GeoSpectrum

At each annual conference, the Association of State Dam Safety Officials recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of dam safety. This year’s award winners were recognized on September 12th, at the 2006 ASDSO Awards Banquet in Boston.

National Rehabilitation Project of the Year: Gannett Fleming, Inc. for Loch Raven Dam

Loch Raven Dam is a 131-foot high, 700-foot long concrete gravity structure owned by the Baltimore Department of Public Works. The dam impounds approximately 23-billion gallons of water in the Loch Raven Reservoir, the “crown jewel” of the water supply system for the greater Baltimore region.

A failure of the dam would jeopardize the lives of more than 3,000 people, public and private property, and vital infrastructure.

Accordingly, Maryland regulations require that Loch Raven Dam safely pass the probable maximum flood (PMF). When evaluated against this criterion, two major deficiencies were noted: inadequate factors of safety for structural stability, and insufficient spillway capacity. Maryland Dam Safety directed the City of Baltimore to rehabilitate or remove the dam.

City officials quickly concluded they had no choice but to rehabilitate the dam. They selected Gannett Fleming to design a solution that would increase the dam’s stability and confine PMF overflow to the 288-foot-wide spillway. To this end, Gannett Fleming decided to increase the structure’s mass, install rock anchor, and raise non-overflow sections of the dam.

Of prime concern during the development process was the reservoir’s essential function of supplying water for nearly a million people. Building a new structure downstream was not an option, nor was an alternative to widen the spillway. The solution: Renovate the dam in two steps, one half at a time, while maintaining normal capacity.

Throughout the three-year project, the contractor faced formidable challenges. Unusually frequent and heavy rainfalls caused overtopping of the spillway, complicating the diversion scheme. All work took place in a pristine watershed environment, in compliance with stringent regulations and under close scrutiny from the surrounding communities. In spite of these complexities, the project was completed five months ahead of schedule and $500,000 under budget.

The project was a great cooperative effort. The Maryland Dam Safety Program required the City to conduct additional investigations and to make needed repairs. The City, Gannett Fleming, and the ASI/Cianbro JV team created an excellent design and construction project. All performed their jobs admirably, and all deserve credit for the project’s success.

Northeast Regional Award of Merit: New Hampshire Governor John Lynch

The Honorable John H. Lynch, Governor of the State of New Hampshire, was selected by the Northeast Region to receive its 2006 Regional Award of Merit. This award is in recognition of his strong, decisive, and compassionate leadership during New Hampshire’s two natural disasters over the past year and his long-term commitment to improve dam safety in the state.

In October 2005 and again in May 2006, New Hampshire was hit by devastating floods that exceeded 100-year frequency levels. During both of these disasters and in their immediate aftermath, Governor Lynch took quick and decisive action, repeatedly visiting the affected communities, meeting with local officials, and personally directing the work of state agencies, including the Department of Environmental Services (DES) Dam Bureau. His attention ensured that everything possible was done to help the communities respond to the flood events and recover.

Governor Lynch also saw first-hand the threat posed by floodwaters overtopping dams during these events. This experience convinced him of the necessity to proactively manage this threat in order to protect the public and minimize flood damages. Declaring prevention of dam failures and incidents as a priority, the Governor personally directed his staff and the DES to identify ways to improve New Hampshire’s Dam Safety Program. He has firmly committed to work with the New Hampshire legislature and state agencies to provide additional resources to make New Hampshire’s Dam Safety Program a national model.

When fully implemented, Governor Lynch’s initiative will increase the number of dams inspected each year; step up enforcement to correct dams with identified deficiencies; and ensure the proper operation, maintenance, and repair of state-owned dams into the future.

Southeast Regional Award of Merit: Jim Simons

James D. Simons, PE, PG, has worked for the North Carolina Division of Land Resources for more than thirty-two years. During most of this time he has been involved with dam safety at the state, regional, and national levels.

