The Coastal Institute is pleased to be part of the newly launched URI Superfund Research Program Center—the STEEP Center—led by CI Senior Fellow Rainer Lohmann, who, as you know, is a professor at the Graduate School of Oceanography.

The grant will officially be announced at a press conference on Monday, December 4 at 10:00 a.m. at the Rhode Island Foundation at One Union Station in Providence. The press conference will be followed by a community event at 1:30 p.m. at the Barnstable Town Hall in Hyannis, MA (click on image to the right for invitation).

If you are interested in learning more about this project and the STEEP Center, we welcome your attendance at either event.

This 5-year, $8 million project will address the growing concerns about the effects of industrial chemicals that are threatening public health. URI, which will pull together work from many of its academic disciplines, ranging from pharmaceutical to engineering and oceanography, will be coordinating efforts to identify and reduce the risks of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) that pose an immediate threat to human health through groundwater contamination.

The URI Superfund Research Program is in partnership with scientists from Harvard University and the non-profit Silent Spring Institute, with funding and support provided by the Superfund Research Program, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.