Brownfield Restoration with Tree Planting and Soil Microbiome
Vegetation on urban sites plays a vital role in stormwater management and pollution control. Urban sites, especially those that have a history of industrial use, often release various levels of contamination into the waterbodies through surface runoff and groundwater flow. In Oswego County, much of this contamination eventually discharges into Lake Ontario. Strategically planted trees and shrubs will help reduce stormwater runoff and groundwater flow, decreasing non-point source pollution entering Lake Ontario. Trees, together with the soil microbiome, also breakdown pollutants, detoxicate heavy metals and recover contaminated soils. But that is only one of the many benefits trees and shrubs bring to the community. They will also help rebuild the canopy in the urban area, create wildlife habitat, improve biodiversity in the urban ecosystem, rebuild the lost soil microbiome, improve air quality, and build resilience to extreme climate conditions.
In 2016 and 2017, 659 trees and shrubs were planted on the brownfield sites across Oswego County. With a novel watering technology that charges with rainwater and slowly releases it to trees, it helps the trees survive with minimal maintenance and reduces stormwater runoff. This project is building up a green infrastructure with a cost-effective, resilient means of treating stormwater pollution at its source and keeping it out of Lake Neatahwanta and Lake Ontario.
In June 2025, 9 years after the project was started, we revisited the sites and collected soil samples for analysis with a novel soil genomics technology. The soils contain billions of units of bacteria and 10s of millions of units of fungi species in each gram of soil. The makeup of the microbe species has some noticeable differences for the soil in the control area and the treated area. For example, some bacterial species (e.g. Geobacter sp.) with reported functions of bioremediation of heavy metal contaminants have been identified. Their total count was found to be 18 times different. This finding offers a novel approach to brownfield bioremediation.
Learning Objectives:
- Learn and discuss fundamentals about brownfields, as well as the use of green stormwater infrastructure for restoration, bioremediation and phytoremediation.
- Learn from the case study about how Oswego County NY used trees to reduce stormwater runoff and pollution
- Learn how soil genomics revealed the promising trend with insights into the bioremediation with soil microbe
1 ISA CEU and 1 LACES PDH
December 16, 2026 12:00-1:30 PM ET
