in this podcast episode, george washington university student marzia zunino sits down with environmental activist dylan basescu to talk about the urban heat island effect in washington, d.c., and the devastating impact of heat inequality on vulnerable communities, especially low-income neighborhoods and people of color.

basescu highlights the serious health risks posed by rising temperatures and dives into d.c.’s innovative solution: the permeable surface rebate program, which helps property owners replace heat-trapping materials with cooler, water-absorbing surfaces. drawing on his expertise in environmental law, basescu shares his vision for strengthening such initiatives to better protect those most affected by extreme heat. 

listen to the podcast below!

podcast transcript:

marzia zunino: hi everyone. welcome back to the green divide, a podcast that explores how communities often overlooked are fighting for environmental justice in the spaces that they call home. from polluted neighborhoods to the struggle for access to clean energy, we will uncover the quiet, powerful ways people are demanding a safer, more equitable future for all.

in today’s episode, we will talk about a very important issue, which is heat islands in washington, dc. i am joined by dylan basescu, a george washington university alumni who is an advocate for this precise topic and wrote a great article about it in march of this year. so dylan, can you please introduce yourself, your connection and motivation to environmental justice, and why the interest in this topic?

dylan basescu: sure, marzia. like you said, my name is dylan basescu. i’m a double alumni of george washington university in the gw law school. i’m currently a lawyer in the environmental law space. and my reason for looking into environmental justice issues is because i had previously written a different published work about renewable energy production in the state of california. and one of the things that i wanted to look into as part of that process was environmental justice concerns.

and as for that specific topic, i wrote about that because as an undergraduate in dc, i studied physics, and one of the very early exercises that we did was more about learning how to use lab equipment, but going out and measuring the albedo and temperature of various surfaces in the district of columbia to generate graphs of temperatures based on surface type and time of day and things like that. and that was a very interesting exercise, but one of the things that it noted for me is that there’s not just a little bit of heat coming off of one place.

there is an enormous amount of heat coming off of the built environment. and where that heat is concentrated, it’s very well understood that it’s concentrated in cities, because cities have more asphalt, they have less permeable surfaces that absorb water into the ground and cool it down, they have darker surfaces.

what’s less well understood is where in cities that happens. because you would think that a city is just one big hot zone, and it’s really not. even within a city, you have places that are more built up and less built up, and built with more environmental sustainability measures in place and fewer environmental sustainability measures in place.

and those patterns are not just even random in cities, and they aren’t just, you know, hot downtowns and cooler outer lying areas. they do follow patterns of social demographics and economic demographics that are fairly troubling when you consider what sort of impacts the heat and environment can have on human health and well being.

mz: absolutely. and can you explain just briefly how, in dc, specifically, these zones are called, and how it, you know, varies depending where you live.

db: sure. so a lot of people would think based on what i just said, that, you know, of course, what i’m alluding to is often race and income, that people who are poor are going to be in hotter environments, because those are environments that are less desirable to live in, and that people who are black or hispanic are going to be more likely to live in these environments.

and that is sort of true. and what’s actually interesting is that if you look at dc, what’s true is that where environments are the hottest, where heat builds up the most, is not exactly where poor or black and hispanic people lived today. it is where poor and black and hispanic people lived 50 or 60 years ago in the district of columbia. and in that time, the demographics of dc, and where in dc various demographics of people live, have shifted a fair degree. dc has gotten more white and more hispanic and less african american.

and where those populations live, since the end of de jure segregation, has shifted significantly in the district of columbia. for example, in central dc, around the northern part of dc, that area used to be very, very heavily african american. now it’s a very mixed neighborhood. it doesn’t have a definable demographic majority along the lines of race, but it still has the same infrastructure.

and so i guess one of the sort of dark ironies that i like to point out is that, in this case, gentrification actually reduced the amount of racial disparity in exposure to the heat island effect, because you had more upper income and white residents moving into housing and moving into neighborhood environments that are still left with very poor infrastructure that’s often a holdover from periods of segregation.

mz: i wanted to touch on, really quickly, the health effects of this heat that we find in certain places of dc. so you mentioned that, in the article, that extreme heat has long term health consequences, particularly for pregnant women and children. can you talk about what these health impacts look like, especially in the hottest neighborhoods in dc?

db: sure. so obviously, when we’re talking about extreme heat, you can talk about extreme, acute extreme heat events, and those are the sorts of things that happen during heat waves, and those are the, you can suffer from heat exhaustion and heat stroke. and while i’m not a medical professional, obviously, if you’re in temperatures of 95, you know, 100 degrees or more, if you’re elderly, or you’re a child, or you’re in a condition where your body is already being strained by pregnancy, it’s possible that your body just overheats and cooks from the inside out, and that can be fatal.

you know, you see, in some environments, you can see thousands of deaths, concentrated among the elderly. when you see drastic heat waves where it’s getting above 105, 106 degrees in some parts of the world, those events are, unfortunately, for a myriad of reasons, going to become more common, and more common especially in densely populated urban areas like the district of columbia.

so really, when we’re talking about these health risks, we’re also, in addition to these acute injuries, talking about more long term effects. so even if you don’t die from being exposed to extreme heat, being sustainably exposed to somewhat hotter temperatures, you know, it’s consistently above 80 degrees or above 90 degrees.

and again, we’re talking about situations where the ambient temperature in a less built up part of dc, maybe to the west of rock creek park, might be 75 degrees, and in the more built up parts, it’s 91 degrees. just imagine what that difference feels like. go outside on a 75 degree day, and then go out on a 91 degree day, and you will immediately feel how impactful that difference is, and the health effects it can have are that it makes you more likely to develop cardiopulmonary issues, more likely to develop heart disease. it also has a number of indirect effects.

