Second in a series of Mushroom remediation events
DATE AND TIME: Sunday, May 6, 2018 from 10:30am to 1pm
OTHER EVENT DETAILS:
WHERE:
Songs at Los Angeles Eco-Village
3554 West First St.
Los Angeles 90004
Enter thru chain link gate on Bimini Place just so. of W. First St.
FEE:
$10 to $25 (self selected sliding scale)
RESERVATIONS REQUIRED:
crsp@igc.org or 213/738-1254
MORE INFO:
crsp@igc.org or 213-738-1254
Mycelium, mushrooms, mycological remediation, fungi: it comes with many names, but what seems certain is that fungi of various varieties can go a long way toward cleaning up the industrial messes that have been contaminating our places and spaces since the beginnings of the industrial revolution, and even the mess that some of the ancients created, though not nearly as extensively as we have in these more contemporary times.
So, what to do, besides just dig the soil up and cart it away! Here in the Los Angeles Eco-Village, we’ve just said No! to that! Away?? Where’s “Away” anyway? A “hazardous waste facility?” A conventional landfill? Someone else’s backyard?
Some of us here think, no matter who made the mess, it’s our place now, and we should learn to clean it up here where we’re at, because our sense of “away” for bad stuff, is that there is no “away!”
Public agencies have been helping to make that happen in a variety of ways with, for example, the US-Environmental Protection Agency’s Super-Fund sites, and to a lesser extent with a wide variety of Brownfields** throughout the country. Cities, Counties and States, too, have been helping fund many of these clean-ups that dig and haul soil “away.” It’s expensive but it’s quick! And with most developers, time is money, and everyone wants stuff to happen quickly.
But in the times we are living in, those monies are getting scarce, and we can only see them getting scarcer in the future, as we continue to accelerate our penchant for making our cities and rural lands more and more contaminated, not only with the devastating toxics of hydrocarbon derivatives, and toxic heavy metals in our soils, but with the poisons fostered upon our food supply, even as GMO seeds and toxic pesticides and herbicides drift onto organic farms and sometimes contaminated waters are used to irrigate the land.
We have decided to take matters into our own hands: to learn as much as we can about phyto-technologies or bio-remediation. These are technologies that use plants, trees, micro-organisms, fungi, air, and water to break down or take up both organic and inorganic toxins to render them harmless. Granted the inorganic contaminants’ for example lead, copper, cadmium, etc.; take longer, but we can learn patience and how to respect these biological resources as they make their magic happen.
Our long time friend, Jim Bledsoe–artist, self-taught fungi activist, bicycle activist, inventor, carpenter, fixer–will lead us in a micro demonstration for remediating the oil contaminated concrete floor at Songs*.
We invite you to come learn with us.
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*CRSP will be sponsoring a variety of phyto-technology workshops on the new property in the north corner of the Los Angeles Eco-Village demonstration neighborhood, known as Songs, in the coming years. We will be promoting these workshops to community groups throughout the Los Angeles area that are dealing with contaminated soils in their neighborhoods.
**A Brownfield is any site that is actually contaminated or perceived to be contaminated. The property that CRSP purchased a little over a year ago is a brownfield with a variety of toxins in the soils and inside the buildings
Los Angeles Eco-Village is celebrating our 25th Anniversary all year long: 1993 to 2018. Come hang out with us and share your stories about your experiences here.