Trees – is there anything they can’t do? Besides producing oxygen, preventing erosion, providing wood and fiber for human use and mopping up carbon dioxide, trees are being used to clean up contaminated water from Superfund sites. It’s called phytoremediation.

Just 25 miles south of Chicago, a sizable supply of nuclear waste is buried underground, compliments of Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne has used extraction wells to pump tainted wastewater to a treatment plant, but underground waterways change direction all the time, and besides, why be inefficient when you can subcontract nature instead?

Now, over 900 willow and poplar trees are on the job they do best: absorbing groundwater and sending roots out searching for more when it changes course. The contaminated water is processed naturally by the trees and rendered completely harmless by the time it evaporates through the leaves back into the atmosphere. And the trees themselves show no signs of harm. Now that’s good performance.

Image: dano