for example, you are less likely to go and exercise outside, you’re more likely to be sedentary, you’re more likely to suffer increased exposure to air emissions because you’re more likely to be running air conditioners and other devices that produce localized emissions. you’re more likely to drive to places rather than to walk to places, which means that you’re more likely to be exposed to air pollutants on the road. all of these decisions, in addition to just the impact the heat itself has on stressing out your body and causing you distress in that moment, it also affects every other sort of way that you engage in life, and those are going to have knock on effects on what your eventual health outcomes are.

and so it’s not surprising that we see these issues exacerbated in a lot of places where it’s hotter, where people are less able to access services and less able to access facilities that would naturally lower the temperature, and those are things like green roofing and green spaces and parks, because green material reflects and does not absorb quite a bit more light than blackened sort of asphalt and paving material would.

so really, that’s why i focus on a number of the strategies that dc has implemented, and hopefully could implement in the future, or could fine tune to address this issue in the places where it’s most impactful. because if you think about, you know, lowering the temperature one degree in an area where it’s not so hot already is not nearly as impactful as going to be lowering it a degree in a place where the problem is already severe.

mz: exactly where we’re going to touch next. one of the big ones is the permeable surface rebate program. can you explain how this one works and why you think expanding it is key to addressing the heat islands?

db: so as a little bit of a background, a permeable surface just means a surface that when you pour water on it, the water can absorb and trickle through. so think like a towel is permeable because water seeps into it. whereas, you know, a piece of wood is not very permeable, it’s a little bit permeable, but it’s not very. dirt is fairly permeable, concrete is not very permeable.

now, what dc has done is created a program called the permeable surface rebate program, or psrp, which what it does, essentially, is, if you own a home, you own a piece of property, you can go to the dc government and say, “look, my property is covered in non permeable surfaces, but i would like to repave it. that, however, costs a lot of money, and it’s eaten out of my own pocket.”

and maybe they’re doing it for aesthetic reasons, maybe they’re doing it because they’re personally environmentally conscious, but whatever it is, it still costs a lot of money. and so they go to dc and they say, “i would like a rebate. i’d like you to give me some money back on what i’m spending on this project.” and right now, dc’s program grants up to $4,000 per property for replacements of impermeable surfaces, at a rate of five to ten dollars of rebate per square foot, depending on what you’re replacing it with.

they offer a greater reward, for sort of more environmentally friendly surfaces, five dollars for a little bit less. so you have a set of options, but the $10 ones are, of course, a little bit more expensive on the market. the problems are twofold. one, you have to own your property to make this decision, because it only kicks in if you own a piece of property and decide to renovate it. you know, if you’re a landlord or a personal property owner, you’re the one making that decision, whereas, if you’re a tenant, of course, tenants typically don’t have the authority to renovate, you know, street and paving services and building services around them, and so they are the ones physically stuck in this environment, often with very little choice to ameliorate that.

so i propose a two fold reform for this. first, that that $4,000 cap should be removed. you know, you still won’t have the entire amount covered because naturally, these rebate projects can cost more than five to $10 per square foot, often around maybe 30 or $40, but still, it means that you get a discount on the entire cost of the project, not on only the chunk of it. as far as $4,000 of discount goes.

the second fold effect that i would propose reforming is that if you have a group of tenants in a building, that those tenants should be allowed to compel landlords, through some fashion, to renovate their properties in this way. essentially, on the premise that the landlords in most of these situations are not the ones living in those spaces, and the tenants are left in a position where they have very little say over whether those renovations go on.

and of course, if they’re of financial means, they can move out and maybe select their housing if they prefer that sort of feature and they’re willing to pay for that. but very often, you see people in these situations who are in poverty, or they’re in rent controlled units, or they just don’t have the financial means or the circumstances to move right now.

and so they’re suffering worse health outcomes as a result of, like i said, legacies of discriminatory housing and residential segregation practices that you know, even while populations have shifted, still disproportionately affect african american and hispanic residents today, particularly in areas like anacostia and the northern central part of the city.

mz: thank you so much. i think we’ve covered pretty well the solutions part as well of your article, and that’s all the time that i think we have.

air pollution disproportionately affects communities across the us. the particulate matter that can enter our lungs and travel all throughout our bodies from our bloodstream, to our brains, to our future children, can come from different sources, but communities that are located directly next to an emission source will oftentimes develop short and long term health problems.

occupational health researcher gaige kerr discusses how air quality relates to environmental injustice, and maryland resident latasha currie talks about her experience developing asthma after a construction plant was built in her community. despite not having any problems with asthma throughout her childhood currie says her lungs are now at 60% capability.

air pollution is a silent killer as so many people in these communities do not know that the air they are breathing is contaminated. however, there is hope for the future. kerr discusses how we can work together to combat air quality injustice through a combination of research, advocacy, education, and community building.

listen to the podcast below!

podcast transcript:

guinevere maclowry: welcome to planet forward’s podcast series. my name is guin maclowry, and here with me today to talk about air pollution and environmental injustice. is gaige kerr. kerr is a current faculty member and assistant research professor with milken institute’s department of environmental and occupational health. thanks for sitting down with me today, gaige.

gaige kerr: thanks for having me.

gm: can you begin by giving us a brief introduction of your work and what you do?

gk: i would say, at essence, i’m an air quality scientist. i spent many years trying to understand air pollution and air quality, and the air pollution i focus on is ambient or outdoor air pollution. i’ve done a number of different studies across different scales that range from local scales all the way to global scales, but most of the work i do is based in the us.

so in my work, i use a lot of satellite data and sophisticated computer models of the atmosphere to try to understand what kind of air pollution we face in the us, where it’s coming from, as well as some of the impacts that it has on health and environmental justice.

gm: to begin i want to talk about fine particulate matter. according to the epa, fine particulate matter, or pm, is the term for microscopic particles of pollutants in our air. pm can be made up of hundreds of different chemicals and come in different shapes and sizes. but pm 2.5, or particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, are the most dangerous to our health. what makes them so harmful?

