Greenversations

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

Conducting health assessments for chemicals at EPA involves synthesizing the available scientific literature on a particular chemical and determining the health risks that the chemical poses to humans. Personally, I find it fulfilling to be involved in this type of career because the information is useful to the public.

Being a health assessor is rewarding but there are also several challenges in determining how a chemical might act in the human body. One challenge is determining the effect of a chemical in the body when you don’t know much about the toxicological data. There are sophisticated tools, such as microarray analysis and structure-activity analysis, to study compounds with limited information. In microarray analysis, scientists treat particular genes with a chemical and then monitor the results. So if a data-poor chemical has a similar gene profile to an endocrine disrupting chemical, then we hypothesize that this chemical could be a potential endocrine disruptor. Structure-activity analysis helps classify a compound based on its chemical structure. Both of these types of analyses can be completed quite quickly to understand how these data-poor chemicals could act when humans are exposed.

It is also quite challenging when a chemical has been studied extensively. When there is a lot of research on a chemical, arguments sometimes arise about the validity of the research or if a chemical is actually responsible for a resulting health effect. To add to the confusion, although there could be several studies on a chemical, they might not necessarily indicate a clear health effect. In some cases, chemicals have many studies showing health effects in animals but no evident effects in humans.

As health assessors, we generally assume that humans are more sensitive to health effects than animals. Therefore, if a chemical causes toxic effects in animals, then humans should be more susceptible. To reduce this uncertainty, it is important to understand the difference in a chemical’s effect between animals and humans.

Even though there are challenges in evaluating the health risks of chemicals to humans, it is rewarding to know that this information can be used to help keep people healthy. Overall, my job is to understand the potential health risks that could arise from exposures to chemicals in the environment.

About the author: Ambuja Bale works as a risk assessor in EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment. She has a PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

“So how are we going to do this?” was the first question on our lips after we accepted an invitation to speak to a group of middle school students in EPA’s Student Environmental Development Program.  As scientists who focus on highly technical research questions to inform expert stakeholders, it was a rather scary prospect to attempt to convey what we do to a group of 8th graders. How could we discuss our research on climate change effects on the environment in a way that would be fun as well as educational?

What our guest appearance turned out to be was as much a fun, learning experience for us as we hope it was for the students.

“Does anyone know what the difference is between “climate” and “weather”?” Susan asked, as a means of opening her discussion on climate change.  What followed was a delightful and varied array of opinions and anecdotes from the enthusiastic students. We realized that this was an issue that the students were eager to learn more about.

“What is risk? What is adaptation?” Amanda illustrated these concepts with an example of shark attacks at swimming beaches, and asked the students to give examples of ways that communities could reduce risks to swimmers. Their idea of patrolling and marking “safe swimming areas” with buoys was an example of an adaptation, and provided an easy transition into discussing adaptations to climate change by wetlands managers.

“Is a coral an animal or a plant?” Jordan used corals and their sensitivity to climate change to lead the students in an exercise based on a real project in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. The students were asked to assume the role of coral reef managers and design a network of marine protected areas that would be most resilient to climate change. After only a brief “ training” in concepts of coral biology, physical oceanography, socioeconomics, and resilience theory, the students were surprised and excited to find that they chose the same coral reef areas for protection that a group of experts did!

We hope that this experience showed the students that, while climate change is a serious problem, there is a large community of scientists, managers and concerned citizens who are exploring and implementing actions to address the severest effects on the environment. What we learned was that the complex issues that we study in our research program can indeed be understood and appreciated by any age group. In fact, it is eager and motivated students such as these who will take up the mantle of “saving the world”.

About the authors: Jordan West, Susan Julius, and Amanda Babson work together in EPA’s Global Change Research Program, where they love to debate with their colleagues on how best to” save the world”.

For each month in 2009, the Year of Science—we will pose a question related to science. Please let us know your thoughts as comments, and feel free to respond to earlier comments, or post new ideas.

The Year of Science theme for August is Weather and Climate.

How is climate change affecting the things you care about, and how do you think it will affect what you care about in the future?

