Hope for Newtown Creek in an Unusual Collaboration

CUNY Graduate Center

New York’s Newtown Creek is notorious as one of the most polluted waterways in the U.S., the site of a massive oil spill and industrial pollution stretching back to the 19th century. Restoration is underway, though, and three CUNY faculty members, Peter Groffman, Monica Trujillo, and Erika Niwa, are collaborating to help. They have teamed up to rehabilitate the estuary’s ecology and improve the quality of life around the former Superfund site. Groffman and Trujillo join The Thought Project to discuss their work and its impact. They explain the benefits of working across disciplines and the importance of partnering with people in the community to restore Newtown Creek’s ecology and abundancy. Groffman is a professor with the Environmental Science Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center of The Graduate Center, CUNY. Trujillo is a professor of microbiology in the department of Biological Sciences and Geology at Queensborough Community College, and Niwa, who is not on the podcast, is a professor of psychology at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center.