News

UC Irvine has launched a center dedicated to researching and advancing environmental justice issues.  AirUCI faculty Jun Wu will lead the center along with Professor of Public Health Alana LeBrón, both of whom have extensive experience in testing for air and soil contaminants.  In working to solve complex environmental justice issues, the center will be interdisciplinary, engaging with engineering, urban planning, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and anthropology departments.   Read the article

AirUCI faculty Michael Dennin, who also serves as UCI's vice provost for teaching and learning and dean of undergraduate education, was recognized by the Greater Irvine Chamber’s Distinguished Educators program.  This program aims to celebrate the role that Irvine’s world-class education plays in helping the city live up to its promise as a model community and its ability to sustain economic vitality by ensuring a continuous skilled workforce. At a ceremony at the Irvine Hilton Hotel on Wednesday, October 13th, the program’s inaugural Educator of the Year award was presented to Mike.  Congratulations!

On Wednesday, October 6th, AirUCI faculty Kim Fortun was interviewed on the KCBS 5:00 news hour as an expert on environmental disasters for a segment on the oil spill along the Orange County coast.  She answered questions over four minutes about both obvious and cascading damages of such events to the environment and society, how communities recover, the complications of determining responsibility for such events, as well as measures that can be taken to mitigate effects and prevent future events.  See the interview
 
Kim said, “This spill is happening at a time when oceans are known to be in crisis because of plastic pollution, because of warming, coastlines are under stress from rising sea levels and unregulated development, species extinctions have received lots of attention in the just last few weeks; so we need to see this spill as connecting and exacerbating that whole array of issues. … The liability issues on this case are going to be particularly complex.”

AirUCI faculty Don Blake is quoted in a USA Today article on the oil spill off Orange County beaches.  While some official agencies were informed of the spill late Friday night, no public announcement was made even though it was a warm weekend with a popular air show taking place in Huntington Beach that attracted 1.5 million spectators to the shore.  There was some risk to the public, as crude oil contains several toxic and carcinogenic pollutants that rapidly vaporize when spilled, including benzene, toluene, and xylenes. While the most dangerous spot is at the site of the bubbling rupture, the gases can be carried for miles in the air.
 
When asked to comment on the delay in reporting the spill, Don said, "It would have made more sense to at least report it publicly and then let people decide if they wanted to go to the beach, and possibly be exposed at the air show."  Read the article