Henry speaks: Mercury in the Onondaga Lake Remedy?

As part of the requirements of FOR496/797 Environmental Career Strategies for Women, students share responsibility for reporting on the presentations in the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series.  The following was prepared by Liz Canal, Rebecca Maurer, and Shavaun Jenkins.

Dr. Betsy Henry, Senior Managing Scientist, E^xponent, Schenectady, launched SUNY ESF’s 2009 Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series with  Mercury in the Onondaga Lake Remedy on February 24. The Department of Chemistry and the ESF Women’s Caucus jointly sponsored the seminar.

Dr. Henry discussed the background of mercury contamination including the global mercury cycle over the last 20 years, US fish consumption advisories, analysis of mercury in water, and the mercury transformation processes in aquatic systems.  Attention was then focused on the history of mercury bioaccumulation in Onondaga Lake and the remedial investigation that took place from 1992-2001, as well E^xponent’s involvement with that process.  

Dr. Henry is working with Honeywell International (formerly AlliedSignal) and the DEC to clean up Allied’s mass depositing of mercury over the years. Mercury had been used as an electrode in the production of chlorine, caustic potash (KOH) and caustic soda (NaOH); briny groundwater made Syracuse uniquely suited for these industries.  Elemental mercury is of particular concern because of its potential to methylate in non-oxygen environments such as deep water and sediment.  Methylmercury is a soluable neurotoxin that bioaccumulates, becoming more concentrated as larger fish eat smaller ones. 

Henry explained that Honeywell, DEC & EPA had been working toward “a phase of a consent decree” on how the lake could be cleaned.  The data took over a decade to collect and assisted in creating a feasibility study, where all the alternatives to cleaning the lake were evaluated. January 2007 marked the beginning of the five year design schedule that would allow the cleaning of the sediment from the lake to actually begin.

The first step in remediation was to decrease external sources of mercury contamination from former Allied Signal, particularly the former LCP Bridge Street Plant, Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant (METRO), and groundwater infiltration in 2007.  Soil washing has separated more than 7 tons of elemental mercury from 85 tons of processed soil.  To stop groundwater infiltration, a barrier wall was set up from 35 to 70 feet in depth.  The groundwater that would have entered Onondaga Lake is now pumped to a treatment plant.  The next step in the Remedy will be elimination of mercury through dredging and capping.   “Natural recovery” will be monitored for the two-thirds of the lake bottom where clean lake sediment is burying the contaminated waste sediment.  Additions of oxygen and nitrate are planned to delay the production of additional methylmercury, and Onondaga County is spending $500 million to stop polluting the lake with sewage by 2012. These steps are designed to meet the remedial goal of reducing mercury concentration in sediment, water, and fish tissue to levels that are “protective of human health and environment.”   

In 2012 they will “get inside the lake to address internal processes” including resuspension of in-lake waste deposits, which are primarily made up of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃); methane gas ebullition, poor water diffusion, and methyl mercury production.

Dr. Henry’s experience includes management of investigations, risk assessment, and agency negotiations at some of the most prominent mercury sites in the country. With a broad background in the transport and fate of contaminants in the environment, Dr. Henry specialty is in the transport, fate, and bioaccumulation of mercury in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. More recently, she has worked closely with engineers during remedial design to understand and address risks associated with mercury contamination.

Dr. Henry received her B.S. in agronomy from Colorado State University and her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Harvard University.  In addition to her position with E^xponent, she serves as president of ReTree Schenectady, a non-profit organization dedicated to the planting, care, and conservation of current and future generations of trees in the City of Schenectady. 

 For more information about the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus.

Chemical Remediation of Contaminants in Water and Soil using Fenton Advanced Oxidation Systems

As part of the requirements for FOR 496/797 Environmental Career Strategies for Women, students share the responsiblity for reporting on the speakers in the Women in Environmental Professions Speaker Series.  The following was prepared by Shavaun Jenkins and Christina Quinn.

