Pregnancy is a time when you watch everything. You watch what you drink and what you eat, minding everything the doctor says. But it’s difficult to scan the water you drink, being constantly on guard for pollutants that may lead to pre-term birth.

West Virginia University researchers are part of a national collaboration that is examining the links between water pollution and pre-term births, especially as it relates to Puerto Rico, the site of the highest rate of pre-term births in the U.S. and its territories.

Combating the high rate of pre-term birth is the mission of PROTECT (Puerto Rico Testsite for Exploring Contamination Threats), a research center funded by the Superfund Research Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The PROTECT center is designed to study the effect of environmental pollution and its potential effects on pre-term birth in Puerto Rico.

This national research center, based out of Northeastern University in Massachusetts and the University of Puerto Rico, has universities across the country working to better understand how pollutants travel through the island’s waterways, how to remediate pollution, and what links may exist between water pollution and pre-term birth.

Amanda Laskoskie, a WVU graduate assistant, is working to discover how fast pollutants travel through rock as part of this project. Pollutants in the karst aquifers in Puerto Rico can come from unlined landfills and manufacturing plants.

“These chemicals may have negative impacts on environmental and biological systems,” Laskoskie said. “In particular, the karst aquifers of northern Puerto Rico, which are highly productive and used for water supply, have been impacted by these problems.”

Laskoskie under the leadership of Dorothy Vesper, associate professor of Geology, is working with hydrogel tracer beads and florescent dyes to determine exactly how fast pollutants travel through karst rocks similar to those Puerto Rico. The beads are being used as a proxy for organic contaminants.

Laskoskie is experimenting with the density of the hydrogel beads when submersed in water and is being assisted by Harry Edenborn of NETL-Pittsburgh.

“Altering the physical properties of the beads will allow us to mimic the properties of different types of contaminants,” Laskoskie said. “This will allow us to better understand their fate and how they are transported, improving our ability to remediate polluted sites.”

Laskoskie’s research is being funded by a four-year $131,400 grant subcontracted through Northeastern University. The funds will allow her to create a methodology on how tracers and pollutants travel through karst settings, and eventually allow her and other scientists to be able to combat the pollution that risks the lives of newborn children.

For more information on PROTECT, please visit: http://www.northeastern.edu/protect/

For more information, contact Dorothy Vesper, associate professor, at Dorothy.Vesper@mail.wvu.edu.

-WVU-

jl/8/24/11

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