Mycorestoration at World Oceans Day
by Hannah Hartmann and Sanae Allen | Reading time: 3 minutes
The 1st Annual Museum Square World Oceans Day event took place on Saturday, June 11 at Kalākaua Park. The organizers’ main goal for the event was to raise awareness around the importance of addressing a wide-array of environmental issues because they are all connected to ocean and freshwater health. We’d say that they accomplished their goal.
We, Hannah Hartmann and Riley (Sanae) Allen, ran a booth with signs reading “SHUT DOWN RED HILL,” “Mushroom Grow Kits,” “Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi,” “Mycoremediation: Clean Our ʻĀina,” and “Mycofiltration: Clean Our Water.” We had six bags of wheat berries inoculated with Blue Oyster mycelium, 72 10oz mason jars, two 5-gallon buckets of spent coffee grounds (donated by The Palace Grounds Cafe, Hilo), and a pile of damp, torn cardboard (donated by Cruising Coffee, HIlo).
Naturally, when folks approached our booth, they were perplexed as to what to expect. Each individual or family (there were many young children present) learned that we are the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi’s mycorestoration research team, and we are working on a project to explore the possibility of using mycofiltration to address the Navy’s jet fuel in the contaminated aquifer system on Oʻahu. We’d say about 80% of those present knew nothing about fungi or their remediative potential, and about 60% of those present knew nothing of what has been and is happening at the Red Hill facility.
We designed the booth to have a hands-on element in which folks layered grain spawn, cardboard, and coffee grounds in the mason jars to create their own mini-mycofilters. While they built their mycofilters, we gave a brief explanation as to how mycorestoration is truly just partnering with snack-seeking fungi and strategically placing their cultivated forms in contaminated land and water-scapes. Anyone can do it!
Our goal was for the participants to leave the booth aware of the power of fungi, knowing that they are able to cultivate the organism themselves, and understand that we are partnering with these fungi in an effort to hold the US Navy accountable for their actions and to heal what has been harmed.
The event officially ended at 2 PM. By 12:30, we had run out of jars to give away. Several folks donated a few dollars so that we could buy 36 more jars. By 1:30, all of those were gone too! We don’t think we stopped talking the entire time! It was an honor to engage in these conversations.
All 108 mini-mycofilters were taken to their respective homes with instructions for fruiting their oyster mushrooms. Our hope is that while the families watched the mycelium grow into a beautiful network and harvested the fruits (the mushrooms) for their dinner, they also thought a bit about the Red Hill crises and how those funny-looking women at World Oceans Day are trying to use mushrooms to clean up jet fuel!
During the event, we collected the email addresses of folks who were interested in receiving our bimonthly update/newsletter (which is still in the works), and connected with individuals who either had more questions, wanted to volunteer their time once we move into the experiment phases, or show their support financially.
We look forward to updating you all on our progress as we move along with this research as swiftly and with as much integrity as we can muster! Thank you for caring about our work. It means a lot.
Ola i ka wai!
With love and gratitude,
Hannah and Sanae