Wright State scientist receives grant to help clean up polluted Americ...( ish and other aquatic life he said. ...)

Burton and his collaborators will achieve this by dropping sensor probes into the bottom of the harbor to record data and collect water samples. The contaminants in the sediment will be measured and the biological exposures and effects will be calculated. These findings then will be integrated into a Geographic Information System to provide statistically based rankings of the likely dominant physical and chemical contaminants across the site.

The two major contributions of this research will be (1) development of an integrated capability to assess sites for ecological risk and recovery using accurate exposure and effects data and (2) a straightforward approach to quantitatively measure and graphically demonstrate displays of sediment quality and the dominant contaminant relationships with ecological risk, he said.

This will allow site managers, regulators and stakeholders to better understand whether the site is improving or which areas need to be cleaned up.

Burton said the findings his research team develops may then become a model for use nationwide by three federal agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of the Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Our initial development work will be in San Diego harbor, with follow-up work in another west or east coast harbor that is known to be contaminated, he said. The findings will be applicable to all the major harbors in the U.S., such as New York, Houston, Pearl Harbor and the Great Lakes.

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Contact: Richard Doty
richard.doty@wright.edu
937-775-3232
Wright State University
20-Jun-2007