gk: there are a number of constituents in the atmosphere, and some of them are bigger in size. so many listeners might be familiar with pollen and dust in the air, and you might know that when we breathe it in your nose might get itchy, your eyes water. so those larger particles are thankfully filtered out by some of the natural defense mechanisms that we have in our throat, in our nose, but there’s this whole other class of particles that are very fine that are able to bypass some of those natural defense mechanisms that we have, and they can get into our lungs and into our blood.

and there’s been a number of studies to show that the impacts that pm 2.5 have on our health are quite pervasive and far reaching. so there’s been really interesting and groundbreaking studies that have shown that these really super small particles can make it into the blood brain barrier. they can make it into the fetal part of the placenta. so it’s not just that they’re limited to our lungs or respiratory system. once they’re in our bodies, they can travel really many places and have wide reaching impacts on our health.

in terms of longer term health impacts, we know from epidemiological literature that higher concentrations of no2 over long periods of time is associated with increased odds of stroke of copd, ischemic heart disease, and many other adverse health outcomes that no one wants to have. but we know and listeners probably can guess this, that pm 2.5 can have a really wide range of sources, ranging from natural things like little particles from wildfires and sea salts to things that are human caused or anthropogenic – black carbon from diesel fuel burning.

so one exciting area of environmental epidemiology currently is trying to pick apart whether different types of pm, whether they’re sourced from dust or from wildfires or from fossil fuel burning, might have different health impacts. currently in the us, though, the quantity that’s regulated by the epa is just undifferentiated or total pm 2.5. so our current regulation structure in the us doesn’t really discern between different kinds of pm 2.5 but there is evidence to suggest, and hopefully this evidence continues to be fleshed out in research, that different constituents of pm 2.5 might have different health impacts.

gm: the negative impacts of air pollution can take effect within days or weeks of exposure, and children are particularly vulnerable. i know that you did some work studying nitrogen dioxide air pollution, and i know that nitrogen dioxide can combine with other chemicals and become particulate matter.

gk: yeah, there’s a lot to him back here, as you alluded to, air pollution is complex the atmosphere, and the chemistry that takes place in the atmosphere is really complex. and pollution varies a lot, not just from location to location, but from day to day. different weather patterns like warm fronts and cold fronts can create different pollution levels and similar things go for high and low pressure systems and other meteorological features that we might hear about on the evening or morning news.

so there are really major variations, both in space and time with respect to pollution. when we think about the health impacts that pollution causes, a lot of times, people group them into the long term or chronic impacts, and then the short term or acute impacts. i mainly focus on those chronic or long term impacts in my research. so i’m interested in understanding areas that persistently have higher levels of air pollution.

so in the context of environmental equity and justice, those might be communities that are proximal to a highway or interstate or to, let’s say, a power plant or refinery. so in these communities, residents are faced with high pollution day after day, and while some of those levels might fluctuate again, oweing to the role that meteorology has on air pollution, their levels are persistently higher than levels in other neighborhoods that might not be so proximal to emission sources.

there is a community in south baltimore that is a little bit downwind of a major trash incinerator, and then to its other side, it’s boxed in by a lot of industry related to the port of baltimore. in this community, they are grappling with incredibly high school absenteeism rates due to pediatric asthma. so this is one example of a fairly clear link between industrial processes and fossil fuel combustion and then some adverse health impact that is unfortunately disproportionately born by this community, which happens to be predominantly black and brown with lower wealth.

gm: looking closer at dc, while air pollution has decreased in general over the past 20 years, the improvement has not been equitable across the city. according to a 2023 study by nasa, higher levels of pm 2.5 were found in neighborhoods with the highest percentage of black residents, particularly in the southeast areas of the city.

i had the chance to speak with 36 year old latasha currie, a maryland resident who was born and raised in alexandria, virginia. currie developed asthma later in life as a result of frequent exposure to smoke and pollutants in the air emitted by a nearby factory.

latasha currie: air pollution has impacted me in many ways. i develop asthma. i frequently get bronchitis, and i now have a 60% lung function. where i currently live, there is a- some type of construction factory that lets off either smoke or some type of debris or something into the air, which has definitely caused my asthma to flare up a lot.

gm: and when you went to the doctor, were there any resources available to you at the time when you realized there was a problem?

lc: no, there weren’t many resources available. they just quickly diagnosed me with asthma and put me on steroids. i only knew of the issue because i did a lot of research, because i’m not the type that really just takes medicine, just because the doctor says, ‘take this.’

so i researched and read up on the background of air pollution and everything that’s going on currently in the world with air pollution.

gm: did you get any sort of support from your local government or community. how, like, what was the response that you heard from people?

lc: i didn’t get any support from the local government. i got support from a there’s a asthma group on instagram, and they told they tell you about different ways to decrease asthma attacks, or what to do if your breathing is labored and stuff like that. so that was the resource and the help that i got from the community.

gm: what’s something you wish people knew about air pollution and environmental injustice that they might not know?

lc: i wish people would do more research on it, instead of just allowing doctors or people to tell them, ‘okay, well, you have lung disease or you have asthma.’ there’s reasons why we have these conditions, and i would like for people to advocate more for themselves.

don’t just take the asthma diagnosis, do the research and find out what tests you can get to get your lungs tested and checked and see why you’re having these issues. and i would also like for the local government to put more information out there about the air pollution and air quality in different parts of the states and in different communities.

gm: what work is being done to mitigate air pollution. i know that it’s difficult. there’s not one solution. we can’t just put an air filter through the entire atmosphere, but what work is being done to help these communities?

gk: you are completely right that there’s not just one solution. we can’t pass air through a vacuum. but actually think there’s some excitement and there’s actually a positive way we can spin that, because there is no one size fits all solution or approach. there are many prongs, many different mitigation, adaptation strategies that we have our disposal.

and maybe one of those strategies isn’t going to reduce all of pollution or eliminate all inequities and injustices in pollution, but we at least have different options, and we can approach those different options, or choose those different options based on what pollution is affecting an area or the political situation in an area at the time.

