HERCULES Pilot leads to Georgia’s first Superfund Research Center

What started as a HERCULES Pilot Project has grown to become Georgia’s First Superfund Research Center. The center will study the effects and potential remediation of harmful contaminants in Glynn County, which has a long history of industrial pollution.

In 2022, HERCULES funded Noah Scovronick to lead a community-engaged Pilot Project with community partners in Brunswick, GA. That Pilot Project revealed that residents of Glynn County had higher blood levels of toxicants that were associated with the area’s Superfund sites than the general population. Rollins Magazine described the project and its complex background in their article, The Burden of Brunswick. 

And now, after more than four years of working together, those partners have designed and secured a Superfund Research Center to continue the work of addressing the legacy pollution in Glynn County. As Center Director and HERUCULES Core Lead Dana Boyd Barr shared, “By combining cutting-edge exposure science and health research with direct community partnerships, the center will translate complex environmental data into practical information that can support healthier decisions for families, clinicians, and policymakers. It can provide a model for addressing environmental contamination and protecting public health in vulnerable communities nationwide.”

Read the full news story about the new Center here: https://sph.emory.edu/news/georgias-first-superfund-research-center-study-hazardous-industrial-pollution-remediation