As State Dam Safety Engineer in North Carolina from 1985 to 1991, Mr. Simons reviewed all plans to construct, repair, modify, or breach state-regulated dams. He pursued enforcement against dam owners who were non-complaint, and provided training and guidance in dam safety inspection and emergency response to employees of the Land Quality Section.

Mr. Simons was the Chief Engineer of the Land Quality Section from 1991 until 2002. In this position he was in charge of the seven regional offices that inspect state regulated dams.

Since 2002, Mr. Simons has been State Geologist and Director of the Division of Land Resources. As such, he is in charge of all aspects of the State Dam Safety Program in North Carolina.

Mr. Simons has been involved with the Association of State Dam Safety Officials for most of his career. He served as ASDSO President in 1994-1995, and on the ASDSO Board of Directors from 1991 to 1996. From 2000-2005, Mr. Simons served as an ASDSO representative on the FEMA National Dam Safety Review Board. Currently, he is on the ASDSO Peer Review Committee.

Midwest Regional Award of Merit: Eric Hand and Ken Leiser, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ASDSO’s Midwest Region honored two writers for their persistent efforts on behalf of the people of Missouri.

St. Louis Post Dispatch Science and Environment writers Eric Hand and Ken Leiser have worked diligently to inform the public about the importance of stringent safe dam safety regulations. Their intelligent consideration of the issues and people involved helped raise public awareness of potential threats posed by dams, and the state’s role in ensuring public safety.

According to a Missouri official, “These two reporters were instrumental in increasing the public’s knowledge of dam safety issues and the problems associated with levees in the U.S. They are to be commended for their thorough research and accurate reporting of these complex issues.”

Alexander notes that, “Although the Legislature ultimately decided to retain some regulatory exemptions that we oppose, the efforts of Mr. Leiser and Mr. Hand have applied pressure to Missouri’s elected officials to address needed changes to the state’s Dam and Reservoir Safety Law.”

West Regional Award of Merit: US Bureau of Reclamation and Bruce Barrett, Provo Area Manager

Representatives of ASDSO’s West Region recognized the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for its positive impact on state regulated projects, particularly the major rebuild and enlargement of Big Sand Wash dam in Utah.

The significant expertise of Mr. Bruce Barrett, USBR Manager for the Provo Area, was instrumental in the project, designed by the consulting firm of CH2MHill. Mr. Barrett was on the design review team, and the Bureau performed all on-site construction inspection and quality assurance testing.

Raising the existing 112-ft-tall dam by 26 feet, to a height of 138 feet doubled the reservoir capacity, from 12,000 acre-feet to over 24,000 acre-feet, allowing the transfer of water storage from lakes in the high Uinta Wilderness to the enlarged reservoir.

The Bureau has worked with the Utah State Engineer’s office to design stabilization solutions for these Wilderness dams and will use their own “in-house” construction crews to perform the work. Three of these projects are now underway.

The Bureau has also been actively involved in numerous projects that have improved dam safety in Utah and other western states. Recent projects include seepage reduction at Upper Stillwater, seismic stabilization of Pine View and Deer Creek dams, and rehabilitation of the Hyrum Dam spillway, all in Utah; and the rehabilitation of City Dam, the “number 1 priority” unsafe dam in Arizona. The Bureau’s full-time on-site construction services are essential to the success and completion of the project.

National Award of Merit – Michael Grounds, Beacon Resources

The National Award of Merit is ASDSO’s most prestigious award, given to individuals who have advanced the dam safety cause nationwide. For his recognition of the importance of and exigent necessity for a strong National Dam Safety Program and his interest in the nation’s critical dam infrastructure and security needs, the ASDSO Board of Directors is pleased to confer this award to Michael Grounds of Beacon Resources.

Mr. Grounds has 30 years of experience in systems engineering specializing in developing customized systems and in providing value-added customization to Intergraph’s standard commercial products to implement specialized workflows for Government customers. For the past 16 years this work has primarily been with the US Army Corps of Engineers.

