A new monthly seminar series will be held on the third Thursday of each month to highlight the research of the trainees. The presentations begin at 12 noon and will be in the Hallie Ford Center room 115 on the OSU Campus. Our partners at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will participate via video conferencing. All are welcome to the presentations.
This year the EPA Partners in Technical Assistance Program (PTAP) Pilot has launched the first project with a school located near the Black Butte Mine Superfund Site in rural Cottage Grove, Oregon.
“The overall objective of PTAP is to expand opportunities for cooperation between EPA and colleges, universities or nonprofits with the shared goal of assessing and addressing the unmet technical assistance needs of impacted communities. Through PTAP, colleges, universities, and nonprofit organizations cooperate with EPA and voluntarily commit to assist communities with their unaddressed technical assistance needs. At this time, PTAP is in the pilot phase, working with NIEHS Superfund Research Program grantees as PTAP pilot partners. Following this pilot phase, the intention is to expand this project so that any interested colleges, universities or nonprofits may also join the PTAP.”
OSU Superfund Research Program has begun a partnership with EPA through this Pilot to help them expand upon their community outreach capabilities surrounding the Black Butte site.
On December 18, 2013, we met with Laurie Briggs, the Principal of the London School, because she had a strong desire to give her students and their families’ science and environmental health knowledge. About 100 rural K – 8th grade students go to London school.
Our visit included getting to know one another, listening to the needs of the school, and a school tour. We were impressed with the beauty and organization. The school built and maintains a 1/4-acre organic garden, and has a trail to a river flowing behind the property. 72% of the students qualify for free/reduced lunch, and delicious healthy meals are cooked on site.
For this project, we plan to:
1) Maintain communication through monthly meetings, and share notes and project milestones on our web site. [Our next meeting is January 30th, 2014 at OSU.]
2) Address community and educational needs.
Create a hands-on, project-based integrated curriculum related to the science of the Superfund site and mercury contamination that can serve as a model for other rural, small schools.
Discuss ways to educate the students and community and expand and build a sustainable partnership.
3) Provide training opportunities for SRP Trainees wanting outreach experience.
4) Help students understand career opportunities in environmental and life sciences.
The Project Team from left Diana Rohlman (OSU SRP CEC), Alanna Conley (EPA, Region 10), Dan Sudakin (OSU SRP RTC), Laura Briggs (London School Principal), Naomi Hirsch (OSU SRP RTC). Not pictured: Corey Fisher and Molly Kile (OSU SRP CEC), Melissa Dreyfus (EPA Headquarters Superfund Community Involvement Program), Kira Lynch, (EPA Region 10, Science and Tech Liaison), and Richard Muza (Region 10 – Black Butte Mine, Project Manager)
This final session focused on Community Engagement and included a presentation by one of our trainees, Andy Larkin, entitled Making models personal: increasing the impact of atmospheric pollutant models by predicting pollutant levels at Android and iPhone locations.
Over 110 people participated on the webinar. Andy provided an outstanding overview of the mobile app he developed and included future directions and needs.
Presenting as part of this Risk eLearning Series let us demonstrate how GIS chips in smartphones could be used to provide personalized information about air quality. ~Andy Larkin
Smartphones are one of the newest methods available for collecting location-based information. There are currently more than one billion active smartphone users in the world (source: CBSNews.com).
Smartphones can identify a person’s location and pollutant models can predict pollution levels at a given location. By linking smartphones with pollutant models, it is hypothesized that multiple pollutants can be predicted at smartphone locations. Geographical constraints are based on the constraint of the underlying pollutant models, and can conceivably cover the extent of the entire world.
Sampling and retaining locations at regular intervals can provide a well documented past of predicted pollutant levels at smartphone locations. Input from the smartphone user about intended future locations can potentially be used to predict pollutant levels at future locations.
Sampling data acquired from a group representative of the population can be used to make inferences about spatial and temporal trends regarding pollution level conditions for the entire population
To test the proof of principle that smartphones can be linked with environmental maps, Larkin created PM2.5, PM10, and ozone hourly forecast maps for the state of Oregon. Maps forecast predicted exposure levels at air monitoring stations using Seasonal Integrated Moving Average (SIMA) time series models. Forecasts at air monitoring stations are then interpolated to cover the entire state using universal Kriging for PM2.5 and PM10, and inverse distance weighing for ozone. These modeling methods were chosen because they can be validated and evaluated using prediction errors.
The future in personal monitoring is combining complementary technologies.
Step 1: The smartphone determines its location and current time, and sends the information to a cloud storage database as a .csv fileStep 2: After location values are sent to the cloud storage database, the predicted pollutant concentrations for all models within the database are determined for the given latitude and longitude coordinatesStep 3: Predicted pollutant values and the original information are then returned to the smartphone in a .csv file format
Our first seminar to train grad students to communicate science and risk beyond academia (#TOX607) ) is coming to an end. Next week is our very last class. This multidisciplinary seminar included 48 grad students from 14 different departments.
The students gained knowledge in key areas that are mostly overlooked in graduate programs.
Describing research in plain language
Using tools in Microsoft Word to assess for readability and grade level.
Distilling the message and bottom line of your research
Re-framing questions about safety using the risk framework
Utilizing active listening techniques and the importance of listening
Writing for the web
Understanding the role and importance of social media tools and platforms to communication science
Today students got a taste of Twitter, and here is a story about it.
Steven O’Connell sampling at the Portland Harbor Superfund Site
In the past few years, our Center has been conducting research to learn more about oxygenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (OPAHs). OPAHs are one of the degradation products of parent PAHs. OPAHs are studied because they are present in the environment and pose an unknown hazard to human health.
Focus on this class of compounds has really increased in the last few years, although it’s interesting to note that there were reports of some of these compounds in the 1970’s and earlier. There are several reasons researchers want to study these compounds. OPAHs seem to be found in similar concentrations to the highly studied parent PAHs in a variety of samples ranging from diesel exhaust to urban air. Additionally, not a lot is known about the toxicity of these compounds, although early evidence suggests that they may be on par with PAHs. That’s why the OPAH research of students Andrea Knecht and Britton Goodale in Dr. Robert Tanguay’s Lab (Project 3) has been so important.
Why measure OPAHs at the Portland Harbor Superfund Site?
It makes a lot of sense to try and measure OPAHs at Portland Harbor Superfund. PAHs have been responsible for remediation at some sites for years now, and are the precursors of OPAHs. In some cases, remediation approaches employ ultra violet (UV) light to try and degrade PAHs and thereby cleanup that site. However, it is possible that PAHs could degrade to OPAHs during the process. If no one is monitoring the products of this UV treatment, the site could remain hazardous. That’s why Norman Forsberg’s upcoming paper and Marc Elie’s work with ultra violet light in the Anderson laboratory (Project 4) is so interesting.
What still needs to be understood?
The formation and concentration of these compounds in the environment at contaminated sites are poorly understood. It is important to continue three areas of research that have been going on at OSU.
Detection: If the compounds are not present, then there’s less to worry about.
Good times with lab mates when Steven O’Connell (right) first started working in the Anderson lab.
Toxicity: Addresses concerns over compounds that are detected in environmental samples.
Processes by which OPAHs are made or degraded.
With that knowledge, it will become easier to understand potential risks with this compound class.
Why is this paper important in advancing the science?
My paper is very analytical. If you watch the television series Bones, I would be most like Hodgins, except there would be less talk of “particulates” and more talk of cleaning instrumentation. But seriously, by providing two methods on very different instrumentation to measure over 20 OPAHs, I provided a helpful platform for other scientists to use and build upon to measure this compound class in a variety of applications.
