In July 2011, I was awarded the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) Sabbatical Exchange Award. The NEHA Sabbatical Exchange is a prestigious two to four week professional development opportunity to observe international environmental health practices, policies and methods, and to share American expertise with professionals in Canada or Britain. Each year, one Environmental Health professional is selected from a nationwide pool of applicants. NEHA provides funding to cover the award winner's travel. I chose to conduct my sabbatical for three weeks in Britain to study landfills and brownfields in a high precipitation, high groundwater table island environment.  

In Georgia, as in many areas of the United States, many environmental health issues arise as populations expand and contract (or vacate). Public Health is impacted by these population shifts as land use changes, and the potential for exposure to environmental contamination is evaluated. In Georgia, the state Environmental Protection Division (GEPD) reports that the number of closed, unlined, leaking municipal waste landfills with known groundwater contamination increased from 42 in 1995, to 126 in 2009. Also, the amount of waste being disposed of in lined, regulated landfills has increased from 45 percent  (1994) to 98 percent (2002), and in coastal Georgia and other regions where hydrogeology is complex, land use is heavily regulated and waste is commonly shipped inland, with limited locations available for landfills.