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

During my 22 year career at EPA, it’s been exciting to work on the environmental issue which has been called the “capstone issue for our generation”: climate change. Climate change affects every individual in every community around the world. The team I am a part of at EPA is working closely with communities around the country to shed light on how climate change affects the things they care about, and to find ways to respond and adapt to its impacts.

There’s nothing more rewarding than meeting the people who are benefitting from the science we’re doing. It’s one thing to work in a laboratory or office and explore strategies and develop tools to help local communities respond to climate change. It’s another thing to actually meet the people whose lives you are touching.

I first had that chance in 2007 when I traveled to Alaska and met people from several Native Alaskan villages such as Shishmaref, Newtok, and Kivalina. I listened to heart-wrenching stories about how they must soon evacuate their coastal villages because homes and infrastructure are being destroyed by rising sea levels, storm surges, and the melting of the permafrost upon which they sit. I was faced with the stark realities of a changing climate, not with some “plausible projection” from one of our climate impacts models.

When I first started working on climate change, people imagined it to be something that wouldn’t happen for another 50 to 100 years. We quickly came to understand that the climate is already changing. It’s changing more and more rapidly as a result of human activities. When we burn fossil fuels to power our automobiles and run our factories and heat our homes, we emit greenhouse gas pollution which contributes to global warming. And we’re already seeing the impacts of global warming on peoples’ lives.

My own appreciation for the critical importance of the work we’re doing in our Global Change Research Program at EPA rose dramatically during that visit to Alaska. We’re empowering people to protect their communities and the things they value by providing the scientific information that enables them to anticipate the effects of a changing climate, developing alternative strategies for them to adapt to change, and providing tools that can help them incorporate considerations of climate change into their day-to-day decisions. We are making a difference in people’s lives.

About the author: Dr. Joel Scheraga is the National Program Director for EPA’s Global Change Research Program in the Office of Research and Development. He has been with EPA since 1987. He is also the EPA Principal Representative to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which coordinates and integrates scientific research on climate and global change supported by the U.S. Government.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

The state of the nation’s environment is changing. Sometimes the changes are obvious and sometimes they are subtle. When does it matter and why should we care?

One of the more visible and memorable events of the early environmental movement was when the Cuyahoga River, which runs through the heart of my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, caught fire in 1969. Some say that it was this event that prompted President Nixon to sign the Clean Water Act into law and create the Environmental Protection Agency.

The River that once burned now runs through a lively and bustling downtown area to Lake Erie. This is not to say that the water quality in the river and lake are now pristine, but that the improvements over time are so profound that it’s noticeable to the naked eye.

Even here in Washington, D.C., there are ways to observe environmental progress. I am lucky enough to garden in the city—a rare treat in the concrete jungle. Over the years I’ve observed changes in the insects and birds that visit our garden. Last spring my bachelor buttons were swarming with bees. This year, however, there weren’t as many.

What should I make of these changes in nature’s pollinators and natural pest management? What should our garden, city, and country do? Are the changes even relevant and is it appropriate for me to draw any conclusions? After all, I’ve only observed these changes while in pursuit of some other goal, such as watering my tomatoes, or driving through downtown Cleveland to catch a ball game.

If you find yourself wondering about the changing state of the nation’s environment and what it all means, there is one place you can go to find objective, scientifically sound information: EPA’s Report on the Environment.

EPA released its Report on the Environment (ROE) in May 2008 and has been updating it online ever since. It’s here that you can find information on the nation’s bird populations, stream water quality, air quality, and much more.

The ROE uses environmental indicators to present the status (i.e. condition) of and trends in (i.e., are things improving or not) for 85 different measurable areas of our nation’s environment in land, water, air, human health and ecosystems.

Check out the interactive Web site to see for yourself and tell us what you want to know about the nation’s changing environment.

About the author: Madalene Stevens joined EPA in 2001 and works on EPA’s Report on the Environment.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

Recognizing that there is a need for more scientific studies characterizing the mechanistic pathways linking social stressors (deforestation, habitat fragmentation, climate change), biodiversity, and human disease transmission, EPA developed a Biodiversity and Human Health research initiative to develop and sponsor long-term and pilot research projects.

