On October third I
had the privilege to attend the Outfall Monitoring Science Advisory
Panel alongside Save the Harbor Save the Bay, as a policy intern. The
meeting was full of professionals from OMSAP and the MWRA, as well as
representatives from several environmental groups in and
around Boston. On one hand the meeting was conducted much as you
might expect an advisory panel to go with presenters giving a summery
of their research and making recommendations, on the other hand the
conversions would often veer off into incredibly technical and
specific research methods and data points. These sudden dives gave a
much greater weight to the discussions and even with all the prep
research I did beforehand I still had trouble keeping up.
Among the many
topics covered were, legacy contaminants in sediment the surprise red
tide bloom, Pre-cancer disease monitoring in flounder, passive sampling, emerging
contamination, and the dangers of micro-plastics. I was pleased to
see that the overall state of Boston Harbor is good and getting
better, in fact the panel was able to halt two expensive tests as
they were no longer required.
This year's red
tide still doesn't have an answer but several hypothesis were
presented and further research into making sure that the bloom
doesn't stick around was requested.
Finally the
presence of Micro-plastics was brought to the floor, the lack of
proper research was a matter of some discussion.
All in all this
meeting was an exceptional one especially for an intern such as
myself as I want to understand the policy making process, it was also
a lesson on just how much preparation is required to fully understand
and appreciate the intricacies of the discussion and the
ramifications of each decision.
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