Overview
The Community Outreach Core promotes environmental health and justice outreach and education across Rhode Island, a small, densely populated state burdened by a long history of industrial activity. Its program complements the SBRP’s focus on a state-based approach by working on multiple levels with a variety of constituencies, including community-based organizations, state and federal government agencies such as EPA, ATSDR, and RI Department of Environmental Management, and our and other universities.
Specific Aims
Community Partners
ENACT:
Environmental Neighborhood Awareness Committee of Tiverton
www.enactri.org
ENACT represents the interests of 130 homeowners in the Bay Street neighborhood of North Tiverton. The neighborhood was constructed on fill contaminated with waste from a coal gasification plant, and properties throughout the neighborhood are contaminated with arsenic, cyanide, lead, mercury, and various volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds. ENACT is working with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to have the soil tested, the site delineated, and to press for remediation. The Brown SBRP has helped by working with state legislators to get legislation passed that will make homeowners on contaminated properties eligible for home equity loans. We have also produced a pamphlet on how to garden safely in a contaminated environment.
WRWC:
Woonsaquatucket River Watershed Council
www.woonasquatucket.org
One of the nation's fourteen federally-designated American Heritage Rivers, the Woonasquatucket River's watershed comprises five towns (including Providence), and includes a Superfund site and several Brownfields. Among its many projects, the WRWC is working with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and others on remediation to address dioxin contamination at the Centredale Manor area. WRWC also works on maintaining and promoting land preservation along the watershed, and in developing environmental materials for students. The Brown SBRP Community Outreach team has researched cleanup methods implemented at forty other similar Superfund sites, and has interviewed community organizations near those sites to learn about their satisfaction with the cleanup alternatives chosen. We are also helping the Watershed Council identify other stakeholders along the river, so that they may network and make a coordinated demand for cleanup to the most stringent standards possible.
EJLRI:
Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island
www.ejlri.org
The EJLRI will be added as a new partner. The Outreach Core helped in the formation of the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island (EJLRI) to create a network of community-based organizations that addresses issues related to Superfund brownfields clean up, remediation, and redevelopment, and to help this network secure resources, training and scientific expertise to address community concerns about toxics.
Important Links
Comprehensive list
of organizations specializing in issues related to human and environmental health and environmental justice.
Contact Information
Core Leader: Phil Brown, Ph.D.
departmental listing
Phil_Brown@brown.edu
Graduate Researcher: Crystal Adams, M.A.
Crystal_Adams@brown.edu
Graduate Researcher: Christopher Gibson
Christopher_Gibson@brown.edu
Graduate Researcher: Elizabeth Hoover, M.A.
Elizabeth_Hoover@brown.edu
Graduate Researcher: Laura Senier, M.P.H., M.A.
Laura_Senier@brown.edu
