Core Update Archive
Core B: Research Translation
2009
Health Sciences – Amy Kyle
The health sciences component of the Core focused on informing policy and stakeholders about key scientific information related to the effects of environmental toxicants on susceptible populations, particularly children.
We organized a workshop on children’s environmental health in cooperation with the California EPA, US EPA Region, and University of California San Francisco entitled: “Children’s Environmental Health: What Have We Learned and What Do We Need to Do?” This workshop focused on translation of research findings and engaging academic, government, and general audiences in one dialogue. The workshop led to expanded and new stakeholder collaborations. We are developing a “plain language” summary of the meeting for publication.
We collaborated on the CDC’s Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (EPHTN) and with the US EPA and the Children’s Environmental Health Network to assess improved surveillance for environmental factors, body burdens, and disease outcomes for children. Our project was represented in a joint presentation at the national EPHTN meeting and by a poster showing initial analysis of data from the tracking network at an Environmental Public Health conference sponsored by CDC.
We are represented on the federally chartered Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, providing advice to the US EPA and on subcommittees advising on the development of metrics reflecting children’s environmental health issues. We briefed senior management at EPA Region X on chemicals policy reform initiatives in the US and Europe. We also provided briefings to California legislators on the importance of scientific evaluation and interpretation of chemical hazards data for state policy makers.
Engineering Sciences – James Hunt
The engineering component of Core B is exploring how research results are scaled from simple laboratory systems to complex field sites undergoing remediation. Laboratory studies in beakers can be used to investigate fundamental principles in biology and chemistry, but additional processes must be included when models and experiments are conducted in realistic conditions.
Our focus shifted from chromate in groundwater systems of the deserts of southern California to radionuclide migration at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This facility produced nuclear materials for defense applications and generated significant chemical and radionuclide wastes. Fission products from nuclear fuel rods were extracted and waste products were stored for a few months to permit the decay of short lived radionuclides. The aqueous wastes were released to disposal pits that were intended to provide 5 to 15 years of transit time in the subsurface before reaching surface waters that connected with the Savannah River. Actual contaminant migration was shorter than expected and longer lived radionuclides such as tritium, iodine and technetium were released to surface waters with minimal decay. The waste products contained high concentrations of sodium and nitrate with a pH sufficiently acidic to limit sorption processes of cations. The nuclides and ionic species provided multiple tracers to track plume migration before and after active remediation approaches.
We continue to work to organize our data, represent it in space and time, and quantify remediation effectiveness. While these waste components are unique to Department of Energy facilities, our research can be generalized to other sites lacking environmental monitoring data.
2008
Health sciences
The “health” part of the Research Translation Core focused this past year on informing policy and stakeholder audiences about key scientific information and principles related to chemical assessment and characterization and about children’s environmental health, both key areas of research for the group as a whole.
Co-leader Dr. Amy Kyle conducted several formal and informal workshops for stakeholder groups in San Francisco, Oakland, and in Sacramento. The program advised legislative staff about key scientific concepts in the development of several pieces of legislation. This resulted in the inclusion of the concept of ‘hazard traits’ in California’s newly passed green chemistry legislation (AB 1879 and SB 509). This is important because including a concept of ‘hazard traits’ means that the chemical traits of health concern can be further defined and elucidated after legislation is passed and adapted as scientific knowledge and methods improve.
Dr. Kyle gave the keynote speech at the founding of a children’s environmental health network for Wyoming. The group agreed to pursue several specific projects to improve children’s health, working in an interdisciplinary fashion. She has continued to participate in the federal Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee and helped to develop comments related to chemicals policy concerns as they relate to children, providing advice to the US EPA.
Engineering sciences
The engineering component of the Core is exploring how research results are scaled from simple laboratory systems to more complex field sites undergoing remediation. Laboratory studies in beakers can be used to investigate fundamental principles in biology and chemistry, but additional processes must be included when models and experiments are conducted in sand columns, two-dimensional “ant-farms”, and smaller field experiments that include more realistic conditions. This work has examined density driven flow under laboratory and field conditions using observations at field sites to guide laboratory experiments. Core researchers have extensively analyzed data from two groundwater plumes containing chromate in the southeastern corner of California to assess groundwater remediation approaches. The monitoring data are reported in over a hundred wells during site investigation and remediation efforts over a 20 year period. These data reveal that chromium as a soluble contaminant has been retained in the groundwater aquifer up to 50 years after release. Pumping out groundwater has not been an effective remediation tool because the source of concentrated chromate present in trapped brines continues to slowly release chromate into flowing groundwater. The combination of laboratory studies on contaminant mixing in column reactors with the analysis of long-term monitoring data at field sites has provided complementary data on the importance of brines in the subsurface. These results have demonstrated how field data collected under complex conditions can guide laboratory studies, provide an analysis of remedial approaches, and assist regulatory personnel in hazardous waste site oversight.
