EPA awards P3 grant to eight WSU students

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently awarded their People, Prosperity, and the Planet (P3) Design Competition to eight Wayne State University students. Seven of these students are part of WSU's interdisciplinary T-RUST program.

The project, titled "GIS-informed urban groundwater monitoring networks," will understand how green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) affects urban groundwater quality and flow by piloting a network of community-based groundwater monitoring stations surrounding GSI sites in Detroit. The technical challenge is to develop a scalable model of relatively low-cost groundwater monitoring stations to measure groundwater flow and quality at the neighborhood scale.

The project will benefit residents of the city of Detroit and surrounding communities by piloting a groundwater monitoring network that can elucidate connections between GSI and groundwater, identify potential exposure pathways for contaminants, and provide community education and engagement around the importance of groundwater resources in the Great Lakes region.

This effort involves graduate students from the Departments of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Biology, Anthropology, and Urban Studies and Planning. The T-RUST faculty leads are Dr. Carol Miller (civil and environmental engineering) and Dr. Rahul Mitra (communication).

Amazing work by all the students on the interdisciplinary team: Brittanie Dabney, Kate Ekhator, Darrin Hunt, Colleen Linn, Natalie Lyon, Brendan O'Leary and Adam Pruett.

We are especially proud of Colleen Linn, one of our department's students.