so i am most familiar with traffic related pollution, and even within this one subset of air pollution emission sources, there are many different options that we have to try to reduce traffic related air pollution. so one particular research question that i’m interested in is understanding the role of heavy duty traffic semis and other large, boxy trucks in producing nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter pollution. there’s growing research to highlight how electric trucks or low emission trucks can reduce pollution coming out of their tail pipes.

there’s also ways that we can rethink about how we move goods in the country. so maybe it’s shifting more to rail. and all of these actions, along with others, can have impacts on reducing pollution in overburdened communities.

gm: that’s fantastic. i know that the burden is not on the individual to fix environmental injustice and pollution in general, but i do think that it’s important to look around each other and find ways we can help, especially in the face of a very doom and gloom attitude when it comes to the climate. so do we focus on educating each other, urging our elected officials to make changes a combination of both, or something else

gk: all of the above! i do think education is needed. i’m someone who’s really steeped in the science and in this work, so i know many of the ins and outs of the field of air quality and environmental justice. i will say, though, in people i’ve talked to that are pretty far removed from air quality and even environmental studies and earth science, the air to them feels, it smells all the same. so to tell people that air pollution is two times worse, three times worse in a certain community might come as a surprise. and even politicians. i won’t name any names here, but there have been kind of iconic tweets from certain high level politicians that accuse certain political parties of racializing or politicizing the air. you know, people will say, ‘how can air be racist?’ and of course, air is not a racist object. it’s a, you know, an inanimate object.

but the urban planning, the design of our cities that is so closely linked to the air pollution that we experience has unfortunately placed emission sources in communities of color. so all this is to say, i think educating the general public, teaching them that all people do not breathe the same air, unfortunately, and these differences, these inequities in the air we breathe, can lead to really real health consequences that don’t just impact the health of the residents breathing that air, but they also have larger economic and productivity consequences for our society as a whole.

so yes, education is important, and then advocacy is super important as well. i realize not everyone is a researcher like me, but people that have lived experiences dealing with air pollution and health inequities in overburdened communities should be talking with policy makers as their time and interests allow, because they have really valuable lived experiences that will help shape the way that their elected leaders hopefully respond to this important issue. for those who are able to afford air filtration, hepa filters, that’s one way that we can reduce our exposure when we’re inside. additionally, when there are high pollution episodes outdoors, we can either stay inside or we can sometimes mask too if there are fine particulate matter episodes.

gm: thank you so much for sitting down with me today. gaige,

gk: of course!

gm: this has been a planet forward podcast series. my name is guin maclowry, and thank you so much for listening.

with no national mandate in place, only 18 states have implemented any kind of requirement around testing drinking water in schools, according to a 2021 report from the national association of state boards of education.

the lack of national regulations in the past have put students across the country at risk, with emerging contaminants such as pfas, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, being found in the water our students drink and being linked to developmental, reproductive, and immune problems. it has even been shown to increase the risk of cancers.

explore in this immersive podcast and multimedia story how students like lily hanson at linganore high school in frederick, maryland are reacting to water being shut down at their school and the impacts and solutions experts are pointing to to remedy this local, regional, and national epidemic.

you can listen to the full story below and explore the presentation to learn more!

podcast transcript:

lily hanson: when i first heard that the water systems were shutting off, i was kind of confused and i was a little concerned. and i realized that like, when i talked to people, almost no one really understood why it was happening. people didn’t really like, they didn’t seem to care or like, they didn’t know that there was a larger issue at play and there really is.

so i think it’s something people should be aware of.

avril silva: that is lily hanson, an 18 year old student at linganore high school in frederick, maryland, telling me about how her school shut off their drinking water. hanson, unlike myself in high school, plays the flute for her school band and has been involved with her school newspaper since her freshman year.

lh: it’s something i’m really passionate about.

as: what makes you like really passionate about it?

lh: i just, i really enjoy finding different issues around the school or in the area that i want to talk about and then getting to explore that. it’s just very fulfilling.

as: but not unlike my high school experience, she and her peers don’t have water flowing in their fountains.

instead, they rely on a few water cooler stations posted around the school and small paper cups to drink water, all because of a chemical called pfas. how is it that a school just an hour from our nation’s capital has resorted to water coolers to alleviate the lack of drinking water? what is pfas and how are chemicals like it putting children at risk across the country?

my name is avril silva and let’s take a deep dive into frederick county’s waters and learn the dangers behind a silent killer lurking in the water we drink every day. pfas.

so, it is 11:58 am on november 22nd, 2024 and i made the drive up here to frederick, maryland to speak with principal dillman at linganore high school and take a look at the water situation here after three months of having their drinking water cut off.

when i asked principal michael dillman at linganore high school how he delivered the news about the heightened pfas levels at his school, he said he had no idea where to start. thank you. i mean, i don’t blame him. what is pfas anyway? according to the agency for toxic substances and disease registry, pfas, or per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are man made chemicals that have been used in products around the world since the 1940s to make everything from the cosmetics we put on our face to the non stick pans we use to cook our food.

the epa and state governments say that pfas chemicals get into the water in numerous ways. such as release from industrial sites, landfills, firefighting films, sludge, and sewage treatment plants. professor dengming xue, an environmental engineer at george washington university, is currently working to create new treatment methods for emerging contaminants like pfas and points to its proliferation, unknown qualities, and removal difficulty as its most dangerous characteristics.

danmeng shuai: we can find these emergent contaminants basically everywhere. like, for example, my research is heavily focused on water, so we can find these emergent contaminants in our drinking water, wastewater, natural water, basically all the kind of water system you can imagine. so the reason why we are calling them emergent contaminants, because these are newly found  contaminants that are always at a relatively low concentration, but still pose significant health risks to human beings. they are difficult to remove by using the conventional drinking water and waste water treatment. so that’s the reason why people are caring more and more in recent years.