The Biodiversity and Human Health research projects are the first of their kind at EPA, in subject matter and approach. The approach is interdisciplinary, involving ecologists, public health specialists, social scientists, and earth scientists. One unique part of the studies is that decision-makers are included in the research process, so that new findings of scientific knowledge can quickly be put into practice.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be making a field site visit to one EPA-sponsored research project.

Rick Ostfeld, of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies is leading a project entitled “Mechanisms Linking Host Biodiversity to Lyme Disease Risk: An Experimental Approach” to investigate how differences in animal community composition affect Lyme disease transmission in Duchess County, NY.

People get Lyme disease by being bitten by a tick infected with the spirochete bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi. Ticks acquire the Lyme disease bacterium by feeding on small mammals such as white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) and chipmunks that are already infected.

Not all mammals are equally efficient or competent at transmitting the bacteria to ticks when fed upon. In fact, white-footed mice appear to be the most competent animal host reservoir of Lyme disease in the northeastern U.S. So, the more white-footed mice that are in the forest, the greater chance more ticks will be infected, and the greater chance you have of getting bitten by an infected tick.

In a previous blog, I mentioned that forest destruction and fragmentation in the U.S. have been shown to reduce mammalian species diversity, and to increase populations of the white-footed mouse. Rick and his team will be manipulating the composition of small mammals across a variety of forest plot types to see how high and low levels of mammal diversity may affect Lyme disease infection rates among feeding ticks.

In a seminal paper, Rick and his colleagues proposed the “dilution hypothesis” to help explain how high biodiversity can decrease the risk of Lyme disease transmission. It predicts that infection rates for a specific pathogen (e.g. Lyme disease bacterium) will be lower in highly diverse host communities. Why? The “incompetent” reservoir hosts dilute rates of transmission between vectors (ticks) and competent hosts (white-footed mice). With EPA support, Rick’s team will be collecting and analyzing field data to help characterize the scientific mechanisms that can explain how different levels of biodiversity affect Lyme disease risk.

For more information on EPA’s Biodiversity and Human Health activities, see:
http://www.epa.gov/ncer/biodiversity

About the author: Montira Pongsiri, PhD, MPH, is an Environmental Health Scientist in EPA’s Office of the Science Advisor.

NOTE: Tweet! Tweet!
Follow the action from our field trip. We’ll posting updates from EPA’s new research Twitter account: @useparesearch.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

You can’t talk science without talking about statistics! EPA’s statisticians are scattered throughout many different programs and their work supports the work of EPA’s scientists. We even have several statisticians who have been designated as Fellows of the American Statistical Association, a prestigious honor in our field. It’s a great feeling to know that a national statistical organization values the contributions of EPA’s statisticians, and it’s a heady experience to know that I can just pick up the phone or send an email to ask for help from one of the Fellows. They’ve always been very generous with their time and it’s fascinating to hear about their projects. We also have access to talented statistical contractors, and I’ve learned a lot from them.

After 20 years at EPA, I still find my job exciting and challenging. In the Office of Water, statisticians work with scientists and engineers. We move from project to project, learning about the subject matter and figuring out the best way to collect and analyze the data that’s needed. Because we use statistical techniques to select facilities for our surveys, our data analyses produce statistically valid estimates about water conditions for the entire country. Often, we have to find a different statistical technique than we’ve ever applied before for these surveys and data analyses. And then, because we strive to be transparent in statistics and every other aspect of a project, we spend a lot of time writing. Federal Courts have even referred to our documents in upholding water pollution regulations. We also participate in international statistics conferences to share what we’ve done and what we’ve learned about the environment by applying statistical techniques in collecting and analyzing data. We may not be considered a federal “statistical agency” like the Census Bureau, but statistics is very much a part of science at EPA.

About the author: Marla Smith works as a statistician in EPA’s Engineering and Analysis Division within the Office of Water. The Division works to reduce industrial and municipal impacts on water bodies and aquatic life by identifying technological solutions.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

I’ve never been terribly interested in space exploration. Though I do remember pictures Earth–our “big blue marble”–from my earliest childhood, I’ve been tempted to think on occasion, “What a waste of money. We have so many problems on Earth to solve.” What I didn’t realize was how those images have inspired me to think of the world as a global community.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn how the first picture of Earth taken from space inspired the environmental movement. I learned the connection while searching for a way to link Astronomy with EPA research for our Year of Science Web site.

