A University of Mississippi graduate student helps with a study of oyster populations off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Contaminants of emerging concern can be harmful to oceanic ecosystems as well as human health. The National Sea Grant Law Center will lead research into these harmful contaminants and look for policy-level changes that can aid in removing these pollutants from the ecosystems. Photo by Kevin Bain/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services
NOAA awards $500,000 to Ole Miss center to address emerging water contaminants
By Clara Turnage
The National Sea Grant Law Center at the University of Mississippi will use a $500,000 grant to lead research efforts on water contaminants in the Southeast and Great Lakes regions of the United States.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s National Sea Grant College Program awarded nearly $1 million to support research on contaminants of emerging concern, or CECs, in the United States. These are pollutants that may pose risks to human health or ecosystems, but that are not yet regulated or widely understood.
“The National Sea Grant Law Center has done a lot of work for decades on water resources and water contamination,” said Stephanie Otts, the center’s director. “It’s an area where the law and policy tend to be frustrating because it’s often reactive. It can take a long time for the law to catch up to the science because there are so many steps that we have to go through.
“This grant is trying to help us move from that reactive state to a proactive state.”
Emerging contaminants include agricultural runoff, cosmetic products, industrial chemicals, microplastics, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, more commonly known as “forever chemicals.” Many of these substances are widely used, despite little evidence of how they may affect the environment or the people who live in communities exposed to them.
“CECs can be things that have been around for a while,” Otts said. “Scientists may know about them and, of course, the companies that manufacture them know about them, but it may only be recently that we’ve learned or become aware that they are toxic to the environment or to humans, and they begin to get a lot more attention.”
The contaminants could also be known substances, but ones that are not regulated, said Lauren Fremin, the center’s project coordinator.
“Nor do we have established policies in place that are going to be proactive in protecting the environment,” Fremin said.
The Ole Miss law center will provide funding to continuing research being supported through the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium and host a competitive grant process to identify research projects in the Southeast or Great Lakes regions that would benefit from this funding.
The goal is to encourage research that bridges the gap between researchers and government entities that can drive policy change in regions affected by these pollutants, Otts said.
“The idea of this grant competition is to enable university researchers to talk with state agencies and work together to develop their proposal,” Otts said. “So, whatever comes out on the other side of this process will be directly applicable or usable to a state agency.”
Otts and Fremin will open the request for proposals for these grants in fall 2025, with the goal of funding projects beginning in 2026.
“If you’re a researcher working on contaminants of emerging concern, and you like this idea of potentially partnering with a state agency, we hope you can use the next nine months to think about it and to approach potential partners,” Otts said. “Through the grants we’re able to fund, we hope to see some actual policy changes.”
This material is based on work supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant no. NA24OARX417C0591-T1-01.