as: one report from 2015 by the centers for disease control and prevention found pfas in the blood of 97 percent of americans, 97%!

but how dangerous can pfas really be? if we’re only bothering to worry about it now. washington post national investigative journalist silvia foster frau is working on a series entitled toxic taps that examines contaminated water across the u. s., including in the schools our children attend. with no national mandate in place at the time, a 2021 report from the national association of state boards of education found that only 18 states have implemented any kind of requirement around testing drinking water in schools.

pull out your calculator and do the math, and you get 64 percent of the country without any sort of requirements around testing the drinking water in schools where kids spend the majority of their day. that’s where sylvia comes in. her stories have revolved around water contamination found in private wells, like the ones linganore high school uses, and lead laced pipes in small communities and schools.

in one school she covered in east ramapo central school district in new york, the school has gone so long without running drinking water, that the community has started to lose hope in a future without water coolers.

sylvia foster-frau: what was particularly heartbreaking about this school is that by the time i went there, i think it had been 8 years since they had shut off the taps and they still had not fixed the water.

as: the taps were still closed?

sff: the taps were still closed.

as: oh my god.

sff: and the kids were still drinking out of coolers that were in the hallway, and and the parents i spoke to were packing their students backpacks with bottled water. like three or four bottles of water to last them throughout the day, throughout their extracurriculars, through gym, whatever they needed.

as: but again, how dangerous can it possibly be? in studies supported and financed by the national institute of environmental health sciences, they found a number of adverse health effects in children from heightened pfas consumption, from the decrease in bone mineral density to delayed puberty onset as an endocrine disruptor to even thyroid cancer and liver damage.

although foster frau’s work has taken her across the country, this is not a far away issue by any means. this is happening right in d. c. ‘s backyard. linganore high school’s water comes from four local wells, with most of the community depending on private wells at home. after testing in july, results from linganore show pfas levels surpassing epa guidelines.

the epa recommends testing for five different compounds, and at linganore, the initial testing for one compound tested almost seven points over the limit, and testing for another was over triple the enforceable level at 16. 1 parts per trillion. as a result, the high school cut off its drinking water supply in august, and has gone without potable water since.

according to principal dillman, the school receives anywhere from 100 to 120 5 gallon water bottles a week, with the majority going toward extracurricular activities such as athletics or marching band that can burn up to five of those bottles of practice. he did not disclose how much that was costing the county, but in our conversation he seemed concerned about how this issue gone untreated, has impacted faculty members at the school for decades and how he would deliver that message to the community.

michael dillman: there were always people in the old building that talked about lead pipes and, you know, all these types of water quality concerns, but we have people who worked in the old building and here. we have some staff that have been here for almost 40 years, so delivering a message that we’re going to stop drinking from our water fountains, that’s very scary.

and then you talk about pfas and, you know, learning that it’s not an issue that if you just drank it today that you have to be concerned, but what’s always been shared to us is it’s the longterm continual exposure. but i knew that even that message, while comforting to. maybe kids that have been here for a year or two and just drink a little bit.

that’s a very different message when you know you’ve been here for 13 years or drinking from our wells for 40 plus.

as: dillman says that the county’s central office has been working toward a permanent solution, but it looks like the school will not be able to reopen its pipes for another school year. so where do they go from here?

the epa notes that conventional physical and biological treatments are ineffective toward pfas chemicals. for many communities with utilities that are unwilling to pay for expensive treatments, professor shuai says that a solution could be as easy and inexpensive as harnessing the light around us in the form of his photocatalytic method.

ds: a long story short, basically a photocatalyst is able to utilize the solar energy, which is a sustainable energy and convert the photons into the chemical energy, and so the chemical energy is able to drive the degradation of these emerging contaminants. most of the time we are utilizing this energy to excite oxygen in the air and then oxidize the emerging contaminants because most of the emerging contaminants we are dealing with, they are organic compounds.

as: on a local and federal policy level, steps are being taken to address pfas contamination. with the biden administration allocating 10 billion last month to remove pfas from our water. however, the epa admits to not knowing enough about emerging contaminants, or as they dub them, forever chemicals, and have a long way to go before the issue is eradicated nationwide.

after reaching out to the maryland department of the environment about linganore high school, i received extensive information from the group through email about what the state is doing to remedy the issue. including a quote from their deputy director of communications, jay apperson, that states the following, quote, the health of school children is very important to us.

we will continue to work in partnership with other agencies and local governments on testing, fixing problems, and helping to fund the needed improvements, end quote. with however much or little the government may be doing to address pfas, the linganore community is finding ways to make sure the issue doesn’t drown.

like lily demonstrates, it can be as easy as picking up a pen and starting to write an article for her school newspaper.

lh: before writing this article, i hadn’t really heard about water contamination or like pfa’s that much. it was never something that was like discussed in school. and i was honestly really surprised as i was researching it how large of a scale the issue was and that it had never really been talked about to me that much, and that it didn’t seem like it was something people were familiar with.

as: yeah. after writing the piece, what was one of your biggest takeaways from it? what did you personally learn after covering it?

lh: i think one of my biggest takeaways was that it’s important to be mindful about what we’re consuming, and that we don’t really fully know the impacts of our drinking water, which is shocking.

as: or for principal dillman, seeing how the community can unite against these forever chemicals.

md: part of our plan when we talk about lhs community is being very transparent, being open, and being collaborative with our community about what’s happening. so, keeping them apprised of where we are and why we’re doing that.

i think that, that was an opportunity to say, we’re here to support, we have a plan. and we’re going to work through this together. it was very comforting in a way, because we put it right as soon as we knew. this wasn’t something that was out in the news and then they started hearing about it. i mean, we’re sort of ahead of it, right on the cusp.