The Apollo 8 astronauts were the first to go to far side of the Moon. They had prepared for every scenario except one: the awesome sight of Earth rising on a black lunar horizon. Discovering the scene from their space capsule, one astronaut exclaimed, “Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty.” The crew scrambled for a camera. The photographs appeared for the first time in print just over 40 years ago, in January 1969.

The picture became known as “Earthrise” and the image of the world from the perspective of a desolate lunar surface became an iconic reminder of our need to protect the Earth’s fragile resources. Earthrise and images like it are widely credited with inspiring the environmental movement and indirectly the start of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. In Life’s 100 Photographs that Changed the World, wilderness photographer Galen Rowell called it “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”
Earth seems so big and indestructible from our perspective, and so tiny and vulnerable when seen from space.

Learning this piece of history has given me new respect for the interconnectedness between different branches of science. My first impression was that Astronomy and Earth Science had  nothing in common. Working for EPA’s Office of Research and Development has helped me realize that satellite imaging and data collection play a large role in helping inform scientists in environmental protection and human health. Environmental monitoring once done largely in isolation is now inspiring international cooperation, such as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS.

It’s inspiring to see that 40 years after the Earthrise photo was taken, science is helping us become a global community.

About the Author: Moira McGuinness joined the Science Communications Staff of EPA’s Office of Research and Development in February 2009. She manages the content on EPA’s Year of Science Web site.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

For each month in 2009, the Year of Science—we will pose a question related to science. Please let us know your thoughts as comments, and feel free to respond to earlier comments, or post new ideas.

The Year of Science theme for July is “Celebrate Astronomy“.

Just over 40 years ago the image known as Earthrise was published. It was the first photograph taken of Earth from Deep Space.

How does seeing a photograph of Earth taken from Space change your thinking about the environment?

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

On June 15, I joined about a dozen colleagues from state and federal environmental agencies, academic institutions, and private industry aboard the Research Vessel Rachel Carson .  We were joined by an AAAS Fellow working at EPA, along with her daughter, a middle school student, to learn about environmental sensor technologies used to monitor the Potomac River.

The field trip included a “show and tell” of high-tech equipment, such as automated, solar-powered, web-enabled, sensors moored to research buoys that collect a host of data on water quality and environmental conditions. There was even a demonstration of a radio-controlled mini-submarine fitted with water quality and bathymetry monitors and side-scan sonar.

As impressive as all the high-tech equipment was, I was reminded of some of the lessons I learned from one of my first jobs, working in the environmental health unit of the City Health Department in Madison, Wisconsin: the importance of cooperation and remembering to use our “human” sensors.

Cooperation
While on board the Rachel Carson, I was struck by the exemplary cooperation among VA and MD environmental agencies. They have collaborated across political boundaries to standardize water monitoring methods and capabilities on a huge aquatic ecosystem, feeding real-time monitoring data—collected, processed, quality-assured, and visually displayed—to a vast range of eager eyes. This cooperation is helping them tackle complex watershed problems in times of lean budgets and staff shortages.

Human Sensors
Everyone on board used their own human ‘sensors’ to appreciate the river and the importance of healthy aquatic ecosystems. The gathering also provided an opportunity to share data by one of the easiest ways I know: swapping stories.

When the team demonstrating how to use the mini-sub realized they needed to adjust the buoyancy to match the Potomac’s lower salinity, scientist Dr. Walter Boynton shared the story of a colleague who could test salinity by tasting a drop of water. His tongue was sometimes more accurate than the sensors.

Another story involved the sunken WW II submarine Black Panther. It was “misplaced” for decades until a team of divers searching for it suspected the coordinates for its location had been transposed. They switched the numbers and sure enough, they “rediscovered” the Black Panther submarine in 1989!

A great day on the Potomac reinforced lessons I think we need to remember as we work to solve the enormously complex problem of managing water quality throughout the huge Chesapeake Bay watershed: all the new technologies and databases still need humans to make the connections and keep it all calibrated.

About the Author: Ed Washburn has covered “multimedia” topics in the Office of Research and Development since joining EPA in 1998.