 

Dr. Ann Lemley, a Professor in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, concluded SUNY ESF’s 2009 Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series with a talk entitled Chemical Remediation of Contaminants in Water and Soil using Fenton Advanced Oxidation Systems on April 7. The Department of Chemistry and the ESF Women’s Caucus co-sponsored the seminar.

Dr. Lemley discussed her current research concerning the use of chemical means for the degradation of contaminants in water and soil. Contaminated soils pose potentially serious threats to surface and ground water quality, particularly when contaminant concentrations are high due to accidental spills or discharges. Therefore, the goal of her work is to develop a practical system for the removal or treatment of contaminants, including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and other organics, from water and soil systems.

Beginning with a brief introduction into the background of pesticide contamination and the complications associated with its remediation, Dr. Lemley described how advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) offer fast and effective techniques for remediation. Specifically, her lab focuses on the application of Fenton reactions (Fe²⁺ + H₂O₂ àFe³⁺ + OH^- + *OH) to degrade contaminants in water and soil/clay slurries through an indirect electrochemical method, known as Anodic Fenton treatment (AFT), that generates Fe²⁺ via electrolysis. This treatment offers several advantages including the avoidance of problems with hygroscopic salts, reducing the need for reactions at extreme pH’s, and the ability to control the release of reagents and measure the *OH radical reaction rates.

            Within Dr. Lemley’s research group, an AFT kinetic model has been developed and, using competitive kinetics, optimized to allow for the measure of concentrations of coexisting contaminants. Furthermore, this model has been revised to accommodate nitrogen-containing pesticides (tricosenes).  Dr. Lemley concluded her presentation with an illustration of the application of the AFT kinetic model in soil slurries and layered clays. Through the use of X-ray diffraction, the adsorption of several probe chemicals, including mecoprop (anionic), carbaryl (neutral) and paraquat (cationic) was measured along with their subsequent degradation rate by AFT. While anionic and neutral chemicals can be effectively and completely degraded by AFT, the removal of cationic chemicals in soil/clay may prove more difficult due to strong electrochemical interactions. Future research will be focused on developing electrochemical systems for different applied situations and the study of a variety of other contaminants, including animals antibiotics, and their rate of degradation and subsequent degradation products.

Dr. Lemley received her B.A. in Chemistry and Education from St. John’s University, and both her Master’s and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Cornell University.  Currently, Dr. Lemley is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design, working in the Field of Environmental Toxicology, at Cornell University. She is also on the Editorial Board of several journals (including the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, and Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A) and active with the NYSTAR Center for Environmental Quality centered at Syracuse University.

For more information about events sponsored by the ESF Women’s Caucus, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus.

NSF: options and opportunities, & Women in Science: issues and advances,

Kathleen Weathers, Program Director, Ecosystem Science Cluster, National Science Foundation, recommended applying for opportunities listed with NSF, and looking for those described in "Dear Colleague" letters.  She also shared her work on scientific culture.

Breaking through the glass ceiling--and what to wear on the way, February 19, 2010.

WISE invited fashion professor Karen Bakke to talk about dressing for success, without breaking the bank.  She suggests watching clips of "working girl" where secretary Melanie Griffith is transformed into a CEO through hair and wardrobe.
Those interviewing will likely be at least a generation ahead of you, and want to hire someone that won't embarrass them.  Thus, 
1.  Do not offend--Simple, sensible, conservative attire, shoes and bags. 
2.  Keep an eye on what those in the top jobs wear.  
3.  Stock up on hosiery in the winter, as you can rarely find it in the summer any longer.  
4.  Feminine OK, but not slutty or bimbo.   
5.  And even after you've gotten the job, casual does not equal sloppy.

