In the late afternoon of March 23, National City residents congregated around four posters displaying maps of northern and southern National City districts. With phones and tablets in hand, residents socialized while checking for suspected brownfield areas, placing stickers where they suspected soil contamination. At the end of the exercise, parts of the maps were overwhelmed with markers, some areas left unrecognizable.
The gathering served as an introduction to the Sage Project’s brownfield work, explaining the acquisition of grant funds, the three-year project’s research timeline and Sage’s expected outcomes from such research. More importantly, it welcomed community feedback and questions on the involvement needed to adequately address environmental issues and nominate potential sites for investigation.
The event saw prominent community figures in attendance, like National City Mayor Ron Morrison, EPA Project Manager Eric Byous and Mundo Gardens founder, Janice Luna Reynoso. A testament not only to their commitment to brownfield remediation, but also to the city’s partnership with Sage.
National City’s Housing Authority Director, Carlos Aguirre, also attended the event. Aguirre said that Sage’s third-party role is essential to city growth, as local governments aren’t equipped to bring the same multifaceted solutions to sustainability issues compared to universities.
“Sage revolutionized the way we get work done. It has its tentacles in the community and it’s also a third party because there’s a sense of distrust with city officials and the formality,” Aguirre said. “When a third party like Sage and their connections to different areas steps in, it gives more of an opening for residents to participate and voice their ideas.”
When the Sage Project began their first venture servicing sustainability in National City in 2013, they were unaware that the partnership would be a reoccurring one, spanning multiple years.
What is Sage?
San Diego State University’s Sage Project is a program within the Center for Regional Sustainability. Since their start in 2013, they’ve advanced their purpose of improving the quality of life in the San Diego region through community-based projects.
Through partnerships with local government, Sage addresses the county’s sustainability issues with project-based research and work conducted by SDSU students. In the past, Sage has collaborated with cities like El Centro, Lemongrove, Santee as well as several San Diego nonprofits. This decade's worth of projects has yielded sustainability solutions in areas like air quality monitoring, city budget planning, the creation of way finding systems and even disaster response preparedness, among a few.
Photo/SDSU Newscenter
National City has been a frequent partner of Sage, which is why program director and SDSU professor, Jessica Barlow, said the choice to collaborate once again this year was easy.
However, unlike past collaborations, this year differs in the fact that SDSU researchers received nearly $800,000 in grants collectively from the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. The grants allow Sage Project researchers and students to conduct environmental assessments of suspected brownfield properties throughout National City.
While community partnerships typically allow Sage to tackle multiple issues presented by the government, this year’s work isolates brownfields as the main topic of research.
According to Barlow, the three year-long project will allow students from various studies like public affairs, environmental science, interior architecture, journalism and more create sustainable solutions to the issue of brownfields.
Sage’s work within the region is a model of academic practice that is unseen in most spaces of higher education. This scarcity can be attributed not only to the trust instilled in students to solve real world problems, but also the community engagement pioneered by Sage, which is often overlooked in research settings.
While the discussion around the ethics of community involvement in scientific research are new, a growing number of journal reflections highlight the need for such participation.
At the mapping event, Janice Luna Reynoso, founder of Mundo Gardens, questioned Sage’s effort to address high impact brownfield locations. Mundo Gardens, a community-grown garden and social justice organization in National City, was affected by the subject when one of their garden sites was discovered to be contaminated.
“I want to know if Sage intends to work with Mundo Gardens to address the brownfield issue we are facing in our garden,” Reynoso said at the March meeting.
Eric Byous, a project manager at the Environmental Protection Agency, applauded Sage’s work at the event.
"We almost never see researchers working alongside residents like this. This event is an excellent example of how projects like this should be done,” Byous said.
Byous’s surprise at such efforts illustrates a growing issue within academic research and city planning. This is a nature among researchers and officials that does not prioritize the needs and voices of residents and instead focuses on the insular opinions and perspectives of its conductors.
FHI 360, a nonprofit human development organization, argued the importance of such feedback in their research ethics curriculum:
“Community representation ensures that the research responds to community health needs and expectations, involves appropriate informed consent, and provides access to research benefits. Community representation benefits the community and can ensure that the research is designed and implemented in the best interests of science and community.”
A 2018 journal reflection written by former biomedical research student, Federica Fregonese, addresses the vitality of community representation in public health. In her article, Fregonese discusses her experience conducting a clinical trial on HIV prevention, in which her team had to regularly meet with a community advisory board (CAB).
Through her reflection, Fregonese says that her engagement with CABs created greater cultures of respect for populations living in the research area and even increased the study’s efficiency in terms of recruitment and resident cooperation.
In reference to her work with HIV, she argues that, “Biomedical research in public health areas, developed on any specific disease, could – and should – involve communities affected by the disease under investigation. This is especially in the field of global health, where researchers do not belong to the populations under study.”
Although not the norm, Sage’s trust and reliance on the people of National City only supports their brownfields work. Research that is conducted in a bubble, with little regard for the cultural and societal customs of a population, is a disservice to those who live in the studied conditions. This unique approach has already positively impacted future site identification and remediation, as events like the one held in March create an attitude of acceptance and support around Sage’s work in the community.