In support of the National Dam Safety Review Board (NDSRB) and the Interagency Committee on Dam Safety (ICODS), Mr. Grounds is developing software tools to assist States and Federal Agencies with their dam safety program management. These tools can be used to provide simple, unbiased data that are useful separately and/or collectively to evaluate how well dam safety programs are being implemented at the National, State and/or Federal Agency level.

President’s Award: John Ritchey

The ASDSO President’s Award is given to someone who made a significant contribution to helping the President through the year. Outgoing ASDSO President, Kenneth E. Smith, of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, chose John Ritchey, Supervising Engineer with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for this honor.

Smith characterized Mr. Ritchey as “a volunteer who has consistently done his job well, needing so little direction that I didn’t ever need to worry.”

Over the years, Mr. Richey has served on several ASDSO committees and task groups, including the NDSRB Research Workgroup and the Committee to Develop a Report on the National Cost of Dam Rehabilitation. For the past two years he chaired the annual conference program committee, and served as both an exemplary moderator and audio-visual and technical support coordinator.

He has also worked tirelessly on behalf of the NJ-PA Council of Safe Dams, including organizing several of the council’s northeast regional conferences.

The American Geological Institute (AGI) and the AGI Foundation have renamed the Legendary Geoscientist Award in honor of former AGI Executive Director, Dr. Marcus E. Milling, who passed away on October 17, 2006. The award will now be known as the Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal.

The Legendary Geoscientist Medal is given annually to a person who has contributed significant scientific achievement and sustained service to the geosciences throughout their career. This honor reflects Dr. Milling’s ambition of creating an environment that would foster opportunities to increase the public’s awareness of the contributions made by geoscientists to society. His professional career began as a research geologist with Exxon in 1968 where he remained until 1980. From there he went to ARCO Oil and Gas as a general manager and left seven years later as Manager, Geological Exploration Staff. In 1987, he joined the University of Texas at Austin as the Associate Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology where he coordinated their oil and gas industry consortia programs and environmental and water resource investigations.

Dr. Milling served as AGI’s Executive Director from 1992 until July of 2006 when he became Senior Advisor. During his tenure with the Institute, he led AGI into a period of sustained financial stability and increased AGI membership from 19 to 44 societies. He was a champion for earth science education and outreach. Under his auspices, he increased the role of the geosciences in the political process with the creation of the Government Affairs Program.

Dr. Milling received numerous other honors during his career. These include the American Institute of Professional Geologists Ben H. Parker Memorial Medal (1997), the Association of American State Geologists Pick & Gavel Award (2005), and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Special Award (2007).

Dr. Milling was an exceptional geoscientist who made great strides in increasing geologic awareness for education, government, and the public throughout his career. The renaming of this award to the Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal recognizes this legacy and sets a stage for the broad scientific and professional commitments for which future recipients will be recognized.

The American Geological Institute is a nonprofit federation of 44 scientific and professional associations that represent more than 120,000 geologists, geophysicists, and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in our profession, plays a major role in strengthening geoscience education, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in mankind’s use of resources and interaction with the environment. More information about AGI can be found at http://www.agiweb.org. The Institute also provides a public-outreach web site, http://www.earthscienceworld.org.

The Tobacco Root Geological Society normally awards three $500 scholarships to students conducting research in the Northern Rocky Mountain region, but for 2006, six $500 awards were made. Awardees are:

• Julian G. McCune, University of Montana, Cenozoic Sedimentary Basin Evolution and Hydrostratigraphic Assessment of the Upper Blackfoot River Basin, Western Montana(TRGS scholarship)
• Erin Haney, University of Montana, P-T Paths of Metamorphic Pelitic Rocks in the Anaconda Metamorphic Core Complex (TRGS scholarship)
• Brandon Mijal, Western Washington University, Holocene glacial chronology for the Sawtooth Range, Idaho (TRGS scholarship)
• Heather M. Henry , University of Montana, Mapping of the Rocky Mountain Front Triangle Zone, Montana (Prospector scholarship)
• John MacLean, University of Montana, Stratigraphic analyses to test the Siberia-Laurentia connection (Harrison scholarship)
• Amy Kelly, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Using biomarkers to analyze biogeochemical changes across the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary (Harrison scholarship)

Information for applicants for the 2007 awards can be found on the Society’s web site, http://www.trgs.org.

