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Working with Stakeholders | Engagement and Translation Advisory Committe

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The MIT SRP Engagement and Translation Advisory Committee (ETAC) is comprised of representatives from Wilmington, MA, constituents from the Passamaquoddy Tribe, members of the MIT SRP, EPA representatives, State officials, and other key advisors.  The collective working interest of the ETAC members focuses on public health and environmental concerns, with MIT SRP serving as the bridge and a hub to advance stakeholder interactions and bidirectional discussions.

MIT SRP held an ETAC meeting with stakeholders involved with issues relating to the Olin Chemical Superfund Site.  In addition to MIT SRP members, attendees also included Wilmington community members, members of the Wilmington Environmental Restoration Committee, the leader of Silent Spring, and members of the EPA Superfund Project Management Team.  The theme of the meeting centered on ways that MIT can help community members and the EPA.  At this meeting, the SRP team helped to bring together two critical stakeholder groups:  the Wilmington community and the EPA.  As the moderator, Dr. Bevin Engelward facilitated an in-depth discussion of the current state of the Olin Chemical Superfund Site such that community members could hear the perspective of the EPA.  Likewise, the EPA representatives heard the viewpoints and issues about site clean-up and water monitoring plans from community members.  The community members expressed their continual concern and frustration pertaining to the watershed impact, definition of the groundwater contamination plume, and the remediation timeline.  This ETAC meeting gave EPA an opportunity beyond the Agency’s regular Olin stakeholder update meetings to address specific community questions.  Unlike the stakeholder discussions initiated by the EPA where the Superfund project team designed the agenda items, the topics at this ETAC meeting were driven by the community members.  As such, the Superfund project team could respond directly to what the community felt were their most pressing concerns.  In this fashion, the MIT SRP team member helped to bridge a difficult conversation between community members and EPA representatives.  While cleanup is underway, community members feel that the pace of cleanup is staggeringly slow and so they worry about continued spreading of toxic chemicals even during the cleanup period.  In the end, each side understood better the viewpoint of the others which will undoubtedly help to grease the wheels toward a mutually agreeable resolution at some point in the future.

SRP 2023 retreat

MIT SRP Retreat – 2023

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On May 24, 2023, MIT SRP held a retreat.  Dr. Bevin Engelward kicked off the retreat by presenting an overview of the SRP work as well as how NDMA related contaminations play a major role in the SRP projects.  She highlighted the elevated cancer cases in Wilmington, MA and the Passamaquoddy drinking water issues from the water treatment process where NDMA was the hazardous chemical of concern for both situations.  For Wilmington, MA, groundwater contamination from the Olin Chemical Superfund site caused several residential well closures due to the presence of NDMA along with other contaminants.  In the Passamaquoddy situation, there was the concern that the use of disinfectants, such as chlorine or chloramine, may cause the formation of NDMA as a by-product from this treatment process.  Finding solutions for these public health problems are drivers for Projects 1 to 4.  The dissemination of this information and the related community engagement action plans are an integral part of all Cores activities.

To provide more details to the types of SRP projects in public health protection, SRP trainees gave “flash talks” followed by a discussion regarding their work in investigating and identifying the health effects associated with low-level NDMA exposure as well as the development of solutions to measure and destroy NDMA.  The flash talks were helpful in keeping discussions and plans for cross-disciplinary research vibrant.

There were two outside guests at the Retreat, namely Dr. Marilyn Black, VP and Senior Technical Advisor for Chemical Insights Research Institute (CIRI), and Dr. Christa Wright, Director for the Center for Toxicological and Human Health within CIRI. They talked about their organization and about specific challenges being addressed. Dr. Wright is also an MIT SRP Community Engagement Core team member, contributing to many community engagement programs as well as spearheading Research Experience Training Coordination Core activities.  Sharing her research findings, Dr. Wright discussed the adverse health impacts associated with vaping.  She highlighted how the inhaled mist (vapor) from handheld electronic devices introduce fine particulates and heavy metals into the lungs. There are nitrosamines in vapes, drawing an important connection between the mission of CIRI and that of the MIT SRP. Education regarding the risks from vaping has not been as prominent as with cigarette use given the perception that vaping is safer than smoking cigarettes.  This is especially worrisome for teens and young adults because their bodies are still growing, making them more susceptible to the harm caused by vaping.

Taken together, the MIT SRP Retreat was an opportunity for faculty, graduate students, and postdocs to learn and share their research and community engagement work.  Knowing the various aspects of the SRP work enhances collaboration between the Projects and Cores.  Furthermore, having CIRI speakers at the retreat enabled SRP members to gain insights on other emerging environmental and public health issues. The event ended with refreshments and lawn games, enjoyed by all.

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Working with Stakeholders | Community Engagement: Wilmington, MA STEM Fair

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Breaking NEWS: The MIT Team from SRP were back this year on March 6, 2024 after a very successful first year event in 2023!  

The Wilmington Public Schools, K-8, invited Dr. Kathleen Vandiver to prepare and bring an activity to share at their annual STEM Fair for the school’s students on the evening of March 8th, 2023.  Dr. Vandiver chose to bring her hands-on tabling activity, “Build LEGO™ Models of Air Pollutants.”  Pollutants in the atmosphere are often invisible, like many other environmental problems, but they may produce significant environmental and public health consequences.

Dr. Vandiver, along with SRP Director, Dr. Bevin Engelward and five SRP Trainees (Barathkumar Baskaran, Aimee Moise, Amanda Armijo, Vandana Singh, and Haosheng Feng) volunteered to be the explainers for this climate change program.  They set up the activity stations for students to construct air molecules, modeling the different elements with colored LEGO™ bricks.  The students first learned to build the common molecules in air by building these chemicals’ molecular structures.   At the next station, the students modeled a chemical reaction with bricks to see how cars burning gasoline as fuel will release molecules of CO2 which have a negative impact on the planet.  And at the third and fourth stations, the students learned how the combustion reaction can also produce pollutants harmful to human health.  These hands-on learning experiences increase the students’ understanding about how molecules play a role in climate change and how the environment can affect human health.  These activities educate young students by offering them a visual and tactile modeling experience about molecules in air.  Additionally, their accompanying parents benefit from having their understandings refreshed on the importance of limiting CO2 production and other air pollutants for better health.

Nikki Bugher

MIT SRP in the News | Nicolette Bugher: The toxic chemicals all around us

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Struck at a young age of how lake water quality can negatively impact fish population, that experience shaped Nicolette Bugher’s educational goals. As a Ph.D. candidate conducting research at the Plata Lab, Nicolette’s work is to find and identify harmful chemicals in the environment. Also, as a part of the MIT SRP, Nicolette is investigating potentially carcinogenic chemicals found at unregulated hazardous waste sites, known as Superfund sites. A particular chemical of concern in Nicolette’s research is N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), a contaminant found in the groundwater at Wilmington, MA where the Olin Superfund site is also located. Working on this compound has significance for her and in her research, because this compound is a potential carcinogen at low levels according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Yet, typical analytical laboratory instruments cannot detect this chemical at these low exposure levels to be protective of public health.

“Cancer—it’s unplanned, it’s unexpected. You’re never prepared for it—you don’t know where it comes from,” Nicolette says. “The work that we do is really important, because we’re trying to help toxicologists figure out where cancer is coming from and how to solve it.” As such, the research and discoveries by Nicolette will have broader public health implications beyond Wilmington, MA. It can offer more insights to help other communities that are dealing with similar contamination problems.

Read the article at MIT Technology Review