it was just emerging in other districts. and so i think it was great that our system got hold of it quickly and said, yes, it’s four years out, but we’re addressing it now. so i think people are seeing that we were clear. we were upfront. we have a temporary plan that’s working. students have not been without access and that’s been fantastic and that they are working quickly to see if they can come up with a solution.

so i think, i’m grateful that our community has responded so positively to, they’re trusting that we’re taking care of it.

as: water, food, and shelter. these are basic human needs. at the end of the day, lily, what do students want to see from the water at their school?

lh: i think students just want to see like water that they know it’s, it’s going to be like it’s safe to consume and it’s gonna be, like, taste normal, honestly.

and they just, they want to see that consistently and they want to know that it’s safe.

the watershed institute is the second oldest watershed organization in the country and has played a crucial role in promoting environmental responsibility throughout new jersey. since 2007, more than 76 tons of trash have been removed from nj waterways by volunteers during watershed stream cleanups and monitoring visits.

recent policy achievements include the nj department of environmental protection’s adoption of the inland flood protection run, and new municipal separate storm sewer permits, both of which watershed institute data helped advocate for. water monitoring and research are the foundation of the institute’s efforts to protect streams and rivers in central new jersey, yet this can only be achieved with volunteer efforts.

come along with me as i learn how to become a stream watcher!

imagine two neighborhoods just three subway stops apart. one bakes at 96°f during a heatwave, while the other stays at a cooler 87°f. behind heat disparities like this, is the legacy of racial discrimination.

this podcast examines the stark realities of these temperature disparities, focusing on phenomenons such as urban heat islands, and real-life examples from washington, dc, where neighborhoods like park view and colonial village reveal the enduring effects of systemic inequality. insights from zoe davis, boston’s heat resilience leader, highlight the measures cities are implementing — tree-planting initiatives, cooling shelters, and other innovative solutions.

but is that enough? in a conversation that bridges history, science, and social justice, we ask ourselves: is it time to hold ourselves and our governments accountable — and to build a future where everyone can thrive?

podcast transcript:

mario castroviejo: imagine two neighborhoods, just four miles apart and separated only by three subway stops. during a heat wave, one reaches 96 fahrenheit degrees while the other stays at 87. ninety-six and 87.

they are only three metro stops away. it doesn’t seem real, does it? well, it is.

these neighborhoods are park view and colonial village in washington, d.c. and this disparity isn’t unique. cities like phoenix, boston, and miami experience similar patterns. and here’s the kicker: one of the main causes behind these temperature differences is racial discrimination. let’s break it down with some data. according to research by the atlantic council, black and hispanic workers experience at least 10 more days of extreme heat per year compared to white workers.

10 more days. that’s not just an uncomfortable statistic that is product of chance. it has everything to do with the environment in which people live and work.

it’s about how decades of discriminatory policies shaped the design of our cities, leaving lasting impacts. but today, some local governments are working to undo the damage. to understand how these disparities arose, i spoke with zoe davis, head of boston’s heat resilience team.

i asked her a basic but critical question. where do these disparities come from?

zoe davis: the homeowner’s loan corporation map. this is one of many tools that was used through the 30s and 40s to essentially evaluate the riskiness of providing loans to people who wanted to purchase land. and so this tool was essentially… it provided a series of grades.

this gradient was largely defined by race and heritage as well, socioeconomic background. and so there were whole areas where if there were people of color, if there were jewish people, then the grade of that particular area would be set lower. and so using those grades, essentially loan providers would be able to see, okay, is it perceived as too risky to provide these loans?

essentially what that did is that dictated where private investment was across the city.

mc: although the homeowner’s loan corporation or federal housing administration maps that rank neighborhoods from a to d or to f are no longer in use, their effects persist. during all those years, a-rated neighborhoods attracted more investment. they got better infrastructure, more green spaces and an abundance of trees.

meanwhile, the lowest rated neighborhoods were left with dense housing, minimal green space and underfunded infrastructure. let’s return to those washington dc neighborhoods as they work as a great example. we’ll start with colonial village.

it’s a picturesque tree-lined suburban area where most residents are white. every house has a garden and the area is close to a small river surrounded by greenery. here, it’s seven degrees fahrenheit cooler than the city’s average temperature.

those trees, they do more than beautify the landscape. they act as natural cooling system, deflecting solar radiation and releasing moisture into the air. contrast that with park view.

it’s located just north of howard, a historically black university. in here, things heat up, literally. the temperature is 8.5 degrees fahrenheit hotter than the average for washington dc. here, trees are sparse and the landscape is dominated by row homes tightly packed together, expansive parking lots, playground covered with dark surfaces and minimal green space. all of these features create a perfect storm for what scientists call the urban heat island effect.

zd: what we’re seeing today is areas that have experienced that historic disinvestment are experiencing much hotter conditions. now, some of that is due to the quality of the built environment. some of that is also due to how much sort of impervious structures and how much hardscape there is across the environment.

mc: here’s the science. paved surfaces and roofs, especially those painted with dark colors, absorb the sunlight and retain the heat, which combined with that released by technologies such as air conditioners, cars and industrial activity, creates an island warmer than surrounding areas. park view is a great example of this.

it’s covered with great structures that reduce airflow and absorb heat, such as three-story row homes stuck together tightly, basketball and tennis courts, a parking lot and playground structures with dark surfaces beneath them. meanwhile, in colonial village, the presence of trees and vegetation helps keep temperatures cool by deflecting solar radiation, providing shade and releasing moisture into the atmosphere. coupled with a lower concentration of buildings and concrete, all of this results in less heat retention.

so basically, the map outlined by some organizations 90 years ago has resulted in black and latino neighborhoods nowadays being hotter than white neighborhoods. and it’s not just a dc problem. this pattern repeats across the nation.

a recent study by the department of energy of over 400 american cities revealed that black residents live in air that’s 0.5 fahrenheit degrees warmer than their city average, while white residents enjoy air that’s 0.4 degrees cooler. think about that. living under hotter conditions every single day has very serious consequences.

