well as the services and grants delivered, can be handled through numerical assessment. For example, NSF asks external committees to conduct a portfolio-level assessment, called a merit review, every 3 years. NSF also tracks efficiency by measuring the time taken to reach a decision on research awards— 70% of applicants are informed
within 6 months. In testimony before the NRC committee, representatives from the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) emphasized that the substantial time and costs of complying with PART take away from these organizations’ primary purpose. NIH found that approximately
250 high-level staff worked fulltime for 3 months to comply with PART for the NIH extramural program. OMB has yet to fully evaluate the report, according to a spokesperson, who says that the findings will be reviewed and taken into consideration. —REBECCA RENNER
Interview
Great Lakes health data hidden head of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany, State University of New York, says that he saw the report several times, and in a recent letter, he encouraged CDC’s director to publish it. Other reviewers reported technical problems, such as outdated information on the status NASA
The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) released a report at the beginning of February on health effects related to chemicals in “areas of concern” around the Great Lakes region. The nonprofit organization claims that the data were quashed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The Great Lakes region contains 43 recognized areas of concern, where nearby residents may be exposed to chemical wastes.
The study was commissioned by the International Joint Commission (IJC)—a Canadian–U.S. group that advises both countries on Great Lakes governance issues— and carried out by researchers at CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The report, Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern, remains under wraps. IJC member David Carpenter,
of hazardous waste sites, and they are still waiting to see whether those problems have been rectified, Carpenter reports. The initial IJC call was triggered by a 1998 assessment from Health Canada. That report used data from the country’s public health care system to show increased hospitalizations for various diseases, more birth defects, and other adverse health outcomes in communities exposed to 17 hazardous waste sites
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on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes region. IJC’s intent was to get the same geographically correlated evidence for the U.S. side. Although such data have been published in the literature or are available in state databases, no one had gathered them together until the ATSDR report in question. Carpenter points to his group’s work, which provided evidence from New York sites that was quite similar to that in the Canadian report. He and his colleagues published data in the scientific literature last year linking elevated hospitalization rates from diabetes, particularly near the Hudson River, to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as PCBs. Levels of PCBs and some other chemicals have flattened out in the Great Lakes since the 1970s, but the current concentrations are still dangerous, Carpenter says. Even more worrisome is that “levels of new POPs are increasing.” He points to “an almost exponential rise” of brominated flame retardants—with structures similar to PCBs but unknown health effects—over the past few years. The report was scheduled to be released last July. To build a cohesive strategy to communicate the findings clearly once it was released at state and regional levels, in February 2007, ATSDR sent a final, embargoed version that was peer-reviewed to interested parties, including U.S. EPA regional offices, local citizens’ interest groups, and others, notes the report’s lead author Chris De Rosa of ATSDR. De Rosa served as director of ATSDR’s Division of Toxicology
adds, was intended as “a snapshot from 30,000 feet [that] would allow people on the ground to begin looking at this more closely, to find out for themselves” about the issues that might affect them. What remains unclear is whether the version leaked by CPI is a revised version or an earlier draft. No one ES&T spoke to has attempt-
ed to make that determination. Bernadette Burden, a spokesperson for CDC, says that the final version of the report is currently under review. After much scrutiny and revision, she says, it is a “more scientifically sound” incarnation that will take into account a “number of concerns raised” in earlier reviews. —NAOMI LUBICK
ES&T associate editor Dzombak named to NAE
Research Award from the Pennsylvania Water Environment Association; the Jack Edward McKee Medal from the Water Environment Federation; and the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Dzombak credits his early interest in science to his dad, “who taught me many things about basic and applied science from the time I was very small,” he says. His love of science extends to community projects in and near Pittsburgh, including the Nine Mile Run project to reclaim a brownfield site plagued by 75 years of steel slag and create a greenway connecting a city park and the Monongahela River. “Dave to me is the model engineer—a model of organization, discipline, communication, of interpersonal skills with students and faculty,” explains Deb Lange, executive director of Carnegie Mellon’s Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research, of which Dzombak is the director. At the national level, Dzombak chairs the U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board’s Environmental Engineering Committee and the National Research Council’s Committee on the Mississippi River and the Clean Water Act. Dzombak is a runner who hits the streets early in the morning and logs about 25 miles per week. He has completed nine marathons. It was a typical midlife crisis that led him to long-distance running, he says, adding with his usual quiet humor that “running is a lot less expensive than a sports car.” —CATHERINE M. COONEY
David Dzombak began life with a chemistry professor at home: his father, William Dzombak, taught at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., for 35 years. Now the junior Dzombak has achieved one of the highest professional distinctions for an engineer: election into the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE). “Dave has been a leader in fostering multidisciplinary research,” says Pradeep Khosla, dean of Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering, who asked Dzombak to be his associate dean a year and a half ago. “He is extremely hard-working and very focused, to the point that people might think he is too serious, but believe me, he has a great sense of dry humor.” Dzombak is the Walter J. Blenko Sr. Professor of Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He became an associate editor of ES&T in 2005. ES&T Editor Jerald Schnoor notes his versatility: “He is a true scholar in environmental sciences and engineering, with applications to both the natural and built environment.” NAE named Dzombak’s groundbreaking research on models used in evaluating chemical behavior in water and site remediation as the reason for his election to the academy. Along with the National Academy of Sciences, NAE advises the federal government on questions of policy in science and technology. Dzombak’s interests are wideranging and include aquatic chemistry, especially interactions of
chemicals with mineral surfaces in water; water and wastewater treatment; abandoned-mine drainage remediation; river and watershed restoration; and hazardous-site remediation. Early in his career, Dzombak completed unique work in surface KEN ANDRE YO, CARNEGIE MELLON
and Environmental Medicine from 1991 until he was removed from that position last October. Reasons for his dismissal are under investigation by the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology. De Rosa says that the version sent out in February 2007 clearly stated the report’s limitations. The ATSDR report, De Rosa
David Dzombak
complexation modeling, which led to the 1990 book Surface Complexation Modeling: Hydrous Ferric Oxide, considered a classic text. Dzombak is proud of this work, he says, “because it helped bring surface complexation modeling from the research domain into more practical use.” He is also pleased with his work in improving understanding of the role of cyanide speciation in the fate, transport, and treatment of cyanide in water and soil. This research led to a second book, published in 2006, Cyanide in Water and Soil: Chemistry, Risk, and Management. Dzombak has received many awards, including the Professional
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