CEE 200-2 Seminar: Joseph Ryan will present: “When Water and Oil Are Mixed:  Effects of Oil and Gas Development on Water Quality in Colorado’s Denver-Julesburg Basin”

Speaker: Joseph Ryan
Affiliation: The University of Colorado at Boulder

Joseph Ryan, Professor at The University of Colorado at Boulder, presents: “When Water and Oil Are Mixed: Effects of Oil and Gas Development on Water Quality in Colorado’s Denver-Julesburg Basin”.

Summary:
The advent of horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing has resulted in a rapid spread of oil and gas drilling in the United States over the past decade.  In some oil and gas basins, development is occurring near residential and urban areas and some risks to public health have been documented.  One of the major concerns is contamination of aquifers.  In the oil- and gas-producing Denver-Julesburg Basin in northeastern Colorado, we assessed the effects of oil and gas development on groundwater quality using data collected by the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.  This assessment revealed that most of the methane occurrence in aquifers originates from shallow coal beds and only a small fraction can be attributed to oil and gas development.  For the methane occurring as a result of oil and gas, short surface casings and high surface casing pressures appear to be the main cause.  Some groundwater is contaminated by surface spills, but only 0.02% of the surface spills affect groundwater used for drinking water owing to adequate remediation.  Some drinking water wells have been contaminated by volatile organic compounds, and the pathways of this contamination are known in only a small fraction of the cases.  In assessments of risk to public health, it is challenging to weigh the hazards of relatively infrequent contaminants at the present and in the future.

Biography:
Joe Ryan is a Professor and Bennett-Lindstedt Faculty Fellow in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, Colorado.  He is the faculty director of the National Science Foundation-funded AirWaterGas Sustainability Research Network, a multi-institution team addressing the effects of oil and gas development on air and water resources in the Rocky Mountain region. Dr. Ryan holds a B.S. degree in geological engineering from Princeton University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  The emphasis of Dr. Ryan’s research and teaching is on the fate and transport of contaminants in natural waters.

 

 

 

Date/Time:
Date(s) - May 11, 2017
11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Location:
Boelter Hall 4275
4275 Boelter Hall Los Angeles CA 90095