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Cyanide dissolves gold just like sugars dissolves in the water.
氰化物溶解黄金就像糖溶于水一样。
It makes a pure solution out of it.
能够得到纯溶液。
After the gold was extracted, the cyanide solution was dumped into the town's Whitewood Creek.
黄金提取出来后，氰化物溶液被倒入镇上的怀特伍德溪中。
Killing everything in the water.
杀死水中的一切。
For over a hundred years, the creek ran black.
一百多年来，这条小溪一直是黑色的。
The environmental protection agency gave Homestake one year to develop a plan to get the cyanide out of the creek.
环境保护局给了霍姆斯特克公司一年时间，制定一项把氰化物从小溪中清除的计划。
The mine managers weren't sure how to tackle the problem and keep the mine profitable.
矿山经理们不知道如何解决这个问题，也不知道怎么样使矿山继续盈利。
For the people in lead South Dakota, profits for Homestake meant jobs for the town.
对于南达科他州的居民来说，霍姆斯特克公司的利润意味着城镇的就业机会。
There's very few things besides cyanide that will dissolve gold and they're a lot nastier than cyanide.
除了氰化物之外，几乎没有什么东西能溶解黄金，而且那些东西比氰化物更糟糕。
Homesnakes chief executive officer added a challenge.
霍姆斯特克公司首席执行官补充了一个挑战。
Make the stream pure enough for trout.
让溪水清澈得适合鳟鱼生活。
Homesnake hired a local biochemist Jim Whitlock.
该公司雇佣了当地的生化学家吉姆·惠特洛克。
Whitlock and his team decided to use their background in microbiology to try something new.
惠特洛克和他的团队决定利用他们在微生物学方面的背景，来尝试一些新的东西。
We started with a simple knowledge that bacteria can tolerate cyanide and we knew that some bacteria could tolerate a lot more cyanide than others.
我们从一个简单的知识开始，即细菌能耐受氰化物，我们知道有些细菌比其他细菌能耐受更多的氰化物。
In fact this was a standard means for microbiologist to identify bacteria based on how much cyanide they could tolerate.
事实上，这是微生物学家根据细菌可耐受的氰化物鉴定细菌的标准方法。
And so we looked into that in depth and what we found out is that they actually broke the cyanide molecule into two parts
我们深入研究了这一点，结果发现它们实际上把氰化物分子分解成两部分，
and so that they could actually use it as a food source.
这样就能把它作为食物来源。
This was the only thing that we found that had any potential to work.
这是我们唯一发现有可能可行的方法。
So it was a one-shot deal and it had the work that was a little bit on the scary part.
这是一锤子买卖，而且部分工作有点可怕。
It worked.
它奏效了。
Today all the water from the underground mine is filtered through these tanks.
今天，地下矿井的水都过滤过这些水箱。
Each containing about 20,000 pounds of Pseudomonas bacteria attached to plastic discs.
每个包含大约2万磅的假单胞菌附着在塑料盘上。
Now the bacteria like to attach to things and they have a little tail that they use to propel themselves around in the water.
细菌喜欢附着在物体上，它们有一个小尾巴，用来在水中推动自己。
They'll discard the tail and secrete a slime layer which is how they attach to the plastic.
它们会丢弃尾巴，分泌黏液层，这就是它们附着在塑料上的方式。
Yes.
是的。
So, as the disk rotates very slowly about one and a half revolutions per minute,
因此，当圆盘以每分钟1.5转的速度缓慢旋转时，
partially submerged in the water tank, the bacteria are attached to the disks.
部分浸入水箱中，细菌附着在圆盘上。
So they're in the water and then they're back in the air and then they're in the water.
它们在水里，然后又回到空中，再回到水里。
