tendency. Once their job is done eating up the food source or pollution, the microbes destined for the next phase of the environmental cleanup project dominate by consuming the former microbe group.

Natural Progression
Nature has a natural progression determined by the state of the environment and the need of the moment. This is what happened in the Gulf of Mexico. Microbes specific for the consumption of the tar/oil began to increase in population to meet the demand.

The Power of Nature
Today, because the food sources for microbes were abundant in the Gulf of Mexico, the naturally-occurring microbes in the ocean grew to massive numbers and quickly consumed the excess oil once the leak had stopped.

This is a display of the power of Nature to reclaim her own - once man stops adding pollution to the air, land and waters of the earth.

Pre-existing Pollution Became a Stimulating Food Source for Microbes in the Gulf
Their food source was both the oil and the pre-existing high level of nitrogen and phosphorous runoff from the farms and sewage flowing down the Mississippi River.

Tributaries feeding into the entire length of the Mississippi had been adding their quota of both organic (septic) and chemical pollution runoff for several decades. It is this pollution from the large number of tributaries along the Mississippi River that was previously causing the 85,000 square mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Interestingly, in this instance, it also helped in the cleanup effort by Mother Nature. The oil became a catalyst for the microbes to multiply, and the existing farm and sewage pollution (with its microbial food sources of nitrogen and phosphorus), from the Mississippi River and tributaries, provided the other necessary nutrients for a massive microbial population explosion.

Imbalanced Chemical Fertilizers were the First Problem
The problem with this pollution from inland running into the Gulf, is that when excesses of oil are not present, the pollution itself feeds the algae (again, algae is one of Nature's way of cleaning up pollution), causing an algal bloom which uses up the available oxygen for marine life. This results in a die off of the marine life (a dead zone).

Chemical fertilizers do not contain the full spectrum of minerals similar to what Nature puts into a clay or well composted humus soil. Excesses of any kind create imbalances in the environment.

How to Keep the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Free (Human Intervention Required)
There still remains a long way to go to clean up the damage caused by the chemical dispersants and the beached oil dried on the rocks and various places less accessible to the ocean microbes. Human help is still required for a complete remediation of the Gulf, the coastlines, and the inlet marshes.

Microbial Population Explosion as the Safest Answer to Pollution
Microbial inoculations (called bioaugmentation) and biostimulation (providing additional microbial foods to stimulate a population explosion) will be required in areas where the food sources or natural environment do not contain ideal conditions for microbial development (like high and dry areas of rocks or inland areas low in additional food sources for microbes).

Pollution Reduction Upstream is Essential to Complete Remediation
Complete reversal of the former dead zone will require human intervention to reduce the pollution going into the tributaries to the Mississippi River. The overall environmental cleanup effort, to be most effective, will now have to extend its way up the Mississippi River to its source (Lake Itasca, Minnesota) and along each and every tributary from the 31 US states feeding pollution into the Gulf. (See Wikipedia for a complete list of states and tributaries:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River )

This pollution is coming from numerous sources:

What You Can Do to Put an End to Pollution Worldwide
Beginning with your home, business and local environments, demonstrate the effectiveness of a bioremediation solution. Then take that solution to other areas of the world until we have reclaimed our environment.

1) Reduce The Use of Environmental Pollutants
Clearly, the first thing each individual can do is to stop adding to the pollution. Due to the typical modern lifestyle, this is easier said than done, yet every effort in this direction will be helpful to curb the amount of pollution required to be cleaned up in the future (by our children and grandchildren).

2) Identify Potential Sites Suited for Bioremediation
Identify sites around the home, business or local environment where bioremediation (pollution cleanup) or bioaugmentation (increasing microbial populations) would benefit the environment.

Such local sites would include: