March 7th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
Najwa Obeid’s experiences as a Knauss Fellow at the National Science Foundation can perhaps most accurately be described as diverse. And that diversity, she said, will go a long way in helping her achieve her goal of working on water and coastal policy.
Her greatest exposure to policy came while participating in an ecosystem-based management working group with representatives from agencies like the Department of the Interior, NOAA, the U.S. Navy and EPA. Ecosystem-based management is a type of resource management that focuses on whole ecosystems instead of individual species or resources and is one of nine policy recommendations included in the National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan. The group – officially known as the National Ocean Council ecosystem-based management interagency subgroup – was charged with determining what this recommendation meant for each agency and identifying work priorities and pilot projects. In her role with the National Science Foundation, Najwa identified science and knowledge gaps and connected the group with academic experts.
“I have a better idea now of how things do and should work, particularly when there are a lot of agencies involved,” said Najwa, a Ph.D. candidate at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Reading about the work is one thing, but being immersed in it adds much more value.”
And, like her co-fellow Will Tyburczy, Najwa has some advice for those considering a Knauss fellowship.
“If you have any sort of interest in policy or want to be involved with work that has a faster and more direct social impact,” she advised, “give it a try. It is a very unique and educational year.”
For more information about the Sea Grant Knauss fellowship and other fellowship opportunities, please visit the IISG
Fellowship and Scholarship page.
March 5th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
February was a busy month for those interested in improving coastal outreach and education with social science. The topic took center stage at national and regional conferences. And IISG’s Caitie McCoy—along with other members of the Great Lakes Social Science Network—was onsite for each to discuss new research and provide tips for engaging the public, collecting reliable qualitative data, and evaluating projects.
It all started with the NOAA Social Coast Forum in South Carolina. During the two-day event, Caitie talked with representatives from academia, government agencies, non-profits, and the private sector about everything from how social science has improved risk communication to the best ways to engage Great Lakes tribes in sediment removal projects. The biggest draw, though, was her presentation on the effectiveness of a new severe weather warning system with fellow Sea Grant social scientists Jane Harrison and Hilarie Sorenson along with University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student Katie Williams.
The system is part of NOAA’s Weather-Ready Nation, a collaborative project designed to boost community resilience to tornadoes, storm surges, and other extreme weather events. It is intended to keep broadcast meteorologists and emergency managers up-to-date on expected impacts with messages like “tornadic winds could throw automobiles into the air” and “the entire neighborhood will be destroyed.” Caitie, Jane, Hilarie, and New York Sea Grant’s Katherine Bunting-Howarth were brought on board to ensure that messages meet the needs of those who rely on them most when the big storms hit.
Just a few days later, Caitie, Jane, Hilarie, and others brought social science information and recommendations to Superior, Wisconsin for the St. Louis River Estuary Summit. The summit brought together researchers, natural resource managers, educators, and members of the community interested in protecting this tributary to Lake Superior.
For her part, Caitie reported on a needs assessment conducted last year to learn how local communities feel about remediation and restoration efforts in Spirit Lake, one of several sites that make up the St. Louis River Area of Concern. The case study uncovered several important views and concerns that will help Caitie and other members of the outreach team tailor their efforts to these communities. For example, learning that residents often struggle to see how remediation efforts fit together will help them design simple messages that connect cleaning up Spirit Lake with the ultimate goal of removing the St. Louis River from the AOC list. Although clean up won’t begin until at least 2015, the needs assessment has already influenced outreach and helped Caitie develop strong relationships within the community that will help the project move forward.
The St. Louis River cleanup and Caitie’s work to improve public engagement here and at other AOCs is possible because of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Great Lakes Legacy Act.
(Photo credits: Photo 1: St. Louis River AOC, courtesy of EPA
Photo 2: Caitie McCoy and former intern Emily Anderson near the St. Louis River AOC)
February 28th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
Will Tyburczy’s Knauss fellowship may be over, but his time at NOAA headquarters is not. The IISG-funded fellow will stay with the Office of Program Planning and Integration for another six months to continue some of the work he began as a Knauss Fellow. Please visit the IISG Fellowship page for more information about the Sea Grant Knauss fellowship as well as other fellowship opportunities.
