A joint, three-year, $330,000 grant has been awarded to the University of Arizona and Pima Community College to establish environmental science internships at both schools.

The project, set to begin in the summer of 1997, will create five teams of interns - drawn equally from PCC and the UA - and pair the teams with industrial firms working on environmental clean-up projects.

The first-year industrial sponsors are Hughes Missile Systems Co., Calgon Peroxidation Systems, Zenitech Corp., W.E.S.T. Inc. and Los Alamos Labs.

Gregory Ogden, an environmental science instructor at PCC, wrote the grant titled, "Teamed Internships for Environmental Technicians and Engineers."

The UA is receiving over $200,000 of the grant because of its greater resources and experience handling large grants, Ogden said.

The internships are still being developed, but will include projects like Hughes' efforts to clean up trichlorethylene (TCE) contamination on Tucson's south side and University Medical Center's efforts to rid its water system of the bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease, he said.

Students will apply for the internships this fall and take a one-unit class in the spring in preparation for the work they will be doing.

All engineering students may apply, but the students need to have an interest in environmental science, said Kimberly Ogden, UA assistant professor of chemical engineering and co-researcher.

In the second and third years of the project, classes will be added for non-engineering students to provide a social science dimension to the environmental issues, she said.

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