b"FEATURE STORYHow did your passion for theenvironment lead you to join Mote?Tracy: While I was doing my Ph.D., I quickly realized IThat stat made me realize there was a systemic education wanted to have an environmental outreach chapter of myissue with water and our environment. work. It struck me that most people have no idea how our waterways work.When I told my friends where their trash would end up, I noticed their behaviors change. I realized that this was I started to recognize my friends throwing trash out theirthe type of domino effect needed to create big, sweeping car window, and Id ask where they thought that went.change across the world. When confronted, they either werent sure or thought it went to a wastewater treatment plant.Research is always important, and it always will be. However, it became so obvious that communicating So, I did a more formal survey to determine how well thethis research to the general public may be even more general public was informed on how sewer systems work.importantespecially with environmental science.As it turned out, 75% of people surveyed in Floridaa state where the vast majority of stormwater runs directlyIf you fast forward to after I graduated with my Ph.D., I into watershedshad the wrong impression of where theirsaw the job opportunity for Mote Marine Laboratory and storm sewers led to. They thought every storm drain ledwas thrilled to see it was for a joint role for research and to a wastewater treatment plant. also outreach and education.I fell in love with the idea that this institution had goals to enhance scientific literacy among the general public. And when I first visited the facility, I saw everybody at this nonprofit, independent research institute really wanted to change the worldjust like me! That's somewhere I wanted to be!The Love CanalLove Canal is one of the most infamous environmental disasters in U.S. history. Approximately 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals were disposed of in the canal between 1942 and 1953. The canal was then covered and sold to the Niagara Falls School Board. In the late 1970s, a series of illnesses, birth defects, and miscarriages in the Love Canal neighborhood were traced to chemicals leaching out of the canal. A state of emergency was declared, and nearly 1,000 families were ultimately relocated. Superfund and the grassroots environmental justice movement were direct outcomes of the disaster.Circa 1978 | Love Canal residents of Buffalo, NY publicly protest health conditions caused by chemical dumping.Geneseo State College,Love Canal: A Brief HistoryWhos Minding the Planet? 31"