Love, soil found in research

By Brad Ramsay
Summer Reporter

Phytoremediation, the use of plants to clean up contaminated soil, may be responsible for naturally cleaning up oil spills around the world, but it's also responsible for bringing together two professors.

Paul Schwab, a professor of agronomy, and Kathy Banks, a professor of civil engineering, met when they were both professors at Kansas State University.

Banks was writing up a proposal for phytoremediation and needed help looking at soil characteristics. She contacted Schwab and from then they began researching the subject. The two didn't have an instant love connection; it took a few years for them to start dating.

When asked about married life, Banks jokes that she thinks they are still happily married as long as no one left their dirty socks on the floor last night.

Banks said she is afraid that sometimes their research monopolizes the dinner conversation. Their son complains that they always are talking about work. They have been trying to separate home life from work life; however, Schwab said that it can be difficult at times.

They also get insight about different issues because their children give them a new perspective and help them be able to better communicate their findings to the lay person. Banks compliments her husband on how he turns issues from work into lessons for the children.

Banks said that they were one of the first groups that started researching phytoremediation about 10 years ago and it has just exploded in the last ten years. Schwab said that he doubts their research will ever turn into the dominant way to deal with contaminated soil because it isn't a very instantaneous way to tackle the problem. It takes time for the microbes that attach to the plants' roots to break down the contaminants. Phytoremediation is not the best way if you need it taken care of immediately, but if you need it eventually. Banks said it has proved well in transforming some soils into parks or trails.

Schwab said a company dug a big pit and filled it with drudge material. They planned to dig the newly revitalized soil out of the pit and haul it away, then replace it with a new batch of contaminated soil. The community so enjoyed the new plants and soil that they used eminent domain and took over the company's pit and built a park.

Their research has taken them all over the United States. They have been responsible for sites in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Norfolk, Va., Bedford, Ind. and more recently St. Louis.

Their research doesn't leave much for leisure time and they have never gotten to make one of the trips an extended family vacation. Banks said she wishes they could have, but we are in the field 12 hours a day and there just isn't time.

Travelling to these different places, it is difficult to find plants that are able to survive in the different climates. Schwab said in Texas they had to find a plant that could survive a drought and also a hurricane because it would be dry for months and then a hurricane would dump six inches of water on it.

Banks and Schwab recently taught a whole course around phytoremediation. They took students out to their site in Bedford for research. They were never in the classroom at the same time until one day they were speaking to the class about the final. Banks said they got into a fairly animated debate. Students were really enjoying watching them argue with each other.