Oregon state university (OSU) proposes to monitor the concentrations of bioavailable toxic organic contaminants in the lower columbia river

In addition to monitoring, they will engage with multiple communities, incorporate their knowledge into the study design, and exchange results and perspectives with agencies, tribal governments, industry and utility associations, non-governmental organizations, and interested public citizens. Activities:#8239; through this award, OSU will monitor known and heretofore unknown bioavailable organic contaminants over time in 15 to 20 locations within a 170-mile region of the lower columbia river. They will evaluate the toxicity of those chemicals in the zebrafish model and in human cell assays, and prioritize chemicals based on their abundance, occurrence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity profiles. OSU will identify the sources of prioritized contaminants via compound-specific isotope analysis and create a sourcing model and a predictive model for chemical contaminants. Subrecipient:OSU will establish a subaward ($20,000/year = $100,000 over 5 years) with columbia riverkeeper, a non-profit organization that will facilitate community engagements, contribute to newsletters, produce bilingual (spanish and english) fact sheets, hold webinars, and promote the project. Columbia riverkeeper will submit a timeline with anticipated outcomes, issue monthly project reports, join all monthly project team meetings, and prepare an annual report, which will incorporated into the semi-annual report to EPA. This partnership will help OSU to select the most important sampling locations and analytical techniques and to search for the chemicals that evoke the greatest public concern. IT will help to protect and restore the columbia river and to ensure clean and safe water for all communities.outcomes:anticipated outputs include eight public events to support partnerships, 17 translated research products, four community level reports, 240 zebrafish extracts evaluated, 15-20 sampling locations established, a quality assurance project plan (QAPP) and EPA reporting. Their primary outcome is to protect and restore the columbia river by giving regulatory agencies information that will help them to establish evidence-based regulations and will ensure clean and safe water for all columbia river basin communities by helping them to develop strategies to protect themselves.