Students tackle Hickory Woods issue
Chemistry students aim to clear the air between residents, government

By Ellen Goldbaum
News Services Editor

A UB scientist whose undergraduate chemistry class is analyzing air and soil samples in South Buffalo's Hickory Woods subdivision, a former steel company site, says he hopes that the university's efforts can help bridge the communication gap dividing the community from the government and regulatory agencies in charge of investigating the site.

Described as "another Love Canal" by activist Lois Gibbs, who visited Hickory Woods earlier this month, the subdivision consists of about 60 city-subsidized homes that were built in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Construction of new homes was stopped in the late 1990s when developers found industrial wastes in the soil and sampling revealed high rates of carcinogenic contamination. Since then, residents have complained of severe birth defects in children conceived and born to resident families, and of a high incidence of cancer.

The issues raised at Hickory Woods could have implications for other brownfields sites throughout the United States, according to Joseph A. Gardella, Jr., professor of chemistry and the instructor of Chemistry 470, "Analytical Chemistry of Pollutants."

Gardella will speak tonight at a public meeting to which he and his students were invited by officials of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Hickory Woods residents. The meeting will focus on the EPA's soil sampling plan for the neighborhood, scheduled to begin in April.

With funding from UB's Environment and Society Institute, Gardella has for several years been working with students, communities, corporations and local government on public service projects that combine environmental analysis with strong efforts aimed at clearly and accurately communicating the results to residents.

"The model of communication and community input that we have developed shows how communities can get a handle on their environments, draw attention to potential environmental problems or get background data to help answer some of their questions," said Gardella. "When we are invited by a community to come in, we ask what their concerns are, and then we design an analytical chemistry project that addresses those concerns that also can be completed in a semester."

He added, however, that once students start working on one of these projects, they often continue into the summer, past the time when the course is complete.

"They do it because they get so involved and so motivated by their interactions with the community," he said.

In 1998, Gardella's class worked with the Seneca-Babcock neighborhood, where residents were concerned about emissions and odors from the Buffalo Color Corp. In 1997, students analyzed samples from Stachowski Park, where neighbors were concerned about an adjacent undeveloped parcel of land that is a former municipal and industrial landfill.

Buffalo Color had not traditionally had good relations with the Seneca-Babcock residents.

"Erie County had actually given the company a certificate for lowering its organic chemistry emissions," said Gardella, "but the company had no way to demonstrate to residents that they actually had."

After extensive meetings held last year with local residents and with officials at Buffalo Color, Gardella and his student-chemists distributed to residents badges with sensors to detect contaminants in the air, along with instructions about when and how to wear them. When the badges were returned to students and analyzed, none of the targeted contaminants were detected.

"The residents knew they had not been exposed because they collected the data themselves," Gardella said. "The upshot is that by working with both the company and with residents, we helped build a bridge between people in the community and the company. People's attitudes about the company have changed."

At Hickory Woods, though, the stakes are far higher.

Constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s on an old LTV Steel site in South Buffalo, the Hickory Woods subdivision with its market-rate homes and suburban-style properties, was hailed as a dramatically positive development for Buffalo.

But in the late 1990s, during construction of a new home in the subdivision, developers discovered black coke wastes, refractory bricks and an oozing black substance in the soil. Sampling revealed levels of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, a carcinogen resulting from steel manufacturing - some as high as 100,000 parts per million, when the allowable federal and state guideline is 15 ppm.

Development stopped and some families were temporarily relocated.

Homeowners were not informed about the contamination at the site before they purchased their homes.

Now, with soil sampling beginning by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), residents will begin to have more information.

But, according to Rick Ammerman, head of the Hickory Woods Concerned Homeowners Association, the residents do not believe that the results obtained by government agencies are the last word. That's where the UB chemistry project comes in.

"The Hickory Woods development was funded by federal and state dollars and administered by the City of Buffalo," said Ammerman, "so there is a mistrust, and a founded mistrust, on the part of residents of any function of government. When we're asked to believe something from government, we want to have some kind of check on them from someone who is completely disassociated from this. That is what we are getting from Gardella and his students at UB."

In addition to helping the homeowners interpret much of the technical literature, the students also are conducting analyses of the air by having at least 50 residents wear badges that detect contaminants in the air. After wearing the badges for eight hours, the residents will give them to the students, who will take them back to UB to analyze findings.

"We are looking to plug the holes in this whole process in order to have a more complete investigation of the area," said Ammerman. "There does seem to be a hole in the system, and UB's Environment and Society Institute is is coming in and, hopefully, bridging that gap."

In particular, he said, the data the students get from the badges will help them understand if the contamination poses any kinds of long-term health hazards.

Since January, Gardella and the 10 students, mostly senior chemistry and environmental-studies majors, have been working with the the Hickory Woods Concerned Homeowners Association to:

- Conduct chemical analyses designed in partnership with residents

- Coordinate with other Environment and Society Institute outreach services, such as health assessment studies

- Interpret for and with residents the results of environmental sampling and testing done by other agencies and parties.

With the ESI's support, Gardella said the long-term goal of all of these projects is to establish at UB, as a public service, the analytical capabilities to conduct community-based research and environmental analysis in accordance with EPA's standard methodologies.

Photos courtesy Hickory Woods Concerned Home Owners Assn.