The Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) in the Environment conference at the I Hotel in Champaign, Illinois on Monday welcomed dozens of researchers, officials, academics, and high school students. The 10 students from Pontiac High School in Illinois understood very well the hazards PPCPs pose to the health of people and the environment.

That’s not at all surprising because they are part of the P2D2 (Pontiac Prescription Drug Disposal) program created by their teacher 45-year-old Paul Ritter who’s been teaching for 22 years. Ritter developed the program nine years ago after failing to come up with an answer to his wife’s question about what to do with some unwanted medication they had in their home.

The purpose of P2D2 is to provide communities with a proper method of pharmaceutical disposal that effectively reduces the misuse and abuse of pharmaceuticals as well as improves water quality.

Since 2007 Ritter can boast the program’s success not just in the United States, but in six additional countries. Millions of pounds have of medicine have been properly disposed of and laws have been enacted to prevent medications from getting into the environment and into the wrong hands through the use of P2D2.

“My students help perpetuate the national model—they established the national model,” Ritter declared at the conference.

Senior Jacob Jiles who took the class with Ritter just to get another science credit knows he got much more out of the experience than he was expecting.

“Cumulatively with the program we’ve eradicated 3 million pounds of pharmaceuticals, so that means 3 million pounds that have been taken out of the streets and or the water system,” Jiles said.

“That’s kind of reassuring that we’ve done that.”

IISG in conjunction with the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center organized the conference with funding from University of Illinois Extension.

University of Illinois PhD students Pongsakorn “Tum” Suppakittpaisarn, pictured above on the right, and Fatemeh Saeidi-Rizi, pictured above on the left, study rain gardens—but not in the way you’d expect. Instead of measuring infiltration rates and pollution reduction capacity, Tum and Fatemeh want to know what happens in our brains and bodies when we see this green infrastructure practice.

A growing number of studies draw connections between access to green spaces and our physical and mental health. But, Tum said, most of that work has revolved around larger, more ubiquitous landscapes like public parks and tree-lined streets.

“We know green spaces generally are good for mental health,” he said. “But the ‘how’ and ‘why’ is still unclear, especially with rarer landscape types like rain gardens.”

So Tum and Fatemeh, along with collaborators at the University of Illinois’ Sustainability and Human Health Lab and the Health People-Health Landscape Lab at National Taiwan University, are working together to measure physical responses and changes in brain activity triggered by images of rain gardens.

The team has compiled 216 rain garden photos taken across the U.S. into nine different videos. In Illinois, Tum will use biofeedback sensors to measure what happens to participant heart rates, body temperatures, and more when they see these videos.

At the same time, Dr. Chun-Yen Chang’s team in Taiwan will use functional magnetic resonance imaging—better known as fMRI—to monitor and map changes in brain blood flow when participants are shown rain garden photos after being put through a series of tests designed to cause mental fatigue.

The researchers only began testing participants this spring, but they have a few predictions about the final results.

“It’s possible that seeing rain gardens in an urban space will help people recover from mental fatigue faster,” said Tum. “On the other hand, rain gardens with a lot of messy plants may make people feel uncomfortable, which may lead to them feeling more stress or mentally fatigue.”

Dig it and forget it—that’s one of the biggest appeals of woodchip bioreactors, one of many nitrogen-reducing practices recommended in the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy.

The bacteria living in these long, narrow trenches remove nitrogen carried through farm tile lines through a process known as denitrificaiton. The result is an average annual nitrogen reduction of 25 percent for roughly 10 years—and with minimal maintenance for the farmer.

But don’t just take our word for it. Hear what University of Illinois researchers Mark David and Laura Christianson had to say about this conservation agriculture practice this video.

What happens when a canary in the coal mine can no longer be trusted to sound the alarm? Environmental chemist Michael Lydy answers this question in the latest edition of UpClose.

Lydy and his team at Southern Illinois University Carbondale are in the early stages of a three-year study examining the prevalence of pyrethroid insecticide resistance in a crustacean used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to gauge the health of waterways. Widespread resistance in Hyalella azteca—something Lydy and others have already found in California and the Midwest—would raise doubts about the accuracy of a spectrum of state and federal biomonitoring programs.

Funded by a grant from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Illinois Water Resources Center, the study will also investigate whether a testing method known as Tenax can help scientists and natural resources managers more accurately predict the threat pyrethroids pose to aquatic life.

