NORTH BAY BOH E MI A N | NOVEMBE R 29 - D EC E M BE R 5, 20 17 | BO H E M I AN.COM
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TOXIC TIDE The green wattle atop this water barrier has been inoculated with
mycelium, the weblike network of fungus that sprouts mushrooms.
Mushrooms ( 13 But thanks to an unprecedented public-private partnership, protection from that environmental hazard in hard-hit areas like Coffey Park, Larkfield-Wikiup and Fountain Grove has come from an unlikely source: mushrooms. Erik Ohlsen, a landscape architect and permaculture educator, saw that second wave of disaster coming and acted quickly to rally a diverse team of volunteers, environmental groups, landowners and public agencies to deploy cutting-edge bioremediation techniques using mushrooms and compost to absorb and neutralize the deadly runoff. He created the Fire Remediation Action Coalition on Facebook to help organize the effort and spread the word. And word spread quickly. The project took off as another example of the volunteerism and generosity that have characterized local efforts after the fire. Sebastopol’s Gourmet Mushrooms donated thousands of pounds of substrate used
to grow mushrooms. Sonoma Compost and West Marin Compost donated compost. Petaluma’s Wattle Guy provided, you guessed it, wattles—barriers and fences made from natural materials like rice straw and sticks. And groups like Russian Riverkeepers and the Clean River Alliance marshaled volunteers to make, fill and install the wattles and monitor water flow during and after the recent rains. It’s too early to know what impact the group has had in staving off another catastrophe. Data is still being collected and winter hasn’t even begun yet. But if the techniques prove effective, their efforts could be used as a case study for use elsewhere when urban firestorms occur—which fire experts say is a question of when, not if. Ohlsen says the undertaking offers a “tragic opportunity” to divert and neutralize the toxics from this disaster and to prepare for future wildfires. “These wildfires aren’t going anywhere,” he says. “They are ramping up in severity.” In the days after the fires,