Healthy Water, Healthy Aging: Maine Islands

Maine Seacoast Mission has committed to helping us reach people on Maine’s unbridged islands to test their drinking water and help with decisions about the next steps necessary to mitigate contamination. Initial conversations with people on several islands about the project have revealed broad interest in well water testing. Maine Seacoast Mission’s Director of Island Services, Douglas Cornman, is working with us to identify a strategy for communication, island visits, and water sample collection. Island Institute has awarded us an Island Fellow over the next two years to help facilitate this effort: Morgan Karns, a recent graduate of Virginia Tech. The Maine Seacoast Mission will work closely with our Island Fellow to ensure she connects with each island community starting in Fall 2023. We have recently received another five years of support from the NIH SEPA program for our school-based project, and our Island Fellow will also forge intergenerational relationships between island school children and their elders to ensure healthy drinking water for all island communities. The project will pilot PFAS testing in communities with identified risks. Learn more about project expansion on our PFAS in drinking water page.

Partners

Maine Seacoast Mission

Since 1905, the Mission has been connecting people to their strengths by offering healthcare, education, food, shelter, and spiritual support.

Island Institute

Island Institute works to sustain Maine‘s island and coastal communities. The Island Fellows program is one way that Island Institute is helping these communities. Fellows apply their skills to island projects while gaining experience in community outreach.

Dartmouth Trace Element Analysis Core

The Dartmouth Trace Element Analysis Core has been an active partner with the Healthy Water, Healthy Aging project. They specialize in low-level trace metal analysis and speciation in environmental and biological samples.

Healthy Acadia Healthy Aging

Healthy Acadia is helping to identify households of Mainers at risk for PFAS contamination among its Healthy Aging program participants. As a recipient of Community Action funds from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Healthy Acadia will support testing of households of older island residents at risk from and concerned about PFAS contamination of their private wells.

Harvard School of Public Health

Already working on public health initiatives along Maine’s coast, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health is partnering with MDI Biological Laboratory and Healthy Acadia to support testing of households in Maine for PFAS contamination.

Project Leadership