extreme heat affects more than comfort. it’s a matter of survival. for residents and workers of neighborhoods like park view, the risks compound.

residents often commute long distances and wait for buses under the sun with no shade or tree coverage. many are low-income and can’t afford to run air conditioning continuously. homes are smaller, more crowded and trap heat.

and when a heat wave strikes, finding relief isn’t always an option. public cooling centers may be out of reach and health care access is often limited, exacerbating even more the health impacts of extreme heat. the problem is massive.

now fast forward to the year 2050. experts predict that summer highs will climb by 4.5 fahrenheit degrees in phoenix, by 4 in boston and by 5 in dc. for already hotter neighborhoods, the future looks even more severe.

but there is hope. cities like phoenix, boston and dc are stepping up, rolling out plans to become more heat resilient. and in boston, zoe davis is leading the charge.

zd: we have outlined our framework for preparing for hotter summers and preparing for extreme heat to be the norm. that means increasing access to cooling resources and cooling hot spaces. so that can be the built environment outside, indoor temperatures and also looking at ways to increase green infrastructure and tree canopy.

mc: in the short term, cities are implementing measures like distributing air conditioners and establishing cooling centers. however, zoe acknowledged the short sight of these efforts.

zd: one thing that we have heard from residents is generally people prefer to stay in their homes rather than go to a cooling center. or they might go somewhere else, but not necessarily because it is a cooling center. so what that means is we have a long way to go in terms of refocusing and really building out strategies that help to cool people, especially in our existing buildings.

mc: so while this short-term relief is crucial, it’s clear that the solution lies in long-term investments. one of those, trees.

zd: some of the ways that we’re looking at cooling are through tree planting initiatives. this is trying to reduce ambient temperatures around the building. this does have impacts on the building envelope and what people are experiencing inside.

it does take a bit for trees to essentially provide those bigger, longer-term benefits, but this does go towards the longer-term resilience of the area.

mc: however, trees take time to grow and a whole plan is needed to integrate them in the environment. but their impact is undeniable. they cool the air, reduce heat around buildings, and improve overall livability.

still, i wanted to know if beyond plans, they are actually carrying out any action right now. zoe shared an exciting project boston rolled out this past summer.

zd: we have implemented a living roof retrofit on 30 of our bus shelters across the 28 bus line. and so this is one of our free fare bus lines. it’s also one of the busiest bus lines in the city.

this is really making the case for building out shade in the public right-of-way.

mc: this project is just one example of how cities can improve. according to the boston mayor’s office, painting surfaces such as roads with reflective or light colors can lower the perceived temperature by one fahrenheit degrees, planting trees in clusters by eight degrees, and installing shaped canopies by 12 degrees. the cumulative impact of efforts like tree planting, creating climate shelters, and other projects such as the ones i’ve just mentioned can make a tangible difference.

but this isn’t just about cooling cities. the real goal is equity, to create livable, sustainable spaces for everyone, especially the communities that have historically been left behind. despite all these promising projects and initiatives having a great focus on neighborhoods historically discriminated against, the big question remains.

how do we redesign our cities to truly protect the most vulnerable among us? as citizens, we have the power and the responsibility to hold our governments accountable, to demand they confront the legacy of discrimination that continues to shape the environments we live in, and to push them to take meaningful action to undo the damage caused by decades of systemic neglect. this is about more than urban heat islands or temperature disparities.

it’s also about justice.

on a sunny summer morning in 2024, i walked along costa rica’s drake bay, my feet sinking into the sand as crabs skittered away, disappearing into burrows below the wet sand. after a three-day storm, wind and waves had tossed not only seaweed and driftwood along the beach, but also flip-flops, dented metal tins, and other pieces of trash onto the shore.

as i scanned the shoreline, helping clean the beach of trash, something caught my eye. i picked up what at first glance looked like just another ordinary plastic bottle, but upon closer inspection, i noticed that the label was in a language totally foreign to costa rica’s predominant spanish. judging by the label, this was a chinese water bottle.

as i examined the bottle, i puzzled over the journey that brought it to costa rica. what did its journey to this beach look like? how long has it drifted through the ocean? finding this chinese bottle 9,000 miles away on a distant central american shore, inspired me to take my own journey to learn more about how trash moves through the oceans and what science can tell us about how long, how far trash travels through the ocean, and how it rides currents across and through the oceans.

an interconnected system

according to the united nations, an estimated 60 to 90% of the trash that litter shorelines, the ocean’s surface, and the seafloor is plastic. eighty percent of this plastic waste comes from land-based sources, with the remaining 20% coming from marine-based sources primarily trash from fishing vessels.

“ocean currents are part of the machinery, the engine that gives us the climate we have… so when we tinker with the atmosphere through greenhouse gas and aerosols, we bring about a whole chain of reactions that are going to change the wind field that’s driving the currents,” said eddy carmack, ph.d., senior research scientist emeritus and head of the drift bottle project, a research project that uses volunteers to throw bottles with identifiable information inside into the ocean to track ocean currents.

ocean currents are everywhere, from the arctic to the five gyres located in the north pacific, south pacific, north and south atlantic, and indian ocean. a gyre is a large system of ocean currents that move circularly. they are continuous and are driven by winds, tides, and water densities that are ever-changing throughout each year.

“it was thought that the arctic ocean was not a player in the game. it was way up north and all the heat exchanges were going on in the equatorial zone,” carmack said. but according to researcher rebecca woodgate, this small ocean that covers only 2% of the global ocean surface area is key in regulating deep ocean currents, also known as thermohaline circulation, all over the world.

