WIRED Staff
Science

Slideshow: Cleaning Up After Ourselves

Though banned in the 1970s, toxic PCBs persist in high concentrations around the world. Now a Stanford team says it may have the solution: carbon. By Amit Asaravala.
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Lance Dohman of Aquatic Environments stands on the Aquamog that he used to help Stanford researchers mix carbon into contaminated sediment around Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard. The researchers hope the carbon will bind to the harmful PCBs in the sediment, keeping them from accumulating in the region's organisms.Amit Asaravala

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A sign at Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard warns visitors in multiple languages not to eat fish or shellfish caught in the area. Harmful PCBs have been found in mud flats at the site and are known to bioaccumulate, reaching dangerously high levels in animals farther up the food chain.

Amit Asaravala
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Aquatic Environments' Lance Dohman and Stanford postdoctoral student Dennis Smithenry examine the mud after mixing carbon into it.

Amit Asaravala
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Stanford researchers prepare to take water samples around the treated plot so they can measure the concentration of PCBs released into the water after the sediment has been churned by the Aquamog.

Amit Asaravala