Environment in the news

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Scientists warn of health impacts as Great Lakes plastic pollution grows

By Irving Mejia-Hilario  Tens of millions of pounds of tiny pieces of plastic called ‘microplastics’ enter the Great Lakes each year. Exposure is linked to learning and memory issues in animals; researchers fear similar effects on humans. Experts say minor policy changes like banning microbeads are inadequate to combat the issue. Microplastics come from various sources, including litter like nurdles and water bottles, as well as wear-and-tear on the plastic products that seem ubiquitous in everyday life. Polyester fleece blankets and shirts release plastic into wastewater with every wash. Car tires emit a plastic dust as they wear against road surfaces. Though scientists have been tracking microplastics in the ocean since the 1970s, their 2013 discovery in the Great Lakes raised a new alarm. The lakes provide drinking water for 40 million people in the U.S. and Canada, while supporting an entire food web that sustains commercial, tribal, and recreational fishing economies. Fears of a looming crisis in the Great Lakes prompted researchers from Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University to host a roundtable discussion in May to discuss the growing threat. They fear society is disregarding a major environmental and health hazard, said Rodrigo Fernandez-Valdivia, an assistant professor in the School of Medicine at Wayne State University who spoke at the meeting. “At some point, this may overcome us, as humans,” Fernandez-Valdivia said. “We need to not finger-point at countries and regions, and recognize that this is a global problem.” 
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EPA grant to Wayne State University to evaluate chemical mixture health risks

There are hidden metabolic health impacts in things that most people encounter every day. From surface cleaners to silicone wristbands, from fracking fluids to wastewater – even household dust – these diverse environmental mixtures have a potential to disrupt human health. Christopher Kassotis, an assistant professor in the Wayne State University School of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology and Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, has received a $598,487 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take a deeper dive into evaluating environmental mixtures. “Anything we know about chemical toxicity is based on testing that individual chemical, but we are never exposed to just one single chemical alone,” Kassotis said. “Humans are regularly exposed to hundreds or thousands of chemicals every day. Our regulatory system completely ignores this, in part due to difficulties sorting out how to examine mixtures and predict effects.”  
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Wayne State gets $11M to study impact of air pollution on birth outcomes

By Jena Brooker Detroit is a national leader for the most preterm births – and Wayne State University is setting up a new research center to collect more data on why. WSU in September received an $11.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate how one type of air pollution – volatile organic compounds, or VOCs – contribute to preterm births. The five-year grant has funded the formation of the Center for Leadership in Environmental Awareness and Research (CLEAR), where researchers will study the link between VOCs and adverse birth and health outcomes. “There really hasn’t been a significant body of work that’s been done till this point in time trying to understand the environmental link to that [preterm birth] rate,” said Carol Miller, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Wayne State and co-leader of the new center. Melissa Runge-Morris, a physician and co-leader of CLEAR, said the medical field is lagging in its understanding of how environmental factors contribute to health outcomes compared to lifestyle and genetic factors. “As far as environmental exposures, all of medicine is playing catch up,” she said. “We’re no different here in Detroit.”
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Locals and lawyers point the finger at Kentucky coal companies in region’s deadly floods

As eastern Kentuckians continue to search for missing loved ones, muck out their homes and prepare for more rain, they are beginning to ask who could be at fault for this past week’s deadly flooding and whether it was a natural disaster or one caused by the coal mines that have drastically reshaped and scarred the landscape. Compacted dirt, destroyed mountaintops and deforestation in eastern Kentucky have often been left ignored by the coal companies that mined there, despite legal requirements that they attempt to return the land to its natural state when mining concludes. In recent decades, that spurned responsibility has, at times, turned heavy rains into floods and caused local residents who once counted on mining for jobs and prosperity to bring litigation against their former employers in Appalachian courtrooms. About 408,000 Kentuckians live within one mile of abandoned mine land. Kentucky spent a little more than $1.5 million from its reclamation fund. The state is expected to receive an additional $75 million this year as part of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure law, which dedicated $11.3 billion toward abandoned mine reclamation over the next 15 years. The new sum is huge, but “it’s just a drop in the bucket” to address the need for communities across Appalachia, said Sarah Surber, a public health professor at Wayne State University who studied environmental justice issues in the region and practiced law there for more than a decade. “How do you prioritize [the funding]?” she said. “You have so many that have been left abandoned or sitting in limbo, you have more coal mine company bankruptcies anticipated, so how do you decide what mines get reclaimed and what does that mean for communities and their protection in terms of pollution and flooding issues?” 
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Project aims to find new ways to convert river water into drinking water as pollutants evolve

