A newly launched Washington University project will examine the environmental health of neighborhoods devastated after an EF3 tornado swept through the St. Louis area in May.
Contamination Level Evaluation and Analysis for Neighborhoods — or CLEAN STL— will test and analyze the soil and air quality in those communities for major contaminants. It’s the first project under the university’s WashU Public Exchange initiative. The goal is to partner university experts with residents, local organizations and industry partners to address social problems.
“It is vitally important to know what contaminants you may be exposed to,” said Dorian Traube, the Neidorff Family and Centene Corp. dean at the university’s Brown School. “But what you do once you know what those contaminants are and how communities can come together to respond to those issues is really the takeaway.”
Both the project and the initiative are modeled after a program started at the University of Southern California in response to the California wildfires. Researchers there tested the soil as a safety precaution, as the surrounding buildings were demolished and the remaining land was sold.
"What has happened with this tornado is not that different from what happened with the wildfire,” Traube said. “It's not that different from what can happen in a hurricane. As we see our climate changing, these catastrophic events will be on an uptick. There should be some commonalities across all of these events that we can draw from to develop a response plan for communities."
Chris van Bergen, executive director of the initiative, said the main concern for affected residents is possible lead exposure, adding that ongoing rumors and fear have heightened speculation.
"People are really anxious to really understand, is there an issue?” said van Bergen. “How does it relate to health guidelines related to lead levels? These are all real unknowns for folks right now. They're worried about it impacting their property values. They're worried about what happens next.”
Faculty in the university’s Brown School of Social Work, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, the McKelvey School of Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences will be at the helm.
CLEAN STL is partnering with community organizations whose neighborhoods were directly affected by the tornado, including 4TheVille and Delmar Main Street. Its first partnership will be with Better Family Life as testing begins later this month on properties they own in the community.
Better Family Life Chief Operating Officer Tyrone Turner said many in his community are aware that the likelihood of lead and asbestos in their homes is high. He attributes that to outdated building practices. However, he said the tornado increased the risk for exposure.
“We already know there’s a natural environmental impact just from living in these communities,” Turner said.
While residents are happy about the testing, many remain hesitant about whether remediation efforts will happen.
“[There’s] a little bit of frustration because folks want to see what’s actually going to take place,” Turner said. “What’s going to happen? What’s going to be the bigger push from a local perspective? If we need federal support, what does that look like? How do we organize around it to make change happen?”
He adds that knowledge that can be provided from testing is crucial.
“What kind of standards can we start to demand or request from developers coming into the neighborhood to ensure that future generations are at minimum aware of some of the toxins that may be present in anybody's property that they have moving forward?” Turner said. “But we also start to focus on a larger plan that everyone can benefit from.”
Soil experts from the university’s College of Arts and Sciences will work alongside Better Family Life, going into the community to collect soil samples, analyze them and build a database to inform the public about their findings. Ultimately, the results will serve as the starting point for direct community engagement on addressing this ongoing problem.
“We wanted to make sure that we could actually provide the hard science so that we could start having those conversations about what is actually in the soil,” van Bergen said. “What we're actually finding and then start convening and having gatherings and talking about, ‘OK, what's next? How do we incorporate remediation strategies?’"
Traube agrees, adding that those strategies could prove useful outside the St. Louis region.
"What happens in St. Louis is applicable nationwide,” Traube said. “Solutions found here actually could move the needle across the United States on some challenges that have been to date intractable."
Researchers aim to have test results as early as next spring.