UpClose with  is the eleventh issue of the award-winning Q&A series that gives readers an insider’s view of research on emerging contaminants. Each interview highlights a unique component of emerging contaminant research. Readers also learn about the complex, and sometimes tricky, process of conducting field studies and the potential implications of research on industries and regulations.

Sarah Zack is joining the IISG pollution prevention team as its new extension specialist.

What do you get when you cross a marsupial and a crustacean? The answer, as you may have guessed from the title, is none other than the opossum shrimp. Otherwise known as the order Mysidia, these creatures’ colloquial classification comes from the brood pouch present in the species’ females. This sets the order apart from other crustaceans, whose larvae are free-swimming.

The inter-species similarities don’t stop there, however, as the tails of opossum shrimp branch off into two distinct parts, resembling those of lobsters. But taken as a whole, this animal most closely resembles crayfish, having one pair of stalked eyes, two pairs of antennae, and eight limbs – the foremost two (known as maxillipeds), function like arms and hands, and are used for filtering plankton and other organic material from the water, while the following six (known as pereopods), are used for swimming. All these features are wrapped up in a relatively small package, with the majority of species ranging from a tenth of an inch to an inch.

Opossum shrimp can and do live in marine, brackish, and freshwater ecosystems, and are found the world over — Great Lakes included. They are benthic (water bottom) and pelagic (open water) organisms that migrate daily, moving downwards towards areas with less sunlight during the day, then returning to higher depths at night.

This curious crustacean is perhaps most well-known for its utility. A short reproductive cycle and a high adaptability to water conditions make opossum shrimp ideal organisms to culture in laboratories. Able to create and sustain large populations with relative ease, they are used as feed for other cultured organisms, like lake trout.

Like the lake sturgeon, opossum shrimp are sensitive to their surroundings. As such, they are often implemented as a way to monitor water quality, with researchers observing physical or behavioral differences in response to pollution.

Brandon Steppan is an intern from the English department at the University of Illinois. 

Update: This article has been corrected. The original version described the opossum shrimp as moving upwards towards areas with more sunlight during the day, then returning to lower depths at night, sometimes forming clusters as they swim. We also updated it to remove the reference to lake trout as a marine organism.

Adrienne Gulley, IISG pollution prevention outreach specialist, meets with five enthusiastic high school students from Peoria, Illinois. Gulley brought along the “EnviroScape,” a plastic model she uses to demonstrate how pollution affects water quality. The students belong to the selective 4-H Spark Tank, a program developed by University of Illinois Extension. Their goal is to “change the face of the South Side of Peoria through a beautification project” by building a hoop house—similar to a greenhouse. The students plan to raise native Illinois plants and vegetables to distribute to the community. Construction kicks off this spring.

Municipalities throughout Illinois have been making determined efforts to conserve water though policy changes, education, outreach, and water-loss reduction strategies. The Illinois Section of the American Water Works Association (ISAWWA) Water Efficiency Committee and IISG assembled seven case studies from the ISAWWA Water Saver award applications to highlight water efficiency achievements.

Algonquin is the third story in our series.

Rapid population growth is forcing Algonquin, Illinois, a city of about 30,000 located 40 miles northwest of Chicago, to reevaluate its water use strategy.

The village developed its initial water conservation program in 2003 at a time when the system was significantly strained. It included outside watering restrictions, public outreach, operations improvements, and a seasonal water rate structure. The program was a success, resulting in a water use reduction of roughly 30 gallons per person/day.

Because ongoing population growth in the village is expected to put upward pressure on water demand, Algonquin’s next step was to update the Comprehensive Water System Master Plan to evaluate the potential of further water conservation efforts to meet long-term water demands. The goals were to evaluate overall water system performance, evaluate current patterns of water use, predict future patterns of water use, and determine the infrastructure necessary to use less water resources.

While stewardship and sustainability are the main drivers of water conservation in Algonquin, village leaders also wanted to understand how an effective water conservation program can result in a reduction in capital expenditures through the timing of capital investments.

The Village of Algonquin Comprehensive Water System Master Plan was completed in 2012 by Engineering Enterprises, Inc. As the plan moves forward, the savings will be significant.

When comparing current water use trends and potential less resource intensive scenarios, the planners found a nearly $6,360,000 capital cost difference and showed that water conservation policy can have a huge impact.

“The Master Plan has been a great resource to refer back to,” said Andy Warmus, Algonquin utilities superintendent.

“I use the document in some fashion every day.  Can’t imagine not having the information at our fingertips.”