06/21/2026
A simple bag of woodchips seeded with turkey tail mushroom spores just outperformed expectations as a river filter in Devon, England.
Dropped to the riverbed, the mycelium network filtered out 80% of E. coli, 83% of phosphorus, and 35% of nitrogen from sewage and agricultural runoff.
The results were strong enough that water regulator OFWAT handed Anglian Water nearly $2 million to scale the approach. A parallel trial in Lincolnshire targeted the phosphorus and nitrogen runoff that fuels algae blooms and starves waterways of oxygen.
Anglian Water's Joshua Mercer called the fungi a second line of defense behind conventional treatment, framing the river as a living system that mycelium can support, not a pipe to be managed.
The cost is negligible, the inputs are biodegradable, and the mechanism is mycoremediation, already documented for heavy metals and even nuclear radiation.