Work-Life Balance Panel (co-sponsored by WISE-FPP)

Panelists Svetoslava Todorova, a graduate student in Civil and Environmental Engineering at SU; Dr. Melissa Fierke, Assistant Professor, EFB, SUNY-ESFF; Dr. Marina Artuso, Professor, Physics, and Co-Director, WISE, SU;  and Dr. Shobha Bhatia, Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence, Civil and Environmental Engineering, SU represented different stages of an academic career.  Similarly, their children range in age from toddler to college.   Some of their spouses are fellow academics, some have separate professional careers, and one is an at-home dad.  

Their suggestions: 

• Prioritize, and where possible, separate the priorities in time. 
• Set goals to stay on target and motivated.
• Support of family, advisors and friends is critical.  Parents provided childcare for several panelists, either during particularly hectic experiment periods, or allowing the panelist to travel to conferences.
• Try to keep regular time for family, but don’t feel guilty if need to change it or miss it this week. And also keep some time for yourself to do something you love like reading or running.
• Focus on the present.  Let go of the guilt for sacrificing housework, limiting social time with classmates, and postponed deadlines. 
• Pre-pay for vacations/tickets so that you are not tempted to say “I’ve got too much to do right now.”
• Click here for a the handout.

Questions:

Did any of you consider working part-time?  No.  Part-time is generally frowned upon, especially for those that have not attained tenure.  Full-time expectations even for those that are part-time.  International students do not have a part-time option.

Childcare Centers?  Great help.  Can’t predict how you will feel about daycare.  Lots of moms think they want a childcare facility, but change their minds after birth.  At the same time, it’s very hard to give up a career you love, even its just for a short period.

“Even the best-laid plans…”.   Timely examples: a fifth panelist cancelled to care for a sick child, and one of the sitting panelists was called away for a period to coordinate assistance for an older child.

Surviving Grad School 101: Balancing Work and Family

Rosemary O'Leary began the discussion with her own background:  her mother started work on a PhD once her youngest child started school.  She also shared her challenge of finding good job opportunities for her and her husband (an economist, also with the Maxwell School) where both of them were wanted, and then raising their daughter (and a child from a previous marriage) with two busy research careers. 

 

What works for them:  They arrange their class schedules on opposite days, so the one not teaching can prepare dinner, chauffer, chaperone, etc., split household duties, and they renegotiate when this ceases to work.

Daughter has been to many meetings and defenses.  Rosemary reserves an hour a day for herself which she spends in the gym (similarly, one of the participants learned to play an instrument); she firmly believes that this helps her be better at everything else, and that its a good model for her daughter.  She doesn't go to all the meetings she would like--sometimes its Larry's turn. Ask for help.  The waiting list for the daycare at her previous institution was 150 families long; they called weekly to check.  She suspects they just got tired of the phone calls and moved her to the top.

 

Specific questions:  How did you survive the time between when your daughter was 10 and 14?  Rosemary shared her remembrance that she had personally loved when her mom had asked her opinion, and the realization that this was true for her own daughter.   Between homework and extracurricular activities and sleep, do kids even do chores anymore?  Time crunched moms often find it more expedient to do it themselves rather than supervising or taking time to teach to do task correctly.  But this ends up a disservice to both.  Rotate responsibilities, and accept that things won't necessarily be done as well for now. When Rosemary was a child,  there were 7 rotating tasks, including "the expediter" who made sure all the other tasks were completed.

 

She asked participants about their particular struggles:  time, staying upbeat, a little time in the gym to keep sane, getting kids through it, too.

 

Two of the participants took the same route as Rosemary's mom, and are now pursuing degrees.  Other successful strategies:  ditch unsupportive spouse (especially if abusive), move into a smaller place with easier upkeep and less opportunities for mooching by adult children. Some solutions don't work for everyone:  Theoretically we could "farm out" cooking and cleaning, but not on most student budgets!  This discussion was facilitated by Rosemary O'Leary, Distinguished Professor of Public Administration; Distinguished Professor and Phanstiel Chair in Strategic Management and Leadership; Co-Director, Program for the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict; and Senior Research Associate in both the Campbell Public Affairs Institute and Center for Environmental Policy and Administration at Syracuse University.  It was co-sponsored by the Graduate Student Association as part of their yearlong series Surviving Grad School 101.

