Healthy Pine River
While attending the St. Louis Town Hall meeting as part of the Human Practices work for the 2023 cycle, our team was approached by a member of Healthy Pine River, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the Pine River and improving the river's health. They requested our team's attendance at their next meeting to discuss our project with their members.
Healthy Pine River Group Logo
Human Practices members Mackenzie Harwood and Scott Sparks attended the September meeting of the Health Pine River organization. The group discussed the results of the Pine River water health study and the issues facing them with the ongoing issue of DDT pollution and the new crisis of E. coli levels. The group greatly appreciated the work we had done for the community regarding DDT, and taking local safety concerns into consideration.
“It is nice to see young people working hard to solve this problem, lots of [Alma residents] thought that the story and fight might die with us.”
- Anonymous Alma resident 2023
“What you kids are doing is fantastic! Our community has been hurt, first by the Vesicol Company, and then by the state government not doing anything to fix it (the DDT spill). You’ve done so much to repair the relationship between ‘scientists’ and members of the community.”
- Sue Joyce, Secretary of the Healthy Pine River Group 2023
Our meeting with Healthy Pine River Group verified that moving to a cell-free system was the right decision from a stakeholder perspective, and an ethical perspective.
A stakeholder map showing the Integrated Human Practices process the team followed for the 2023 cycle.
Based on our successful collaboration with the Healthy Pine River Group we wish to continue our work and create a partnership with Healthy Pine River Group going forward. Because of this collaboration and the trust we have built with the group, the Healthy Pine River Group decided to give us an honorary membership and board position. We are very proud of this and hope that it is the start of a great partnership!
Members of the Healthy Pine River Group suggested we sit down and interview with the Gratiot county Drain Commissioner and local farmers to get their perspective on our new cell-free model. Human Practices Member Scott Sparks was able to arrange two interviews: one with Bernard Barnes, the Gratiot County Drain Commissioner, and one with Ben Chaffin, a local Farmer in the Alma area. Members Scott Sparks and Mackenzie Harwood sat down to conduct these interviews, recordings of which can be found below:
The interviews gave us insight into the perspective of local leaders and business owners, and the struggles they are facing within their industry. Many of the things both Barnes and Chaffin spoke to was the struggle they face with pollution and the unknown future facing the health of the Gratiot County environment.
Overall, since the beginning of our project in 2020 our team has taken stakeholders perspectives, concerns and advice into account. With experts telling us to narrow our focus into a biosensor and moving to a cell free system to avoid contributing to the large E. coli levels in the Pine River. With community organizations and individual members being concerned with safety and other issues present in the Pine River leading to the development of our kill switch in 2022 and the cell-free system in 2023. And private companies and public groups like TriTerra are telling us to design our biosensor in a way to make it accessible to the public. All of these concerns, perspectives and pieces of advice have changed or influenced the design of our project year after year. To now, in 2023, we have developed a fully functional biosensor built on a cell-free model! To fully encompass and show our integrated human practices work since 2020 we have created a visual web connecting every outside input, from academic experts, community organizations and private and public groups, to the design changes that were implemented in our project (shown in pink).
Web of all our human practices work and how it impacted the design of our project.