Superfund Research Program

Community Outreach

Project Leader: Luz Claudio
Grant Number: P42ES007384
Funding Period: 1995 - 2006

Project-Specific Links

Final Progress Reports

Year:   2005 

The goal of the Community Outreach Core of Mount Sinai’s Superfund Basic Research Program is inform and empower stakeholders of the Hudson River to address the problem of persistent chemical contaminants. The Outreach Core translates the results of scientific research into programs that can be useful for communities affected by Hudson River contamination. We conduct activities in communication, education, and technology transfer. We also serve as a scientific information resource and encourage community participation in the various studies being undertaken by Superfund scientists. Staff of the Outreach Core hold educational workshops, give presentations at community events, and update residents about scientific findings affecting their communities.

The Community Outreach Core develops informational brochures, fact sheets, and presentations on topics relevant to communities affected by the Hudson River. In 2005, fact sheet topics included:

• on combined sewer overflows
• mercury in fish
• general information on the Superfund Program and sites located in New York

 

In addition, an updated program brochure, detailing in lay language the scientific projects conducted at the Mount Sinai SBRP, was published this year. These outreach materials, along with the most recent versions of our newsletter, Superfund News, were all posted on our website and distributed at community fairs and workshops. A community partner, The River Project, also distributed these materials onsite at Pier 42 in Lower Manhattan. The availability of these materials was publicized to other community organizations including Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, Inc., Hudson River Environmental Society, and Beacon Sloop Club.

 

The Community Outreach Core website remains an integral tool to disseminate information on the Mount Sinai SBRP to other scientists, government agencies and community members. In 2005, an average of 210 unique visitors accessed our website 420 times every month. Visits specific to the community section of the website accounted for 20% of the total. The most popular pages in this section of the website have consistently been the community announcements page and the community resources section, which includes pdf versions of our newsletters, brochure, and fact sheets.  Each of the available documents has been downloaded an average of 40 times per month since their creation for a total of over 1100 downloads.

 

In 2005, the Community Outreach Core maintained its strong partnership with The River Project, a community-based organization in Lower Manhattan, and continued community water-quality testing in areas of Manhattan used for recreational activities. Utilizing the field laboratory created in partnership with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Outreach Core collaborated with faculty and graduate students from the SUNY Stony Brook Marine Sciences Research Center to provide onsite support and quality control for community members and students conducting water quality experiments at The River Project.  As in past years, the results of these studies were presented to the community at a Q&A session held onsite at The River Project.

 

The Outreach Core continued to support The River Project’s Marine Sciences Internship Program for high school and college students. Research topics supported by the Outreach Core in 2005 included “The effects of ethnylestradiol on the reproductive capability of male cunner fish” and “Tide and depth of the water system as factors controlling Enterococci distribution”. Interns also perform direct community outreach by leading tours of the River Project’s facilities, as well as presenting their research findings to the community during seminars held onsite. 

 

The Outreach Core also conducted activities with other Hudson River communities and community organizations, including those in the Upper Hudson. On April 18, 2005, the Outreach Core was a co-sponsor of the State of the Hudson Summit, hosted by the Rivers and Estuaries Center and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Hudson River Estuary Management Program. The goal of the summit was to create a forum for the many academic, government, and community-based organizations to discuss and collaborate on initiatives relevant to the Hudson River Watershed.  In order to gather information on community needs and topics of interest related to Hudson River contamination, the Outreach Core had a number of conversations with the EPA Hudson River Field Office located in Hudson Falls, NY. Additionally, staff attended meetings of the Environmental Consortium of Hudson Valley Colleges and Universities to publicize the SBRP as an educational resource and to connect students to research opportunities on the Hudson River. 

 

In 2005, the Outreach Core completed and expanded all of its goals and specific aims. It expanded on these by also supporting the work of two undergraduate minority students, Noopur Batsha and Marina Pesa, who conducted research with Mount Sinai SBRP investigators Avrom Caplan and Bruce Brownawell, respectively. These students, in turn, translated the information from the research studies they conducted into formats that could be easily understood by the communities affected by the Hudson River contamination. This information was then disseminated through the Outreach Core.