Acquisition of Analytical Instrumentation for a Mobile Environmental Lab on the Pine Ridge Reservation

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0321299SchwalmSupport from this Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program grant will allow for the acquisition of a suite of analytical instruments to be employed in local environmental geosciences research, Oglala Lakota Tribal College undergraduate student education, and regional K-12 outreach efforts on the Pine Ridge American Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The Pine Ridge Reservation is the second largest reservation in the U.S. with over 12 million acres and approximately 11,000 residents. Oglala Lakota Tribal College is a community governed four-year academic institution with approximately 1300 students located in nine college centers across the reservation. The analytical equipment will be used at Oglala Lakota to equip a mobile field lab that will serve the college centers across this large reservation for applied environmental research including studies of pervasive and deleterious black mold spores in reservation homes and buildings, base line research on the transport and fate of agricultural pesticides through regional watersheds, and studies of methane and CO2 emissions from abandoned and illegal landfills on the reservation. Major equipment to be purchased include: 1) a Membrane Interface Probe that is specifically designed to work on the college's current GeoProbe coring system for in situ analyses of volatile organic compounds in sediments and pore waters; 2) an aerosol monitoring system for black mold studies; 3) a dual frequency GPS receiver for accurate sample site positioning and integration into a developing GIS educational module; 4) a combined water quality monitoring system that includes conductivity, dissolved oxygen, temperature and turbidity sensors and; 5) an ATV and trailer to complement the existing mobile van equipped for field-based analytical work on this large reservation with few roads. ***