The Great Lakes Water Authority is contracting with Wayne State University to do research at its Waterworks Park treatment plant in Detroit. Inside the facility, there’s a 12,000-to-1 scale model of the water treatment system. It’s large enough for people to work inside and “mimics the operations of this huge full-scale drinking water plant,” said Carol Miller, a civil engineering professor and the director of Wayne State's Healthy Urban Waters Program. The university will use the model to find new ways the plant can convert river water into drinking water. Miller says there are many steps that river water goes through before it gets to your kitchen faucet. Researchers are looking at how impurities are removed in various steps in the process and to better understand how to handle new and emerging contamination threats. “The idea here is that you definitely don’t want to mess with the actual full-scale operating system that is working to deliver drinking water for our region until you’ve tested something out,” Miller said. Our group has been looking very closely at the group of contaminants that are just generally called PFAS compounds. Also, pharmaceuticals and personal care products.” Another key area for the project is workforce development to train people for jobs in the water utility industry. The pilot plant allows them to educate potential employees and students on the operation of the full-scale water treatment plant.  
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Detroit Riverwalkers promote healthy fishing habits

It’s no question that fishing is a revered summer pastime of many Michiganders, and this season has been no exception. The Detroit River is a favorite spot for many anglers, but the high level of pollutants in the water poses a big health concern for those who consume their catch. In response, a group called the Riverwalkers has established a strong presence on the Detroit River to help combat this issue and educate anglers on safe fishing practices. The program is a partnership between the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and Wayne State University, with the main goal of educating anglers about the pollutants that exist in popularly caught fish in the Detroit Rivers. Along with the education initiative run by state and local health officials, Wayne State University students and faculty play a large role in testing fish that are caught in the Detroit River to determine the types of and levels of toxins that are present in different fish. Education efforts also include improvements to the signage along the river under the guidance of Donna Kashian, professor and director of environmental science at Wayne State.   
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Wayne State and Great Lakes Water Authority to create workforce and laboratory center of the future

Wayne State University has received a $584,114 contract to develop a collaborative research project with the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) to create a workforce and laboratory center of the future. The three-year long project will focus on developing the existing Waterworks Park Pilot Plant facility to perform applied research, testing and evaluation, and workforce development for new and emerging technologies. Carol J. Miller, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of Healthy Urban Waters at Wayne State will lead the project, along with co-lead Yongli Wager, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Wayne State. They and the full support team will provide important knowledge that will help GLWA proactively respond to different water treatment scenarios and emerging water quality concerns. The educational and workforce development programs that also comprise this project will help to address the critical shortage of technicians and engineers for water utilities nationwide. “Our work with GLWA will initiate with a strategic plan to optimize benefits to the GLWA user community, treatment plant operators, the utility industry and the water ecosystem,” said Miller. “In addition, we are working to maximize economic benefits to the community, as well as include workforce training and job opportunities. On the research side, there are several focus areas including verification of scale-up processes, in-plant learning tools and process optimization considering treatment variables including coagulant and disinfectant materials. This training is critical for evaluating water treatment processes and developing scenario-based proactive responses to different water treatment and emerging water quality concerns.”  

Researchers working to reduce micro-plastics in the Great Lakes

Plastic waste may be a bigger problem in the Great Lakes than we realize. Researchers from the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University met in Traverse City on Monday to discuss the impact that micro-plastic pollution has not just on the Great Lakes, but for us. 22 million pounds of plastic go into the Great Lakes every year. As researchers work to lower that number, the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay says the amount of trash in the bay increases every year. The micro-plastics found in the water can also be harmful to our health. “We know historically that micro-plastics, one of the many issues, is that they can carry molecules that can be harmful or toxic to organisms, including people,” said Dr. Rodrigo Fernandez-Valdivia, professor at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. It’s estimated we swallow microscopic plastic materials that add up to a credit card a week. “You can find it in food, as well as beverages, so you don’t know, you’re not aware of it, but you are actually ingesting micro-plastics,” said Fernandez-Valdivia. Single-use plastics seem to be the biggest culprit. “I think probably most people are most familiar with the plastic bags at grocery stores or other types of stores, having your own bag to use, using paper instead – could be a better choice, but it’s also single-use meaning little bags for sandwiches, bottled water,” said Britany Affolter-Caine, executive director of Michigan’s University Research Corridor.  
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Panel: With infrastructure funding available, communities need to ‘use it smartly’