“though she be little, she be fierce,” said carmack quoting “a midsummer night’s dream” when referring to this ocean. the global ocean conveyor belt, consisting of both deep and surface currents circulates the earth on a one-thousand-year period, plays a major role in how our oceans and wind function. 

plastic, plastic, everywhere

in the 1950s, plastic became a craving for consumers around the world because of its versatility and affordability. as each individual throws out their bottle, a styrofoam cup of coffee, or a plastic packet, the debris often eventually flows out to the ocean like on a conveyer belt. it then slowly breaks down into smaller fragments and often becomes ingested by marine life for the remainder of its life cycle.

now add in the phenomenon of ocean currents, and the moment plastics reach the ocean, they can hitch a ride on ocean currents worldwide. the large gyre across the globe can sweep in and collect loose trash from nonpoint sources. these five gyres are sometimes assumed to hold floating islands of trash, made up of large pieces of debris such as tires, fishing ropes, shoes, and more. contrary to popular belief however, oceanographer captain charles moore states that they are more like soups of confetti-sized trash.

a 2018 study from the nature journal presented that at least 79,000 tonnes of ocean debris are within an area three times the size of france – that’s 617,763 miles of trash.

although plastic, at its core, pollutes our waters, seeing a floating rubber ducky may seem ordinary. yet, bowling balls, toilets, and scooters have been found by beach cleanup volunteers with sarah weller, senior manager of international coastal cleanup at ocean conservancy.

“fun things that people have found are cash or suitcases,” weller said. over decades, these and millions of bizarre objects of all materials and sizes, have found their way into the ocean where currents sweep them away to gyres or to other countries. a shipping accident known as “the great lego spill of 1997” released nearly 5 million nautically shaped legos off the coast of cornwall, england that still appear throughout the english channel, celtic sea, and north sea today.

using trash to track ocean currents

sometimes identifiable pieces of ocean trash can serve as useful pinpoints to help oceanographers study ocean currents. for example, shigeru fujieda, ph.d., a professor and researcher at kagoshima university in japan, proposed that cigarette lighters can also aid in tracking ocean currents.

when found by someone, each lighter has printed information about the sale address or phone number of the country of origin. contact information has also been key in carmack’s the drift bottle project where students and volunteers threw empty watertight glass bottles with contact information of the research project from up and down the west coast of the americas from alaska down to the panama canal, among some other locations.

a plethora of bottles have been dropped off in these areas and while many are still oceangoing, 1 in every 25 bottles have been recovered in places like brazil, norway, and on kodiak island, alaska.

like this project, my father, stephen carman was about 50 miles out of the coast of cape hatteras in north carolina when he threw a message in a bottle into the gulf stream. about 5 months and 650 miles later, the same bottle was mailed back by a prisoner cleaning the beaches of bermuda.

what can be done?

“i kind of describe (ocean debris) more as like, the more you peel back the layers of it, the more complex it becomes. because you think, ‘why don’t we just go and clean it all up?'” weller said. due to the scale of the problem and the complexity of ocean currents, we can’t fully rid our oceans of trash. but participating in beach cleanups in a community does bring about positive changes. you may even come across a lego or personal note.

seventy percent of earth’s surface  hasn’t been fully mapped out yet meaning there is likely more garbage in those areas. approximately 33 billion pounds of plastic enter our oceans each year, and it’s expected to triple by 2040.

the trash free seas alliance, save our seas 2.0 act, and the trash free waters program are just three organizational and governmental initiatives that support this worldwide issue. the drift bottle project, other people’s attempts at it, and the accidental spills of objects bring us one step closer to understanding the world’s currents and why it’s distressing to find a plastic bottle with an asian brand on it on the shores of costa rica. when coming across trash on a beach, many may not consider its nautical path, but each unsolicited piece of debris like this bottle has a story of where it came from like ours.

the short film interdisciplinary innovation showcases the transformative power of collaboration while addressing environmental challenges. this conservation research project captures the efforts of an interdisciplinary team working on a diy water quality sensor initiative in madagascar. by uniting students from the institute for integrative conservation at william & mary, universities in madagascar, local community members, and conservation international, the project highlights a shared commitment to water conservation and sustainable solutions.

the film delves into the project’s innovative aspects, combining interviews with team members and partners to illustrate the initiative’s impact on both water quality and community empowerment. it emphasizes the value of cultural exchange, with careful attention to representing malagasy perspectives authentically.

this narrative not only underscores the technical achievements of the team but also celebrates the importance of cross-cultural collaboration in conservation efforts. interdisciplinary innovation offers an inspiring look at how collective creativity can drive meaningful change for communities and ecosystems alike.

solvay processes, now known as honeywell, spent decades polluting onondaga lake in syracuse, new york in the production of soda ash – integral for many industries in the area – as well as mercury. in 1970, a fishing ban was put into place; the us attorney general estimated 25 pounds of mercury were being dumped in the lake everyday. as a result, onondaga lake was designated as a federal superfund site in 1994. the superfund site includes the lake bottom and subsites around the lake and along tributaries. in 2005, honeywell agreed with new york state to begin partial cleanup of the lake 

continue reading the full story by clicking the presentation below!

anne marie higgins is dedicated to monitoring red-tailed hawks in syracuse, new york. she often spends hours daily observing and documenting them. hawks are a vital part of the ecosystem we live in, helping to control populations of rodents and small mammals, therefore maintaining an ecological balance. due to the nature of being a top predator, hawks face a wide variety of threats including rodenticide poisoning and avian influenza. higgins founded the red-tailed hawk tales facebook page and helped fund syracuse university’s first hawk nest camera in 2016. through her facebook page and the nest-cam, higgins educates and inspires, fostering awareness and appreciation about and for the natural world.

click on the presentation below to view the whole story!

this video is all about local action individuals can take against the litter problem in the foggy bottom neighborhood of washington, d.c. in 2022, residents of d.c. on average produced 5.87 lbs. of waste per person per day, much of which can often end up on the ground. annually, this can amount to well over 2000 lbs. of individual waste production.

this video aims to teach viewers about the issue at hand by adding visual elements that the audience can engage with, understand, and motivate other citizens to do their part – not just in d.c. but around the world!