A Ph.D. candidate at University of Chicago, Will spent the bulk of the last year helping NOAA’s Regional Collaboration Network coordinate the work of NOAA’s five main offices—Weather Service, Fisheries Service, Satellite and Information Service, Ocean Service, and Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. The efforts of these offices often overlap on major issues like climate change, habitat conservation, and emergency response. It was Will’s job, along with the other network members, to find opportunities for collaboration and help NOAA make progress on these issues. He also served as a liaison between NOAA regional staff and organization leaders, ensuring that each group had the information and resources they need to effectively meet program goals.
“It was challenging at times,” said Will. “Sometimes it feels like people are talking past each other and you just aren’t making progress. But we have great people who share a lot of the same goals. It is very satisfying to help them work together to meet those goals.”
But one of the highlights of the fellowship involved a very different kind of coordination. Will organized the fall edition of Earth Science Monitor, a bi-annual publication that reports on NOAA environmental data and programs. He worked closely with representatives from the network’s eight regions to develop articles showing what NOAA is doing to address environmental issues in each region. He also worked with NOAA head Jane Lubchenco on the lead article.
Even after he leaves NOAA, Will hopes to continue working at the nexus of science and policy, translating scientific findings into actionable policy advice. And he has advice for others who think they might be interested in doing similar work: “Apply for the Knauss fellowship. It is a great program.”
February 25th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
Much like a gardener hopes that their scattered seeds will eventually bloom into a lush garden, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant awards seed grants to projects that address some of the biggest concerns in the Great Lakes in the hopes that the initiatives will grow into something larger. These Discovery Grant projects—totaling over 40 since 2009—cover a broad range of topics, and their results help natural resource managers and policy makers preserve Lake Michigan and strengthen nearby communities.
So, what are these projects exactly? We’re glad you asked. Discovery Grant Projects II shines a light on unexpected and emerging contaminants in stream water. Other featured projects examine the market for domestic seafood and give Hoosiers real-time access to fish consumption advisories. And another still paints a clearer picture of how Asian carp are changing the food web in the Illinois River.
Download the first edition, Discovery Grant Projects, to learn about past research on water quality, aquaculture, biodiversity, and more. And visit our Research page to read more about past projects and get a peek at ongoing research.
February 7th, 2014 by iisg_superadmin
From UnwantedMeds.org
Last week’s trip to Indianapolis for the annual Indiana Veterinary Medical Association conference was not a typical event for IISG. The three-day conference gave Laura Kammin a unique opportunity to talk with students before they begin their careers as veterinarians or veterinary technicians about the importance of properly disposing of unwanted medication.
“It’s becoming a rarity for me to chat with a veterinarian who doesn’t know about the environmental impacts of improper medicine disposal,” said Laura. “The next step for IISG is to make sure that students are aware of the need for proper storage and disposal.”
Many of the students were unfamiliar with the topic or the disposal options available in their communities. Laura introduced them to simple steps for managing pharmaceuticals in clinics and talked about how they can help spread the word about proper disposal to their future clients.
The event is one of several Laura has attended in the last few years to share resources and speak directly with veterinarians about pharmaceutical stewardship. It is all part of a partnership between IISG and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). Since they joined forces in 2011, IISG and AVMA have developed brochures, public service announcements, and other materials for veterinaries to share with their clients.
Many of these materials have been tailored to small animal veterinarians—those who work with dogs, cats, and other household pets. Now, though, IISG and AVMA are turning their sights towards livestock and the vets who care for them. Antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals used to treat livestock have been found in waterways across the country. In fact, animal agriculture is often the primary contributor of pharmaceutical pollution in rural areas, and some of these chemicals have been linked to impaired development and reproduction in aquatic wildlife.
The transition to livestock pharmaceuticals took a big step forward during the conference thanks to an opportune meeting with Dan Walsh, a distance learning instructor at the Purdue College of Veterinary Medicine. Laura and Dan traded resources that will help both programs strengthen their efforts to educate future vets and vet techs about the importance of proper medicine storage, use, and disposal.