Susan Crow Presents: Creating Resilient Communities: Tools for Regional Land Use Planning in the Face of Hazards in South Carolina

by Lydia Bilodeau, Monica Giermek, and Priscilla Hernandez

Since the early 1990’s, Susan Crow has focused her efforts on applying GIS and other technologies to ecosystem based management programs in order to help communities have a better understanding on the negative implications that comes with industrial development and population growth. She believes that by recognizing these implications and visualizing future alternative, communities can make sustainable decisions. PlaceMatters is a non profit organization that supports tools for community involvement in land use planning situations. Place Matter takes pride in bridging the divide between social and science tools and approaches. This is done by giving recommendations for effective integration of these two approaches, and providing training and outreach programs in order to broaden use of division support tools.

Her current project is titled, “Creating Resilient Communities, Ecosystem Based Management”.  The site for the project is the tri-county region of South Carolina. This region is an area that has been affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita, growth, and changing sea levels, a result of global climate change. Creating Resilient Communities wishes to incorporate holistic planning and adaptive management.  This project will help area residents, businesses, planners, and elected officials make better informed decisions concerning where land should be developed. It also aims to prepare communities to resist damage from natural disasters, conserve natural areas, and assess coast community vulnerability.

Creating resilient communities faces certain challenges due to the tri-counties having fractured governance and planning, no jurisdictional coordination, and no regional database. They hope their efforts will open up several opportunities for the community, such as public and private partnership, regional planning initiatives and hopefully provide a willingness to cooperate among the different stakeholders. This project is planned to run up until 2009. Susan Crown and Place Matters hope that communities will benefit from all their combined efforts.  Expected benefits include flood control, recreation, tourism, food materials, and fish and wildlife preservation.

­Susan Crow is a member of the public service faculty of the Institute of Government and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia. She is currently a fellow for PlaceMatters, a program of theDavid and Lucile Packard Foundation located in Denver.

Patricia Riexinger Speaks About Wetlands at ESF

By: Kacie Gehl, ESF Graduate Student

Ms. Patricia Riexinger, Director of Fish, Wildlife, and Marine Resources, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, presented Freshwater Wetlands: Conservation Policy in New York State Tuesday, April 8, 2008.  Ms. Riexinger’s presentation was sponsored by the Environmental Studies Randolph G. Pack Environmental Institute and the ESF Women’s Caucus, and was the third presentation this spring in ESF’s Women in Environmental and Scientific Seminar Series. 

Ms. Riexinger began by defining herself as a “good bureaucrat”.  She elaborated that she began her career with the DEC doing field work which she one day decided wasn’t actually protecting the habitat of the species she cared for in a direct enough way.  She decided that in order to feel as though she was really making a difference, she would have to get involved with the politics and decision-making processes.  She conveyed that science alone will not manage habitat.  Although she feels DEC is making a big difference, she added the disclaimer that DEC can only do the “legal thing” not always what they feel is the “right thing.”  This idea was further discussed with examples of federal court cases and county- level disagreements.

Ms. Riexinger described wetlands and the painstaking process of mapping wetlands with differing views between agencies on the exact definition of wetland delineation.  She reminded the audience that only wetlands 12.4 acres or larger in size are protected which only protects about 75-80% of wetlands by acreage.  This specification may exclude wetlands that are of smaller acreage, but which are of unusual local importance.  She emphasized that it is still very important to protect smaller wetlands but a compromise had to be made between the political and scientific levels of the argument.

Ms. Riexinger asked the question, “What will climate change mean for managing natural resources in New York State?”  She encouraged the audience to think “big and bold” with their ideas for conservation and management because you have to think big to make change.  One change that the DEC is making currently is to amend their existing freshwater wetland maps to be defined on a watershed basis rather than along political boundaries.  This will stimulate the community to think about freshwater as watershed  systems and will lead to a greater understanding of the science behind the hydrologic processes involved in watershed management.

