Caño Martín Peña (CMP) Community Citizen monitoring of indoor microbiome diversity to assess asthma triggers before and after remediation of flooding events
Citation:
Betancourt, D., T. Dean, AND E. Huertas. Caño Martín Peña (CMP) Community Citizen monitoring of indoor microbiome diversity to assess asthma triggers before and after remediation of flooding events. Meeting with Caño Martin Peña community leaders (G8), NA, PR, June 06, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
The proposed project aims to empower citizens from Caño Martin Peña EJ community by: training individuals in conducting citizen science monitoring of their homes before and after a flooding event; educating citizens about building-science monitoring technologies such as hygrometers and moisture meters to assess indoor relative humidity (RH) levels and moisture content in building materials; reducing indoor microbial populations after a flood event by the application of low cost-cleaning products; and, by providing recommendations to improve the building structural elements to be issued by the UPR-Mayagüez’s Coastal Resilience Center. The University’s & local agencies’ anticipated outcomes will include: (1) become better positioned to make informed sustainability-policy decisions and capital cost investments; (2) better equipped to train other public entities and community members to utilize the appropriate mitigation techniques; and (3) loaning testing and mitigation equipment to residents in the community for future flooding or clean-up events respectively. Likewise, this study aims to address the following clean-up questions when applied to highly humid environments with the predominant building material being concrete: (1) Are EPA guidelines for mold clean-up after flood events adequately relay information that will help improve indoor air quality?; and (2) Do these guidelines need to be modified in tropical marine environments?
Description:
The Puerto Rico’s Caño Martin Peña (CMP), made of eight environmental-justice (EJ) communities, is experiencing detrimental environmental conditions due to the non-existence or inadequate sanitary sewer and storm sewer systems and the environmental degradation of the channel, which conditions exacerbated after the passing of hurricanes Irma and María in September 2017. This has resulted in increased flooding and exposures to indoor mold and bacterial levels. The high incidence of respiratory illnesses may be associated with these mold exposures and the structural deterioration of homes and other structures during flood events. This citizen science monitoring project will foster the community knowledge and understanding on low-cost, effective and non-hazardous protocols for successfully remediating their homes after flooding events.