#remediation — Public Fediverse posts

Team of #HZDR, #Wismut and University of Granada demonstrated that bacteria can convert #uranium dissolved in water into a stable compound when they have access to #glycerol as a food source, a finding relevant to future research on the use of bacteria for environmental #remediation.

Image: HZDR/J. Raff/E. Krawczyk-Bärsch/edited with AI

▶️ https://www.hzdr.de/presse/u-bacteria

#Australia: Research shows #NativePlants can detox #PFAS-contaminated #water

New research from Australia's national science agency #CSIRO, the #UniversityOfSouthAustralia and the #UniversityOfWesternAustralia has found that PFAS chemicals can be removed from contaminated water using Australian plants grown in a floating #wetland.

May 4, 2022

"They’re the non-stick on #Teflon cookware, the stain resistance in #Scotchgard, and the suppression factor in #FirefightingFoam, but while the staying power of PFAS chemicals was once revered, it’s now infamous as PFAS substances continue to infiltrate the #environment and affect human health.

"Now, new research from the University of South Australia is helping to remediate the ‘indestructible’ PFASs as scientists show that Australian native plants can significantly remediate PFAS pollutants through floating wetlands to create healthier environments for all.

"Conducted in partnership with CSIRO and the University of Western Australia, the research found that PFAS chemicals (per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) can be removed from contaminated water via Australian #NativeRushes - #PhragmitesAustralis, #BaumeaArticulata, and #JuncusKraussii.

"Phragmites australis, otherwise known as the #CommonReed, removed legacy PFAS contaminants by 42-53 per cent from contaminated surface water (level: 10 µg/L).

"According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, exposure to PFAS may lead to a range of health issues including a decline in fertility, developmental delays in children, increased risk of some cancers, a reduced immune system, higher cholesterol, and risk of obesity.

"UniSA and CSIRO researcher Dr John Awad says that this research could alleviate many of these environmental and health risks by providing a clean, green, and cost-effective method to remove PFAS from the environment.

" 'PFASs are often referred to as ‘forever chemicals’ because they don’t break down, instead accumulating in the environment and in our bodies where they can cause adverse health effects,' Dr Awad says.

" 'In Australia, PFAS concerns often relate to the use of firefighting foam – especially legacy firefighting foam – which accumulates in the #SurfaceWater of our #waterways.

" 'Our research tested the effectiveness of Australian rushes to remove #PFASChemicals from #stormwater, finding that Phragmites australis was the most effective at absorbing chemicals through its roots and shoots.'

"The study used constructed floating wetlands as a mechanism for plants to grow #hydroponically. Dr Awad says floating wetlands present a novel and flexible way for natural #remediation systems.

" 'Constructed floating wetlands can be readily installed into existing urban environments, such as holding reservoirs and retention basins, making them highly manoeuvrable and adaptable to local waterways,' Dr Awad says.

" 'Plus, as this innovative water treatment system does not require pumping or the ongoing addition of #chemicals, it is a #CostEffective remediation system for PFAS removal.

" 'Add native plants to the mix and we have delivered a truly clean, green and environmentally-friendly method for removing toxic PFAS chemicals from contaminated water.' "

Notes to editors:

- So far, the floating wetlands system has only been examined under control laboratory conditions for PFAS remediation and the research team is looking forward to testing it in the real world, under natural conditions.
- This research is being carried out at the UniSA Mawson Lakes campus. PFAS has not been detected in or around Mawson lakes."

https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/News/2022/May/Hydroponic-native-plants-to-detox-PFAS-contaminated-water

Original press release:
https://www.unisa.edu.au/media-centre/Releases/2022/hydroponic-native-plants-to-detox-pfas-contaminated-water/

#SolarPunkSunday #PFAScontamination #ForeverChemicals #Remediation #PollutionSolutions #WaterIsLife #PFASPollution #Remediation #PFASRemoval #PFASRemediation

Remember the Urunga wetlands waste tailings rich in antimony, arsenic, lead and cyanide?