January 22nd, 2014 by IISG
The cure for some of the world’s deadliest diseases may be living at the bottom of the Great Lakes. This is the theory Brian Murphy, a medicinal chemist at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), set out to test in 2012 when he scoured Lake Huron in search of a largely unexplored type of bacteria that may hold the key to new treatments.
The IISG-funded study unearthed more than 600 strains of freshwater actinomycete bacteria, making it one of the largest “libraries” of its kind in the world. Murphy—with help from UIC researchers Scott Franzblau, Joanna Burdette, and Lijun Rong—is still testing whether these strains can be used to create new treatments for tuberculosis and other life-threatening diseases. But their initial results suggest that at least a handful of freshwater bacteria could lead to new cures.
A microbe’s medicinal power lies in the small compounds they make to defend themselves, which can destroy cell walls, prevent DNA from replicating like it should, and more. Current treatments for many diseases are built around the chemical defenses used by land-based cousins of the bacteria Murphy has collected. But some treatments, like the ones for tuberculosis, require patients to be on a complex cocktail of antibiotics for months at a time. Worse still, a growing number of diseases are now resistant to standard drugs. The hope is that some of the freshwater bacteria in Murphy’s library might create molecules that dangerous pathogens have yet to evolve defenses against.
“Researchers have been operating on the assumption that bacteria in the lake are nearly identical to what are found on the land,” said Murphy. “But we think these freshwater strains are likely to produce new molecules that target diseases in different ways.”
Murphy and his team will spend the next few months scrutinizing chemical compounds from 10 actinomycete strains already showing disease-fighting potential and comparing them against known antibiotics, anti-virals, and anti-cancer agents. At the same time, they will keep working through their bacterial library hoping to find even more molecules with drug-like potency.
Just as important as finding new molecules is learning more about the relationship between a microbe’s chemical properties and where it lives. This is where Murphy’s library of strains really comes in. Its size and diversity will help reveal both whether aquatic actinomycete bacteria are significantly different than their land-based counterparts and if strains found in different lakes use unique chemical defenses.
“One of the biggest barriers in the discovery of new drugs is knowing where to look,” said Murphy. “Knowing where bacteria populations are similar and where they are different helps us figure out exactly where to sample when looking for new drugs.”
Because of his collection, Murphy has already discovered that the makeup of actinomycete communities in Lake Huron varies both by location and depth, a diversity that makes the lake a potentially important site in the hunt for new cures.
January 17th, 2014 by Irene Miles
The recent release of Water Management Resource Guide is giving a boost to water conservation in DuPage County, Illinois’ second most populated county. Residents throughout the county can now get help from community conservation coordinators to better understand the need to conserve water supplies and advocate for city-wide conservation efforts. It is all a part of the Water Conservation and Protection Program developed by the DuPage Water Commission. Along with conservation coordinators, the program provides easy tips for reducing water use at home—like repairing leaky toilets and watering lawns at specific times—and makes it easier for residents to learn about conservation efforts already underway in their communities.
Here is what Margaret had to say about the summer’s events:
“I was excited to be invited by Abby Crisostomo at MPC to present my work on water rates at the DuPage Water Commission’s workshop series. As a resource economist with IISG, one of my roles has been to support regional implementation of the CMAP Water 2050 Northeastern Illinois Regional Water Supply/Demand Plan. Designating a community conservation coordinator was a key recommendation made in the Water 2050 Plan, and it is terrific that the DuPage Water Commission not only implemented this recommendation but also provided training workshops and the summary resource guide. One conundrum facing conservation coordinators is that the result of successful water conservation—declines in water use—tends to decrease revenue. Water managers therefore need solutions to balance their water conservation goals with the financial resiliency of the system. In my work on this issue, I’ve sought to help planners better understand the relationships between rates, revenues, and water conservation as they craft water conservation plans for their communities. This workshop series brought together many great presenters and resources for the participants, and it was enjoyable to take part in.”
