Wayne State University celebrated the opening of the Huron to Erie Alliance for Research and Training field facilities, otherwise known as HEART, on June 16, 2014. 

HEART is a collaborative effort among Wayne State, Macomb Community College, the Huron-Clinton Metropark Authority and Macomb County, and it aims to attract scientists, educators and students from national and international institutions to conduct innovative research focusing on urban water systems and the environment. HEART's training and research activites will impact more than 4 million people along the Huron-to-Erie corridor, a binational body of water shared by the United States and Canada connecting the upper and lower Great Lakes, who will receive recreational, economical and ecological benefits from the project. In addition, HEART will inform watershed managers and policymakers from a variety of urban freshwater environments. 

The project will launch real-time beach water monitoring at the field station facilities at Lake St. Clair Metropark and Belle Isle The project is led by a Wayne State University research team that includes Carol Miller,  professor of civil and environmental engineering in our College of Engineering and director of all HEART field stations, and Judy Westrick, director of WSU's Lumigen Instrumentation Center and principal investigator on the project that will launch the field station to develop real-time beach water testing. Together with the HEART collaborators, they will support current and future collaborative research programs, as well as provide educational opportunities to students at Wayne State, Macomb Community College and many others.

State Representative Anthony Forlini and Dan Wyant, director of the Department of Environmental Quality, were instrumental in having $100,000 allocated in the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality budget to set up the lab. The National Science Foundation assisted with a $25,000 planning grant to develop a strategic plan for the field stations. 

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Ribbon Cutting Photo (L to R): Rebecca Franchock, Huron-Clinton Metropark Authority controller; Anthony Forlini, State Representative; Jon Allan, director of the Office of the Great Lakes; Stephen Lanier, Wayne State University vice president for research; and Kenneth Verkest, Harrison Township supervisor.

About Wayne State University

Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University,visit http://www.research.wayne.edu.