Ms. Riexinger received her B.S. from Cornell University in Wildlife Biology and her M. S. degree from the University of Albany in Biodiversity Conservation and Policy.  Along with her Director’s position, Ms. Riexinger is also an outdoorsperson who enjoys birding, snorkeling and traveling.  She is on her town Conservation Board and leads a Girl Scout troop.

 

Margaret Shannon Speaks on Making Feminist Theory a Part of Sustainable Forest Management

As part of the course requirements for FOR 797-2, students share the responsibility for reporting on the speakers in the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series for distribution to co-sponsors and the Knothole.  The following was prepared by Kaity Cheng and Laura Sullivan. 

 

Dr. Margaret Shannon, Associate Dean of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont addressed “The Essential Role of Research for Sustainable Forest Management: Feminist Theory and Practice” on April 4, 2008.  Dr. Shannon’s stated goal for her lecture was to make people think differently about their research. To that end, she encouraged an examination of our ideologies and the use of feminist theory to challenge the validity of key normative ideas.  She then proceeded to examine ideologies central to the field of forestry.

Shannon offered several reasons why feminist theory contributes to research.  She emphasized that women are the appropriate starting point for examining inequality. The role of women reveals structures and systems of power and privilege. She gave examples of societies where women locate or gather forest resources that sustain their communities, but have been excluded from forest management discussions.

Feminist theory emphasizes the lived realities of research participants. Incorporating the lived experience of all stakeholder groups results in more comprehensive research findings, and enhances the social agency of participants. Feminist theory is oriented toward social change; feminist research is conducted for participants, as opposed to about them.

One focus of the discussion was the research ideal, or the practice of high quality research. Shannon shared her conviction that research should involve interrogating knowledge systems. This process of inquiry should reveal structures and systems of power and privilege. Scientists should integrate theories of social power with theories underpinning forestry research.  Furthermore, research as critique should draw the invisible from its shadows and make it known.

Through paintings and words, Shannon discussed sustainable forest management, which she noted is distinct from the concept of sustainable forests.  Sustainable Forest Management is more about developing a sustainable management ideology that, it is assumed, will in turn help sustain forests.  She believes it should be in opposition to ‘single objective’ forest management. Vivid in her descriptions, Dr. Shannon compared treating the forest as if it has a single value to pornography, which treats women as if they had a single value.

The lecture was sponsored by the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management and the ESF Women’s Caucus as C. Eugene Farnsworth Memorial lecturer and part of the  Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Seminar Series.  For information about upcoming lectures in the series, please visit http://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus. 

Shannon is a former SUNY ESF faculty member.  She participated in the development of the Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management.  Shannon was a Senior Fulbright Fellow at the University of Freiburg, Germany, in the Forest and Environmental Science Department.  She has also directed the Environmental Law Program at SUNY Buffalo Law School.

Robin Bell's guide to preparing for tenure

Dr. Bell “Step(ped) through hints on how to be strategic; how to build the record you need to be an academic scientist.” The time between post-doc and tenure sets the stage.  If you have a plan, you are likely to do better (measures used:  submit papers and grant applications at a higher rate, be first author more frequently) and be more satisfied.  Productivity is THE measure of how good you are, with # of pubs is the most common metric Be able to say what you have contributed, and have a “home run”—an important discovery or advance.  There is a hierarchy of value associated with scientific work:  Theoretical>experimental>technological breakthroughs. Distinguish yourself from your PhD advisor, but if the relationship is good, keep working together.  Pick projects that can be published and funded.  Collaborate.  Travel to meetings If you can’t present, see about running a workshop there, or at home institution.  Ideal: prestigious PhD program and post-doc, work assignment with opportunities for research, eminent mentor, early publishing, no career interruptions (there are some gendered differences).  Align interests with rewards; make sure what you do counts.  More comprehensive notes.