Environment, breast cancer grants announced

The Virginia Environmental Endowment, created as a result of insecticide contamination in the James River in 1977, is supporting research related to pharmaceutical contamination with its most recent round of grants.

The University of Virginia received the largest Virginia grant from the group -- $43,461 over 15 months -- for research related to residues of pharmaceutical drugs in state wastewater-treatment plants.

"That's a whole new ballgame," said Gerald P. McCarthy, executive director of the endowment. "There's been talk of pharmaceuticals in the water and what they're doing to frogs and fish and other animals in streams, but few people have asked the next logical question: What is this possibly doing to human health?"

"It's better to know," McCarthy added. "Science is not what you can believe. It's what you can hypothesize, test and confirm."

Lisa Colosi, an assistant professor of environmental and water resources engineering at U.Va., is researching how demographics can predict drug concentrations.

Charlottesville and Blacksburg will be analyzed "to show that the makeup of the city has an impact on waste. . . . When students are there, you may see a lot of birth control drugs. When students aren't there, you may see statin drugs."

"We can build estimates of how much of it should be in the sewage, which drugs we expect to be at low concentrations and focus on the things we think are most problematic," she said.

"We're trying to be proactive. Most of the research is reactive. People are getting sick and you have to figure out how to clean it up. We could be chasing our tails for a long time if we go out and look for them all," one drug at a time.

The Virginia Environmental Endowment was created by Allied Chemical Corp., which was facing more than $13 million in fines for Kepone contamination of the river. The company put $8 million in the endowment, and its fines were reduced by that amount. Since then, the endowment has made about $26 million in grants and has more than $14 million available for future projects, McCarthy said.

Other environmental grants included :

•$10,000 to the James River Association for the Upper James River Riverkeeper Program; •$10,000 to Wetlands Watch in Norfolk for its work on climate change and the effects of rising sea level on Hampton Roads; •$8,900 to the Institute for Environmental Negotiation at the University of Virginia for its Virginia Natural Resources Leadership Institute; •$6,600 to Virginia Military Institute in Lexington for the Environment Virginia conference; •$2,900 to the College of William and Mary for a robotic laser surveying instrument to measure channels that form at the edges of streams; and •$3,500 to the South Center Corridors Conservation and Development Council in Prince George for youth education on watersheds and the environment. The endowment also awarded $100,000 over two years to Watershed Watch in Kentucky to improve storm-water management and measure the impact on the Ohio River.

. . .

The Richmond Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure has awarded $590,367 in community grants to 14 projects supporting breast health education and breast cancer screening and treatment programs.

In the Richmond area, recipients are:

•Bon Secours Richmond Health Care Foundation, $50,000 so that low-income women, ages 40 to 49, can get free clinical breast exams, mammograms and diagnostic studies for abnormal screening results.

•Central Virginia Health Services, $50,000 to provide screening and diagnostic mammograms, educational materials, and limited transportation for uninsured, low-income women at 14 clinics in central Virginia. •Crater Health District, $50,000 for free mammography screening and diagnostic testing for medically underserved women in Hopewell, Petersburg, Emporia and the counties of Dinwiddie, Prince George, Greensville, Surry and Sussex. •Fan Free Clinic, $26,227 for the "Pink Ticket Project" to introduce semi-monthly breast cancer screening clinics in Richmond's more vulnerable neighborhoods. •Nueva Vida, $50,000 for breast cancer screening, treatment, information and culturally expert mental health support to improve the health outcomes of medically underserved Latinas in metropolitan Richmond.

•Senior Connections/Capital Area Agency on Aging, $48,127 for trained volunteers, staff, and partner agencies to educate and motivate women older than 50 to be screened for breast cancer. •Ellen Shaw de Paredes Breast Cancer Foundation, $50,000 for mammograms to medically underserved or uninsured women in the Greater Richmond area, with an emphasis on individuals served by The Daily Planet.

•VCU Massey Cancer Center, $24,500 for a cooperative effort with the local chapter of Hadassah to educate area high school students about the importance of early detection and prevention of breast and testicular cancer; and $16,240 to provide professionally fitted breast prostheses and surgical bras for uninsured women who have had mastectomies.

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or . Send notices for Notable Gifts to .