Superfund Research Program

Outreach Core

Project Leaders: Hyam L. Leffert, Keith Pezzoli
Grant Number: P42ES010337
Funding Period: 2000 - 2005

Project-Specific Links

Final Progress Reports

Year:   2004 

The Outreach Core's Regional Workbench Consortium (RWBC) has continued building and sharing tools for monitoring science and research translation.  On September 21-24, 2004, by invitation from Dr. Sidney Draggan (U.S. EPA, Senior Science and Science Policy Advisor), the RWBC development team presented a "Special Focus Session" at the EPA's Monitoring Science and Technology Symposium (Denver, Colorado).  The Symposium brought together scholars, practitioners, government officials, and community leaders interested in enabling sustainable development.  The core's special focus session included four presentations as noted below:

1. The Regional Workbench Consortium (RWBC): The Role of Research
   Universities in Enabling Sustainable City-Region Development,  Keith Pezzoli
2. Community Holistic Interactive Mapping Environment (Chime) for Analysis and Visualization of Regional Superfund Toxicants Data,  Ilya Zaslavsky
3. Building Watershed-Scale Information Systems and Partnerships for Integrated
   Ecological Planning, Environmental Mitigation and River Park Conservation,
   Richard Marciano
4. San Diego Baykeeper – Binational Water Quality Monitoring Program, 
   SBRP collaboration with a community-based science organization, Hiram Sarabia

The overarching aim of these presentations was to address the challenges posed by linking basic science and technology to policy and planning.  Core researchers drew special attention to the cyber-infrastructure (internet-based tools and resources) they are creating through their RWBC's partnership-driven initiatives, including a regional effort to create federated/scalable information systems for SBRP research translation.  The RWBC, established in 1999, is a collaborative network of university, government, industry, and community-based partners dedicated to promoting sustainable development.  RWBC partners are creating new tools for regional information integration and sharing--including on-line GIS, scientific visualization, multimedia narratives linked to knowledge maps, collaborative groupware, planning support systems, and quality of life indicators.

Core researchers argue that an efficient SBRP Outreach mechanism needs to go beyond traditional science dissemination channels.  Effective Outreach also needs to provide sociological and technical support for regional-scale information integration and project-based knowledge sharing among university researchers and students, municipal planners, and local non-profit organizations.  Along these lines, the CHIME presentation described the interactive mapping and spatial data integration technologies being developed by Dr. Ilya Zaslavsky, Director of the Spatial Information Integration Lab, San Diego Supercomputer Center (a partner in the SBRP Outreach Core).  Community stakeholders with limited budgets can use the CHIME system to develop composite maps "on the fly" and explore multidisciplinary phenomena, while saving on in-house data management costs.

The Watershed presentation showcased SBRP Outreach Core's innovative internet-based system that uses historical watershed permitting and mitigation records for urban and regional planning.  This prototype system is being developed by Dr. Richard Marciano (Director, Sustainable Archives and Library Technologies Lab, San Diego Supercomputer Center) in collaboration with public and private sector partners, including the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board.  Specific tools include geo-referenced profiles of historical permitting and mitigation plans derived from original paper archives for projects in the San Diego River Watershed.  Actual project and mitigation locations are mapped to help improve watershed management and the core's ability to analyze the spatial distribution of toxicants and other factors that impair the San Diego regions water bodies.  The prototype system focuses on the San Diego River Watershed, but the model is extensible to other watersheds regionally and around the world.

The Binational Water Quality Monitoring presentation showcased the core's collaborative cross border effort led by the San Diego Baykeeper (a US-based grassroots nonprofit organization) in conjunction with the Ja Jan Coalition (a Mexico-based grassroots nonprofit organization).  The Outeach Core is working with these groups to develop a regional online water quality GIS system for San Diego-Baja California border region.  The system under construction will house existing citizen water quality data, make information more readily available to the public and decision makers, support regional efforts to protect public health and advance watershed and land conservation work.  This project involves trained citizens from impacted communities who will be helping in the collection of those data that will populate the GIS system, providing not only an added incentive to citizen participation but also empowering impacted communities to more readily integrate their work products into decision-making processes.  This effort will lay the foundation for a five year initiative between Baykeeper, the Ja Jan Coalition and UCSD's Superfund Basic Research Program (the SBRP funds the development of the RWBC) to launch a comprehensive environmental information system for the region and integrate new toxicant biomarker monitoring technologies into ongoing water monitoring efforts.

During 2003, Baykeeper and the Ja Jan Coalition recruited and trained over 200 citizens to collect water quality data in accordance to U.S. EPA guidelines, conducted nearly 60 regularly scheduled monitoring events, detected and reported nearly 100 water pollution events and directly informed and involved over 3000 citizens through large scale community events, focusing its efforts in areas disproportionately impacted by pollution including border communities and tribal lands.  The demo at the Monitoring Science and Technology Symposium showcased the core's GIS system designed to significantly enhance the value and effectiveness of the program.  A regionally-scaled GIS will facilitate documenting links between the natural and built environment and assist in identifying those areas disproportionately impacted by pollution, where efforts to curve ecosystem degradation and public health impacts can best be concentrated.

All of this effort is beginning to pay off.  The American Planning Association (San Diego Chapter) gave its 2004 Academic Leadership award to the UCSD Outreach Core.  The award recognizes the role the Outreach Core is playing in efforts to link environmental health science to policy and planning via the Outreach Core's Regional Workbench Consortium.