Living Machines

The Living Machine at Edgewood College constructed by the Wingra Ecological
Design Project Team to explore treatment of stormwater pollution; water
enters stage 1 at right and flows through to the final (wetland) stage at far left.

for a larger view of picture click it

Living Machines are specially-designed ecosystems, powered primarily by sunlight and designed to perform a particular kind of work. They have been used to produce food and fuels, treat wastes, purify air, and regulate climate within buildings.

The present generation of Living Machines derive from a system designed and tested by John Todd, PhD, in 1988. Today, there are seven different sites around the country where Living Machines are successfully restoring once-polluted waters, treating residential sewage and turning industrial waste into environmentally friendly by-products.

Living Machines are made up of fabricated components, e.g. plexiglass columns and fish tanks, that work with sunlight and organisms arrayed in food webs to process and purify wastes.

The Wingra Ecological Design Project Team, a group of independently affiliated scientists, resource managers, and consultants have constructed a laboratory scale machine. This is a prototype to test the effectiveness of a system to treat storm water runoff and other sources of pollution that now run into Lake Wingra, Madison's smallest lake.

Over the next year, the group will work with the machine located in Edgewood College's Mazzuchelli Biological Station to determine what variables (light, flow rates, plants, and animals) need to be adjusted for optimal functioning. Once its study is complete, the group's goal is to secure the support needed to design and build Living Machines at key spots around Lake Wingra to improve the quality of that lake's water.

FUTURE PROJECTS

ongoing communcications and networking among people interested in living machine technology
refinements, monitoring, and future research involving the Mazzuchelli living machine
possible additional living machine projects in the Madison area

How to learn more

Contact Kevin Little or Jim Lorman
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