For further information on water conservation, planning, and management, visit our water supply page.
January 16th, 2014 by Irene Miles
The future is looking bright for the Grand Calumet River. Completed and ongoing restoration projects along the heavily industrialized river have already removed or capped more than 2 million pounds of sediment ridden with toxins like PCBs and heavy metals. And late last year, the EPA took the first step towards cleaning up the final sections of river yet to be addressed.
It will be a long road to restoration, but this step means those who live and work nearby can expect to see a clean river bottom with a vibrant plant community as early as 2024.
“This means a lot to the community,” said Caitie McCoy, IISG’s environmental social scientist. “I was recently at a meeting with community members in northwest Indiana who have been fighting for this river for over 50 years where the EPA announced their plans. Their reaction was almost a mixture of joy and disbelief. When you devote your whole life to something, making baby steps of progress along the way, it must be surreal to finally reach that moment. It is an honor to be a part of it.”
For now, efforts are focused on determining the feasibility of cleaning up four river segments: one in Gary, IN and three more in East Chicago, IN, where there is also funding to design a tailored cleanup plan.
Remediation projects are big undertakings. One common strategy, for example, requires contaminated sediment to be dredged, pumped to shore, dried, and trucked off to fill sites certified to handle this kind of waste. At the same time, the water pulled out during dredging has to be treated before it can be returned to the river.
To ensure the success of any new projects in these areas, the EPA is teaming up with the East Chicago Water Management District, the Gary Sanitary District and other local partners to take a closer look at restoration needs. In Gary, planning will likely be completed sometime this year, but it will be another year still before the group announces plans for the stretch flowing through East Chicago. Before any actual cleanup work can begin, though, additional funding and partners will be needed for both projects.
The next few years will also prove significant for two other sections of river. Cleanup efforts at the river’s westernmost end in Hammond, IN are expected to kick off this year. And work on a larger segment of the river just a few miles to the east is expected to wrap up in 2015. There, construction crews have already removed much of the contaminated sediment along the river bed and are now turning their sights to nearby wetlands. Project partners have also begun removing invasive plants along this stretch to make room for native species that will be planted in 2015.
Efforts to restore the Grand Calumet River are part of the Great Lakes Legacy Act, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
*Photo 1 courtesy of Lloyd DeGrane
*Photo 2 courtesy of U.S. EPA
January 8th, 2014 by Irene Miles
School is back in session and that means science teachers across southern Lake Michigan will be turning their sights to the Great Lakes. For the AP Environmental Science class at Zion-Benton Township High School, though, the issues facing nearby Lake Michigan have been in focus since the start of the year.
Their teacher, Alex Stavropoulos, got the idea for some of his classroom and field activities after spending a week aboard the U.S. EPA R/V Lake Guardian this summer for the annual Shipboard and Shoreline Science Workshop. Alex wrote in to tell us what his class has been up to.
Towards the beginning of the school year, my class spent about a month on our “Aquatic Habitats and Biodiversity” unit. After exploring the general nature of aquatic systems (both marine and freshwater), we took a closer look at our local water systems, specifically Lake Michigan. During this time, we discussed the history of the Great Lakes, identified the various ways in which humans have used and altered the makeup of the Great Lakes, spent two days conducting water-quality testing and macro-invertebrate sampling (using both biotic and abiotic indicators to compare water quality in various tributaries to that of the mouths in which they fed into Lake Michigan), and debated plausible methods to prevent invasive species such as the Asian Carp from entering the Great Lakes.
Throughout this entire unit, I found myself regularly referencing experiences I had during the Lake Guardian summer workshop. The experiences not only allowed me to better explain the complexity of some of these issues, but it also opened my students’ eyes to hands-on opportunities available in the world of science. It taught me a great deal about the Great Lakes, but, more importantly, it improved my ability to teach students about the Lakes’ significance. I hope this program continues to be funded for years to come as it is a wonderful way of spreading both knowledge and passion regarding the importance of preserving the gift that is the Great Lakes.
This year’s workshop will take place on Lake Erie. Keep an eye on our blog in the coming months for more details and application information.
