The Landslide Blog posted on a fascinating video of muddy water pushed out of soil fissures during the Sendai earthquake. What you are seeing in the video (1:30, 2:35) may be how our Inland NW clastic dikes were formed.

In the Inland Northwest USA we have extensive slackwater sediments left by multiple glacial flood events. Most are in Washington State (see map of Lake Lewis). In some places, they are shot full of clastic dikes, a concern because they might provide a preferential pathway for contaminants reaching groundwater.

Short circuiting of contaminants down dike structures is enough of a concern that Washington Department of Ecology has us assess clastic dike presence during siting studies of industrial wastewater sprayfields (see WDOE-9336, page 12).

An actual occurrence of this type of pollutant short circuiting is yet to be documented, but that doesn’t keep clastic dikes from being one of the more fascinating features of Washington soils and geology.

In a very positive development for biochar stakeholders, a Biochar Characterization Standard Working Group is being convened by the International Biochar Initiative.

All of us working with biochar recognize this as a critically important issue.  One is left to wonder how much more effective recent federal research would have been if it had included a robust characterization of the biochar stock provided by the fast pyrolysis industries.

That research often does a poor job in controlling for the liming effect of the biochar.  How much of a boost to productivity would you get with just the liming effect absent the charcoal?  This clearly matters and, as I have shared with some of the Working Group members, I would like to see acid neutralizing potential or ANP ( in units of calcium carbonate equivalent or CCE) be at least considered as a labeling requirement. Other aspects are more critical, but even a coarse rating of low-med-high ANP would be very useful. Acid neutralizing potential is usually low in biochar, between 1 and 2% CCE. On the other hand, some biochar stocks can have substantial ANP above 20% and as a consequence could alter forested soil ecology in unintended ways. Out here in the inland Western US and Canada, our soils are less acidic than in the East, thus the same ANP application basis that will have no discernible effect on soil pH in the East, could move our soils from pH 7 to 8. That concern is what keeps Avista’s Kettle Falls mill-waste-to-energy, high carbon, ash going into a private landfill rather than beneficially reused on our forests here, whereas ash application is accepted practice in the Eastern states. Personally, I think the Kettle Falls material could, and should, be land applied. Its just a matter of finding the appropriate site conditions.

The idea of using biochar to enhance urban soils came on strong last week at the Sustainable Sites Symposium in Chicago. The quality of a landscape depends largely on the quality of its soils. Root invigoration research indicates a tree given a more productive enviroment doesn’t need as many roots to thrive. This can have huge implications for urban forestry. Biochar can help support a larger and more vigorous urban canopy. However biochar effects are complex, affected by source, pyrolysis process, and site dynamics.  There is little research to support urban use of biochar, but the value of potential soil health improvements assures eventual study. Symposium attendee Christine Esposito reports that the City of Chicago is receptive to making sites available to study biochar in urban soils. I am thinking Lopa Brunjes could use this story to good effect in her February biochar presentation to TED.

Range managers promote the health of living soil systems as essential to sustained business viability.

That forage productivity is a function of soil health is not news. What is news is our evolving appreciation of soil health in terms of a living system. Restored soil is a highly valuable asset in most any setting, and the more intense the land use, the more to be contributed by good soil. Ecological restoration and urban redevelopment have much to gain from the grazing schools of soil husbandry.

There are lots of bits to this puzzle, but when it comes to sustaining life in soil, the energy bit is not to be forgotten. Mulch and compost delivers food energy. Soy bean meal, used to improve soil structure in public turf and playing fields, works similarly.

Cover crops and woody vegetation work to sustain a healthy symbiotic rhizospheric soil community on root exudate rich in food energy. This is a different microbial community than is working on the sloughed root mass, on soy bean meal, mulch and compost – a healthy soil has both a rhizosheric community and a bulk (jargon for outside the rhizospheric soil enveloping the root) soil community thriving in concert.

Gary Jones has posted about this article also, and alludes to a food energy feast available in the context of pulse grazing.

Pulse grazing jolts the system in a good way, and there is a lesson to be learned here that is applicable to urban soils where drastic disturbance often causes the system to loses species diversity. When it comes time to revive soil life, the rate of restoration is slowed by a combination of extremely low population, an excess of predators which restrict re-population, and absent the species diversity needed to share in the restoration dynamic. Pulsed management is an important tool for overcoming this inertia.

Building a diverse palette of soil microbial species in a drastically disturbed site, this is a worthwhile challenge, this is the acme of success. Soil health, wealth, and wisdom.

Recently I had the opportunity to watch a clip of Storm Cunningham’s stirring presentation to the TEDxMidAtlantic 2010 conference. He speaks to the economic dynamo that builds when communities revitalize their resources. Storm Cunningham terms it the restoration economy, and the scope is awesome; natural and cultural resources, urban and rural. I see renewal in terms of soils, and the role I can play, and I get excited. At its core, this is what my work is about.

Twin City Foods will be building pretreatment facilities to mitigate for the effects of hydraulic overloading in the sprayfield it operates in Ellensburg, WA.

The site photo below was taken in 1997 It depicts one of the last sprayfields to go into anaerobic failure in Washington State. Before this time, sprayfield designs tended to ignore application uniformity and soil moisture effects on BOD treatment capacity. In most sprayfields, loading of oxygen demanding constituents is not a design limiting parameter, and warrants abbreviated consideration. That is not the case with high strength wastewater, and professional judgement is required to distinguish when further consideration is warranted.  When in doubt, have a qualified soil scientist evaluate soil-based BOD treatment capacity.