by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

The fenced-off field near the Atwater Market looks innocuous to the untrained eye, but in fact the plants that grew there last summer are the latest weapons in the battle against pollution. The 10 types of vegetation growing there included three types - a specially chosen mustard plant, a type of grass and a tree - that did something rather amazing: they were found to suck pollution right out of the soil on which they grew.

Throughout the island of Montreal - particularly in the southwest - sits soil full of industrial waste and toxins. The poisons include lead - known to lower the IQ of children - as well as fuels used to heat homes long ago, the toxic remnants of which were buried in backyards.

The cost of conventional methods of detoxifying such soil have spiralled beyond all expectations. For example, last year the city put aside $900,000 to clean up Leber Park in the Point, only to be informed that the bill to detoxify the land would come out to $13-million.

But this week, at the big Americana Environmental Congress held in Montreal, a local company called Inspec-Sol unveiled a much cheaper plant-based solution to the problem. Last year the company teamed up with three levels of government, the Botanical Gardens and the Institute of Biotechnological Research (IRB) to test plants that elsewhere had proven effective in extracting toxins from the soil in a process known as phytoremediation.

The company started by searching for city-owned poisoned earth. "That part wasn't hard, we have no shortage of those on the island," says Guy Châteauneuf, environmental manager of Inspec-Sol.

After a season of growth along the Lachine Canal, the soil was tested in January. The results proved that three plants had sucked significant amounts of poisons from the soil. Chateauneuf believes the vegetation could clear 20 to 40 per cent of toxins over five to eight years.

The plants store the toxins in their leaves, branches and stems, which must then be either burnt or buried elsewhere, but Chateauneuf says the poison-sucking plants pose no danger. "I don't think many people will be eating the grass or the bark of those trees," he says. "I mean, we're not growing radishes or tomatoes here."

The need for cheaper soil clean-ups will be greater than ever after March 27, when stringent new rules as decreed by provincial Environment Minister André Boisclair in Bill 72 come into effect. Previously the ministry issued only guidelines, which were often negotiated and challenged by builders. The new laws mete out harsh punishment for developers who build on toxic soil.

Chateauneuf says the new conditions could encourage customers to come running. "We want to find people with big contaminated pieces of land, and then we'll provide a service of planting and harvesting. We think it's a big potential market," he says.

Cameron Charlebois, assistant director general of Montreal's Urban and Economic Development Service, likes the idea. "The environment is one of the most invested areas in terms of research to lower costs. We spend more now cleaning up land than we did 10 years ago, but our standards are much more demanding than they were." :