[Pil-pc-oceania] Plant/water uptake of heavy metals from soil etc

[jedd]

On Thu, 16 Aug 2007, Deb Guildner wrote:
> himself around his laboratory, but had an unfortunate accident after
> becoming entangled in them and strangled himself. It's a true story
> stranger than fiction.

 Around his bedroom, and yes, this is the guy - Thomas Midgley.

 North American rather than German.

> Arsenic is a common bore water contaminant, though increasingly other
> mineral salts are too.  Could be from parent rock....not much you can do
> about that, but strongly recommend using filter on all bore water..

 I was looking at relatively passive ways of cleaning this kind of
 thing out of water, using some parabolic dishes, for example,
 and boiling / condensing water.  Also a neat way of moving water
 a short way uphill.  But apparently this kills the water.  Which
 sounds like a load of old bollocks to me, but my sister considers
 this to be a show stopper as far as purifying systems go.

 I gather that filtering heavy metals is a pretty Big Deal, insofar
 as the filter technology has trouble doing this cheaply.  Filters
 also need regular replacement, so you can add in maintenance
 as the second big problem.

 Jedd.