ABSTRACT

Biosolids are recommended for amelioration of degraded land, because they add nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorus, and organic matter to the soil for plant growth. Recycling of biosolids to reclaim and revegetate areas disturbed by mining has long been promoted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In 2006, researchers at Kansas State University added amendments to mine waste materials at Galena, to see if they would change their microbial properties. They found that only high levels of compost increased microbial activity. Biosolids have never been applied to the mine waste materials at Galena, to see if they would reduce availability of the heavy metals to plants. Therefore, the researchers sampled the waste materials in the plots established by L. R Baker and set up a greenhouse study with sudex, a sorghum-sudan grass hybrid, to determine the effect of biosolids on the growth of the sudex and transfer of heavy metals from roots to shoots and then to heads.