The Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

is the second-largest research and development facility of the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it ...

. It specializes in water research, bioremediation, and pollution prevention.

History

Background

The Environmental Research Center traces its lineage to activities of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) in Cincinnati since the 1850s. A U.S. Marine Hospital was established in Cincinnati in 1882 in the former Kilgour Mansion, built around 1815 by

David Kilgour David William Kilgour (February 18, 1941 – April 5, 2022) was a Canadian human rights activist, author, lawyer, and politician. He was also a Senior Fellow to the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. Kilgour graduated from the Universi ...

. The hospital closed in 1905, but the 1912 PHS law () led to the building being reopened as a Field Investigation Station for water pollution research. It was initially called the Stream Pollution Investigations Station and focused on natural purification of streamwater, and water treatment systems. 1949 it was renamed the Environmental Health Center of the PHS as it expanded into air, industrial, and chemical pollution and radiological health research. In 1954 it moved to the newly constructed Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center, which consolidated seven PHS locations. It was named for the recently deceased Senator Robert A. Taft, and had about 200 staff. As of 1964, the center had grown to 1000 staff spread over ten locations in Cincinnati. A separate PHS Division of Occupational Health also existed that was not part of the center. In 1966 the center was transferred to the Federal Water Quality Administration in the

Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the ma ...

, and in 1970 to the newly created

Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale ...

(EPA).

Current building

Upon its creation, EPA inherited 84 sites spread across 26 states, of which 42 sites were laboratories. The EPA consolidated these laboratories into 22 sites, with major research centers in Cincinnati,

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding cities ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

, and

Corvallis, Oregon Corvallis ( ) is a city and the county seat of Benton County in central western Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton County. As of the 2020 United ...

. The new Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center, a 10-story building on a 22-acre site, opened in 1978. It was named after Andrew W. Breidenbach, the recently retired EPA Assistant Administrator for Water and Hazardous Materials. The EPA vacated the Taft Center, which was taken over by the

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, ) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. NIOSH is part of the C ...

. A free-standing one-story full containment laboratory was constructed after 1987. At the time, there was no known full containment facility for the desired research on highly hazardous materials in the United States. A Child Development Center was constructed in the 1980s. Annex 1, a three-story addition containing office space, opened in 2004. Annex 2, which was built to

LEED Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction ...

standards, consists of a north wing opened in 2007, and a west wing opened in 2008. As of 2013, 894 employees worked at the complex.

References

United States Environmental Protection Agency Buildings and structures in Cincinnati Laboratories in the United States Environmental health organizations {{coord, 39.136472, -84.510917, display=title