2007
Health sciences
How best to use biomonitoring to improve public health remains of considerable interest. Dr. Amy Kyle and Dr. James Hunt conducted a workshop in January 2007 to discuss implementation of California legislation passed in fall of 2006 and they are planning a workshop on how biomonitoring can contribute to improving environmental health in communities, with additional funding from the San Francisco Foundation. Dr. Kyle was recently appointed to the Federal Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee by Administrator Stephen Johnson of the US EPA, which may provide opportunities for collaboration. Kyle presented a new analysis of approaches to selecting chemicals for biomonitoring at the American Public Health Association annual meeting.
Dr. Kyle contributed to several projects by state and federal agencies. In May 2007, she spoke at the US EPA national meeting on hazardous air pollutants. She presented an overview of health-science related work in SBRP at Region IX. She also led discussions on the policy implications of reproductive and developmental effects of chemicals at a workshop organized by Cal EPA and US EPA. Kyle conducted briefings for legislators, including an overview of key issues organized by the National Conference of State Legislators in February 2007. Subsequent meetings with legislators and staffers led to greater awareness of the implications of current science, reflected in legislative proposals.
Dr. Kyle conducted significant work on chemicals policy reform. She participated with Dr. Smith in a working group that examined ways to improve the scientific basis of chemicals assessment. This group presented a workshop at the annual meeting of the Environmental Mutagen Society in October.
Dr. Kyle is investigating methods to better deal with the emerging area of addressing environmental health issues at the community level with additional funding provided by the Cal EPA and environmental public health tracking program. She was asked to speak to a committee of the National Academy of Sciences on improving risk assessment.
Engineering sciences
James Hunt previously made considerable progress in the identification of environmental transport processes that constrain environmental remediation based on an analysis of the published literature and monitoring data collected at field sites. A research paper identified the importance of dense brines as a means for emplacing contaminants into the subsurface where density driven flow and poor mixing conditions decrease the efficiency of groundwater remediation. A Superfund Research Highlights article issued by NIEHS provided broad coverage of the research and generated an invitation to speak at additional professional society meetings and at a symposium for earth scientists working on site assessment and remediation for the State of California. This forum allowed Dr. Hunt to summarize the research findings and discuss their application to the remediation of groundwater contaminated by perchlorate and chromate spills. Examples from ongoing site remediation efforts were used to demonstrate that brines were long-term reservoirs of contamination. As a consequence of these outreach efforts to the regulatory community, Dr. Hunt presented an expanded seminar at the EPA Region 9 Headquarters for staff and consultants. Subsequently, Dr. Hunt has initiated discussion with the owner of sites contaminated by chromate. In addition, Dr. Hunt is engaged in further discussion with EPA Region 9 staff to identify additional sites where long-term monitoring data are available for the analysis of remediation efficiency and the analysis of dominant transport processes that occur at the field scale.
2006
The Research Translation Core has developed an issue paper regarding use of biomonitoring in research and public health surveillance and policy for use in a workshop held in July 2006. The workshop successfully engaged government agency and general audiences in a discussion of key issues in the application of biomonitoring in California. Participants included representatives of US EPA, California health and environmental agencies, California legislature, other western states, NGOs, and academics. The Core also began a discussion of the possible application of omics technologies (e. g., genomics and proteomics) in conjunction with the biomonitoring of chemical contaminants in human bio-specimens. The Core provided resources to the Western Tracking and Biomonitoring Consortium, an organization of state health departments and public health laboratories for all of the western states and provided information to media outlets, including Health Affairs, a program produced by public radio in California, which did a one-hour program on biomonitoring. The Core also developed a web site with the information produced.
A second workshop on the implementation of the California biomonitoring program will be held in January 2007. The passage of legislation to establish a state program and create a new Department of Public Health has made this a timely topic to address. The materials developed for that workshop will be adapted for general audiences. Work on chemical prioritization and assessment will be further vetted with the audiences for this program.
The Research Translation Core was actively involved in planning the May 2006 kickoff meeting which provided investigators and industry and consulting representatives with an overview of the approach to scaling of research results between laboratory and field. Conversations were initiated in the selection of field sites for the evaluation of remedial approaches. The initial focus is on groundwater remediation sites where there is a long-term monitoring record with multiple sampling locations sufficient to quantify transformations and transport processes. Core researchers are engaged in the process of evaluating monitoring data from remediation sites to identify sites with sufficient data to proceed with more detailed analysis. The initial focus is on benzene and MTBE plumes from leaking underground storage tanks within shallow, alluvial aquifers in California.
Site investigations are continuing with a focus on the analysis of monitoring data reported for groundwater sites undergoing active and passive remediation. As the Application of Comparative Genomics, Transcriptomics, and Proteomics to Optimize Microbial Reductive Dehalogenation project and the Contaminant Oxidation Using Nanoparticulate and Granular Zero-Valent Iron project progress the Research Translation Core will participate with those project researchers in a discussion on the challenges of scaling their laboratory-based studies to field conditions.