2008 An Environmental Crossroads

Richard Di Giulio heads the Duke Superfund Basic Research Center. He studies the toxicology of certain Superfund chemicals that can leach into water and pose environmental and human health risks.
tel: (919) 613-8024: e: richd@duke.edu

Research focus: Environmental toxicology. Freshwater and estuarine pollution. Fish biology. Cancer biology. Special emphasis of his work is the elucidation of mechanisms of exposure and toxicity in humans and ecosystems to particular Superfund chemicals selected based upon their potential significance with respect to reproductive and developmental effects.

David Hinton studies the causes and effects of environmental contaminants on ecosystem health, particularly on fish. He has bred a strain of guppy-like Medaka fish that are highly sensitive to contaminants and can be used as sentinels to detect water quality problems in urban drinking water.
tel: (919) 613-8038: e: dhinton@duke.edu

Research focus: Mechanistic and integrative understanding of the manner in which environmental contaminants exert their effects. Pathobiology and toxiopathology of persistent environmental contaminants in fishes. Deciphering deleterious effects and establishing causal linkages.

Some of Hinton’s specially bred Medaka sentinel fish have been sent to Orange County, Calif., where they are being use to evaluate the safety of its drinking water. Any hints of lesions on or in their tiny bodies may hint of unseen toxic agents.

Research focus: Algal ecological physiology, especially photosynthesis; estuarine and coastal ocean productivity; wastewater management; marine ecology.

As more land in coastal regions is cleared for suburbia or converted into intensive agricultural operations, water quality is suffering downriver, in environmentally sensitive estuaries and coastal waters, Ramus says. With "more and more land use change, more water comes off the watershed and it comes off faster," Ramus says. “One major consequence of this is that excess nitrogen runoff from automobile emissions, animal wastes and fertilizers enters the water, where it nurtures algae growth that robs the water of oxygen and promotes fish kills.”

To learn more about the impact of hurricanes and tropical storms on coastal water quality, Ramus and his colleagues have monitoring stations on three ferries -- two running from mainland North Carolina to Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks, and the third crossing the Lower Neuse River, near where it empties into Pamlico Sound. When a hurricane or tropical storm hits, they have the tools in place to monitor water quality (data on dissolved oxygen, salinity, temperature, turbidity, chlorophyll levels and other parameters) in these waters.

Research focus: Reckhow is an expert on water quality assessment and management, risk assessment, water quality modeling and decision analysis.

Recent work by Reckhow and his research team has focused on the assessment of nonpoint source pollution on surface water quality and the development of "Total Maximum Daily Loads" (TMDLs). One current project involves the modeling and assessment of allowable nitrogen loads to the Neuse River estuary in North Carolina in order to achieve compliance with the chlorophyll standard. Reckhow was recently chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee assessing the scientific basis of the EPA TMDL program.

Research focus: Wetlands ecology, biogeochemistry, soil science. For 15 years, Richardson and his team at the Duke University Wetland Center have studied the impact of water diversion and phosphorus enrichment on the Everglades’ plant and animal populations. He’s skeptical of federal plans to restore the ecosystem by engineering new surface and underground reservoirs.

“A careful reading of the proposed plans by the Corps of Engineers will find precious little ecological understanding of how the Everglades will function or respond to these massive water alterations,” he says. “But a lot of information on the plan is given on how it will reroute water and provide water supplies to population centers and agriculture.”