GE 532 students present analysis of Mystic River contamination
On March 28, students in Research for Environmental Agencies and Organizations (GE 532) presented their analysis of chemical storage and contaminated site vulnerability to climate change to representatives of the Mystic River Watershed Association, the Sustainable Remediation Forum, EcoAdapt, and the engineering consulting firms Fuss & O’Neill and Woodward and Curran. The students also presented their analysis of chemical storage sites that present risks, using Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know, Superfund and Clean Air Act data, and a method of ranking these sites in terms of their importance. To produce spreadsheets and maps they matched from separate lists and selected chemicals presenting high risks from exposure to water due to reactivity or mobility. To rank for severity of risk they weighted the toxicity of the chemical according to the threshold for reporting releases, and multiplied by the quantity stored. In addition, Jon Naughton, a junior Earth & Environmental Sciences major, presented a methodology for determining where released materials would flow. GE 532 is taught by Rick Reibstein.