Researchers from the University Research Corridor (URC) with local officials Monday to discuss ways to address the storm-related home flooding experienced in Detroit and other southeast Michigan cities, months after the second “500 year rain event” in seven years left thousands in the region with drowned basements and downed power lines. Experts from the University Research Corridor gathered on the Wayne State University campus to present research on updating outdated infrastructure to make communities more resilient in the face of extreme weather events that are exacerbated by climate change. “The problem is that we’re impoverishing people that are already at the edge of poverty in a series of Detroit communities,” said Lyke Thompson, director of Wayne State’s Center for Urban Studies. The URC works with industries like infrastructure, water, and mobility.  “We know that water always wins, as it has the time and energy to find the paths of least resistance, which are often our basements or other infrastructure,” said William Shuster, chair of the Wayne State University civil and environmental engineering department. “We need to respond to the way that water plays this game and give it other options.” The money for necessary large-scale infrastructure repair is available to Michigan and should be used to mitigate future impacts of severe weather, according to Britany Affolter-Caine, executive director of the URC. “We are in a unique time in where we’re getting a ton of money and communities are sort of staring down at an influx of infrastructure dollars and COVID dollars,” said Affolter-Caine. “…We have to use it smartly.”  

New sources sought for rare earth elements to stop reliance on China

By Lily Bohlke  Michigan researchers have received a $3.1 million grant to study potential new sources of rare earth metals and how to process them. Rare earth metals are a set of 17 elements found in the earth’s crust, and are a key component of many high-tech processes from military technology to electronic devices, batteries for electric cars and magnets in wind turbines. The U.S. relies on China for 80% of our rare earth metals, and the prices have spiked over the last year. The lead researchers for the project are Matthew Allen, chair and professor of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Timothy Dittrich, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering at Wayne State University. “After we recover the rare earth elements, instead of just putting them in a hazardous-waste landfill, we’re also looking at ways to use those for building materials and other uses so that we don’t have these other problems that we’re creating as we’re recovering rare earth elements,” said Dittrich. 
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Wayne State receives $3.1 million grant to seek alternative sources of rare earth elements

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Wayne State University have been awarded a $3.1 million grant from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ERCD program to seek alternative sources of rare earth elements critical to advanced military and consumer technologies. The project, Rare Earths from U.S. Extractions – or REUSE – will focus on both basic and related applied research in science and engineering with the goal of developing a U.S. rare earth element supply chain as well as a process of handling waste streams. REUSE is led by two principal investigators, Matthew J. Allen, chair and professor of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Timothy M. Dittrich, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering.    

Fast food burgers, fries, and pizza may leave you full of phthalates

By Huanjia Zhang   As Americans devour a fast-food burger in the car or gobble up a chicken burrito in front of the TV, some may bite into phthalates, according to a new study in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. This is the first study to directly measure the amount of phthalates present in common fast foods in the U.S. and adds to mounting evidence linking phthalate exposure to fast food consumption. Phthalates are a group of synthetic chemicals widely used to make plastic more flexible, and are ubiquitous in a host of plastic products, ranging from toys to personal care products. Phthalates have been shown in human and animal studies to disrupt the endocrine system. Although the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the use of eight phthalates in children’s toys and child-care products in 2017, the plastic industry is able to replace the prohibited phthalates with slightly tweaked plasticizer chemicals. “A chemical isn’t a problem until it’s proven dangerous,” said Douglas Ruden, a toxicologist who studies phthalates at Wayne State University, who noted the ongoing tug-of-war between scientists trying to assess the health and safety of potentially harmful new plasticizers and their evolving successors.