Environmental Science

Environmental Risk and Impact in Communties of Color (ERICC)

In 2001, North Carolina Central University (NCCU) received Congressional funding for a research and training initiative to (1) assess environmental exposures in Environmental Justice (EJ) communities impacted by environmental hazards and (2) develop the research infrastructure of the NCCU Environmental Science Program for long term sustainability to better serve local communities. This work has been conducted under a cooperative agreement between NCCU and National Exposure Research Laboratory since the inception of the agreement. The long-range goal of this project is to develop community-level tools that can be adapted for use in other communities to collect data that can be used to better understand environmental exposures and their impacts in the context of EJ.  A systematic approach was developed and applied to select potential local communities for the exposure study. Based on the ERICC mission statement, three proximal communities including Roxboro in Person County, Moncure in Chatham County, and East Central Durham in Durham County were considered as potential EJ sites.  The level of relevance, indicated by scores on eleven categories for the three communities, was evaluated by reflecting the goal of the ERICC project. As a result, the communities of Moncure and Durham were selected as the best fit for the community-based participatory research, and three projects have been developed. A group of scientists at NCCU and USEPA work on the ERICC projects. Dr. Yolanda B. Anderson leads the project as PI with Dr. Roy Fortmann as EPA Project officer.

Durham Project

Using the community-based participatory research model, members of several Durham community organizations, Partners Against Crime (PACs), have participated in decisions to prioritize concerns about activities that may affect their environment. A number of concerns were identified by community members such as industrial facilities, auto repair shops, and fetid odors coming from creeks; these were identified as potential risks to residents for contaminants exposure through surface water and groundwater. In addition, consideration was given to the historical land use of the study area. A monitoring plan is being developed to address the community’s concerns.  The plan will focus on collection and analysis of surface water and sediment samples from selected creeks in the study area.  A list of potential contaminants will be selected based on the environmental impacts identified in the study area. The results of this study will generate data that can be used in the risk assessment and impact project of residents living near industrial facilities and contaminated sites in the city of Durham.

Moncure Ambient Air Quality Screening Project

The Moncure community has been recently transformed into a more suburban-like area due to the economic impacts of existing industries and increased volume of newly relocated residents and commercial sectors.  It is located approximately 25 miles southwest of Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina. 

Air quality and its associated potential respiratory illness such as asthma have been concerns in this community due to combinatory effects of variables including the volume of pollutants released from the local industries and the proximity of residential areas to the clustered industrial site where various types of pollutants including heavy metals are released into the air.  According to SCORECARD report ( www.scorecard.org ), in the past, the levels of some Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) released from the local industries reached well above national averages (during the late 90’s and early 2000’s).  Unlike other studies, this study is focused on a more comprehensive ambient air quality screening, not modeling, to cover a broad spectrum of air contaminants during the study period.  Furthermore, the study results will represent exposures that may occur in the residential areas during two different seasons of the year.

Community concerns about potentially hazardous environmental air pollutants have been reviewed and compared with available scientific data. Five major sources for the selection of the pollutants for air quality monitoring study have been examined for validation. These include: 1) Historical data, 2) Annual TRI data, 3) Scorecard, 4) Rights-To-Know database (RTK)/USEPA., and 5) U.S. E.P.A.’s RSEI Chronic Human Health Methodology.   

Near Road Project

The third exposure study conducted under the ERICC cooperative agreement is the Near Road study.  The Near Road study will be a sub-component of EPA’s Near Road Project that will examine the impact of emissions from major roadway traffic on roadside residences and communities as well as potential mitigation effects of different types of traffic barriers along I-440 in Raleigh and Hwy-147 in Durham. Student research projects have been incorporated into the Near Road study to train students and develop a community-based environmental awareness as well as to expedite the building process of the analytical laboratory capability in the department of Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences (DEEGS). The outcomes and results from the ERICC projects at NCCU will be made public for dissemination to both scientific and other EJ communities. 

For any question related to the ERICC project, please contact Dr. Yolanda Anderson ( yandersn@nccu.edu ) at the department of environmental, earth, and geospatial sciences.