"For five years in the 1960s and 1970s, antimony and other heavy metals leached from an ore processing plant into the melaleuca wetlands. The wetlands used to open up into a moonscape of light grey sand with not a single bit of vegetation."
>>
https://www.crownland.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-07/Urunga-Wetlands-fact-sheet.pdf
https://majorprojects.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/prweb/PRRestService/mp/01/getContent?AttachRef=SSD-5357%2120190227T035916.488%20GMT

Now they want to go for Wild Cattle Creek 'high-grade and high-tonnage' antimony-gold mining >>
https://www.listcorp.com/asx/tmg/trigg-minerals-limited/news/acquisition-of-globally-significant-antimony-project-3091939.html

A Clarence Catchment Alliance community meeting

is being hosted by the Bellingen Environment Centre,
with Blicks River Guardians and Lock the Gate Nambucca,
from 2pm on Friday May 31 at 16 Cudgery St, Dorrigo.
>>
https://clarencevalleynews.com.au/clarence-catchment-alliance-community-meeting/
#NSW #Dorrigo #Urunga #remediation #CoffsHarbour #mining #antimony #gold #extractivism #harm #WildCattleCreek #WCC #water #contamination #wetlands #rivers #waterways #freshwater #MarineWater #platypus #biodiversity #BellingenShire

Legacy Mercury Contamination From Historical Gold Mining - A Visualization Tool For Spatial Data On Sediment, Water, And Biota In The Sierra Nevada, California
--
https://ca.water.usgs.gov/sierra-mercury/ <-- shared technical article / storybook
--
https://doi.org/10.5066/P9EL0UN9 <-- shared USGS technical report
--
https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/earth-focus/mercury-in-our-waters-the-10-000-year-legacy-of-californias-gold-rush <-- shared media article
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #water #hydrology #sediment #biota #ecosystems #spatialanalysis #sampling #mercury #gold #goldmining #history #SierraNevada #goldrush #California #USA #contamination #humanimpacts #waterquality #hydraulicmining #minewaste #environment #methylmercury #watersecurity #publichealth #transportation #uptake #bioaccumulation #landmanagement #hotspots #remediation #ecology #mining
@USGS

Tomorrow (Thurs, July 20) I'm hosting a webinar to share key findings from several years' worth of published research on vulnerability remediation. We have 8 data-packed reports to cover in ~30 minutes. To accomplish that, I've chosen two representative charts from each report - which was TOUGH!

Register here and let me know how you think I did: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7316732996513/WN_FHnATAyWTzG_lsjH3PkbLQ#/registration

#vulnerability #vulnerabilities #devops #devsecops #vulnerabilitymanagement #vulnerability #vulnerabilityassessment #vulnerabilityscanning #exposuremanagement #remediation #cyberriskmanagement #informationsecurity #infosec #appsec #applicationsecurity #appsecurity

Excerpt from my latest Cyentia Institute blog post, “Patching, Fast and Slow”:

There are many ways one could measure how quickly vulnerabilities are patched. Most go with a simple average, but such point statistics are a poor representation of what’s really happening with remediation timeframes. Our favored method for this is survival analysis. I won’t get into the methodology here other than to say it tracks the “death” (remediation) of vulnerabilities over time to produce a curve that looks like the ones below comparing remediation speed among sectors.

The lesson? Get remediation strategy advice from your investment firm rather than your insurer, perhaps? We could ask a bunch of other questions about why certain organizations or industries struggle more than others to address vulnerabilities…but this isn’t that post. But I do suspect the “system” guiding the patching strategies of these organizations makes a big difference in the shape of their remediation curves.

You may have caught the title of this post being a reference to Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” That was partly because it’s catchy and fits the topic. But I also think there’s a parallel to be drawn from one of the main points of that book. Kahneman describes two basic types of thinking that drive human decision-making:

System 1: Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, unconscious

System 2: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious

Maybe you see where I’m headed here. I’m not saying we can boil all patching down to just two different approaches. But my experience and research support the notion that there are two broad systems at play. Many assets lend themselves to automated, fast deployment of patches without much additional preparation or evaluation (e.g., newer versions of Windows and OSX). Those fall under System 1 patching.

Other assets require manual intervention, testing, risk evaluation, or additional effort to deploy. That fits the System 2 definition well. The more your organization has to engage in System 2 rather than System 1 patching, the slower and shallower those remediation timelines will appear. Like normal decisions, we can’t do everything via System 1…some assets need that extra System 2 treatment. But problems (and/or delays) arise when there’s a mismatch between the system used and the decision (remediation) scenario.

My takeaway for vulnerability management programs? Use System 1 patching as much as possible and System 2 patching only where necessary.

See all the analysis leading up to this conclusion in the full post: https://www.cyentia.com/patching-fast-and-slow/

#patchmanagement #vulnerabilitymanagement #vulnerabilityassessment #vulnerabilities #exposuremanagement #riskmanagement #cyberriskmanagement #remediation #cve #appsec #appsecurity #secops #securityoperations #cybersecurity #infosec #infosecurity