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Many players involved in effort to clean-up disadvantaged areas
October 12, 2009
Sacoby Wilson
A USC researcher will use a four-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to help residents address environmental injustice, public health, and revitalization issues in seven disadvantaged North Charleston neighborhoods.
Dr. Sacoby Wilson, a research assistant professor in the Institute for Families in Society and the Arnold School’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the College of Social Work, is principal investigator of the project that will identify air, water, and soil pollutants and their impact on disadvantaged neighborhoods in North Charleston, SC.
Once the industrial and non-industrial sources of pollution are identified and mapped, the grant will support efforts by the communities to improve residents’ health and quality of life. These efforts could include shifting traffic patterns, changing zoning, development of new regional air management initiatives, and retrofitting of large vehicles through green jobs initiatives, he said.
The project is titled “Use of a Community-University Partnership to Eliminate Environmental Stressors.” The community partner is the Low-Country Alliance for Model Communities, created in 2006 to combat aesthetic, social, economic and environmental issues in the seven neighborhoods, most in the city’s northern perimeter along the Cooper River.
That the neighborhoods are polluted is a moot point. A recent study by analysts at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Southern California ranked North Charleston-Charleston the fourth-worst metropolitan area in the country for the disparity of health risks from industrial pollution on low-income neighborhoods compared with other neighborhoods.
The city’s residents have had a long history of living with heavy industry dating back to the Civil War. A sampling of today’s environment includes several legacy Superfund sites from the now-closed Naval Base, the Charleston County incinerator, a military marine products plant and a large kraft paper mill.
Moreover North Charleston is crisscrossed by heavily-trafficked I-26 and the Mark Clark Expressway.
Manganese and manganese compounds and chromium and chromium compounds have been identified among the leading toxic compounds found in the area’s environment. Other toxins have included nickel and nickel compounds, sulfuric acid and formaldehyde.
“I am very excited and proud to be making a positive contribution to this partnership. LAMC has done a great job in working with partners such as USC, the South Carolina States Port Authority (SCSPA) and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) for several years in bringing attention to environmental risks in their communities and I believe that through this grant, LAMC’s efforts will have a significant impact on positive social and environmental change,” Wilson said.
The project is being launched in the wake of a planned expansion of the Port of Charleston with a new terminal on the former navy base. It dovetails with a Community Mitigation Plan that was developed by the SCSPA, LAMC and the City of North Charleston, to minimize any negative impacts and maximize the benefits of the expansion.
Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, Wilson and his team intend to generate maps of pollutant sources and concentrations in the seven neighborhoods. The information will enable residents to better focus on issues that directly impact air quality in their locale. The program also will take soil samples to reveal possible hazards under foot.
Wilson said an important second component of the project is to build public awareness of the environmental issues. “We hope to hold a series of neighborhood workshops to get the community involved,” he said.
Other activities will include organizing environmental science fairs for neighborhood youngsters along with environmental-summer camps.
Wilson, who also has studied environmental health and justice issues arising from hog farming in Mississippi and North Carolina, received his doctorate (2005) and master’s (2000) degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill. He completed his postdoctoral work in population health as a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan. He is a two-time EPA STAR fellow, Senior Fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program, and Chair-Elect of the Environment Section of the American Public Health Association.
Co-Investigators on the project include State Epidemiologist Dr. Erik Svendsen and Dr. Hongemei Zhang in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Dr. Edith Williams with the Arnold School’s Institute for Partnerships to Eliminate Health Disparities, Dr. Marjorie Aelion, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Herbert Fraser-Rahim with LAMC.
