Spring 2002 ES 126 Study

In the spring semester of 2002, members of Prof. Christina Zarcadoolas's Public Perceptions of the Environment class (ES 126) at Brown University conducted a qualitative study of the perceptions of Pascoag residents on the water contamination event.

Over a month-long period, 100 interviews were conducted with residents in their homes, the fire house, and town gathering places. This study is explained and summarized at Pascoag: Lessons Learned.

Some of the key findings included:

• residents were dissatisfied with the quality, quantity, and timeliness of information from officials
• the majority of residents attended at least one public meeting during the event, and many said that they left meetings frustrated
• 67% of respondents in April, 2002, indicated that they were still not drinking the town water
• all respondents talked about their concerns about potential or actual health effects, sometimes in great detail, though no questions asked about health specifically
• all respondents were dissatisfied with officials at some level, either local, state, or federal
• the majority of residents expressed the conviction or suspicion that if a similar contamination occurred in another part of the state, the government would have acted faster or with more resources in response to the problem

In this work, these findings are combined with findings from focus groups and with existing literature.

Members of the ES 126 class who conducted the study:

Alyssa Arcaya
Arisha Ashraf
Andrea Balazs
Russell Baruffi
Flora Brown
Nadav Carmel
Ian Carroll
Alexa Engelman
Valerie Esposito
Jessica Galante
Benjamin Gerhardstein
Russell Glenn
Miriam Goldstein
Riana Good
Susanna Helm
Courtney Hull
Getchen Miller
Brendan O'Keefe
Shannon Reilly
Jenna Richardson
Laura Rickard
Rebecca Rockefeller
Erica Rogers
Anne Royan
Molly Smyrl
Jessica Spiegel
Noah Weinstein
Colby Gottert
Prof. C. Zarcadoolas