Clinton, NY — Barbara Tewksbury, the William R. Kenan Professor of Geosciences and 1973 graduate of St. Lawrence University, was honored at St. Lawrence University’s Commencement on Sunday, May 21, at 10 a.m.

Tewksbury has been a faculty member at Hamilton since 1978; she is the past Stephen Harper Kirner Professor of Geology and past chair of the department. She earned her graduate degrees at the University of Colorado.

Tewksbury’s specialty is structural and planetary geology and plate tectonics; her current research is on deformation in metamorphic rocks in northern New York. A leader in science pedagogy reform, she’s received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation to lead workshops on innovative teaching.

She is the past president of the American Geological Institute, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers and the Geology Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research. She has won numerous awards, including New York State Teacher of the Year in 1997, and has been recognized for her courses linking the teaching of science to human issues.

The American Geological Institute (AGI) is pleased to announce Dr. Robert J. Weimer as the recipient of the 2006 Legendary Geoscience Award. Established in 1999, the award is presented to a geoscientist who has demonstrated a long history of scientific achievement and exceptional service to the geoscience profession.

Weimer received both his B.A. (1948) and M.A. (1949) in geology from the University of Wyoming. He then received his Ph.D. in 1953 in geology from Stanford University. Weimer began his career at Union Oil in Utah in 1949 and became a consulting geologist in 1954. In 1957 he joined the faculty of Colorado School of Mines. He continues on as a Professor Emeritus at the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Weimer has been influential to many students who went on to productive careers in petroleum and other industries.

Dr. Weimer has been extremely active in the geoscience community. He has served as an officer for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Geological Society of America, the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists and the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM). He has also authored or co-authored over 200 publications. In addition, he has been active throughout his career in public affairs as an advisor for local, state and federal agencies and for the judicial system.
His long and distinguished career includes many awards. Among them are the University of Wyoming’s Distinguished Alumnus (1982), the SEPM Twenhofel Medal (1995), AAPG’s Sidney Powers Medal (1983), and Distinguished Educator Award (1996), The Hollis D. Hedberg Award in Energy from the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at Southern Methodist University (2001) and GSA’s Sloss Award (2003). He is also an Honorary Member of both AAPG and SEPM.

“Bob Weimer is most deserving of this honor for his exceptional service in advancing and representing the geosciences across many sectors. He has provided significant support and mentoring to his students throughout his academic career. Last but not least, he has made major contributions to improving our understanding of hydrocarbon systems.” said AGI Executive Director Marcus Milling.

The American Geological Institute is a nonprofit federation of 44 scientific and professional associations that represent more than 120,000 geologists, geophysicists, and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in our profession, plays a major role in strengthening geoscience education, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in mankind’s use of resources and interaction with the environment. More information about AGI can be found at http://www.agiweb.org. The Institute also provides a public-outreach web site, http://www.earthscienceworld.org.

by Shaun J. Hardy,

GSIS

Librarians Charlotte R. M. Derksen (emerita) of Stanford University and Michael M. Noga of MIT received professional awards at the 2005 annual meeting of the Geoscience Information Society (GSIS) in Salt Lake City.

Derksen was presented with the Mary B. Ansari Distinguished Service Award, given for the first time this year, which recognizes significant contributions to the geoscience information profession. Derksen’s professional leadership, research, and service to users of geoscience information were cited at the ceremony on Oct. 18.

Derksen was head librarian of the Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections at Stanford from 1980 until her retirement in 2004. Derksen was active in GSIS, the Cartographic Users Advisory Council, and the American Geological Institute. She served on advisory committees for GeoRef and GeoScienceWorld, and on the Geological Society of America’s Publications Committee. Since her retirement from Stanford, she has been working on indexing projects for GeoRef.

Noga was presented with the Society’s 2005 Best Paper Award for his publication “Conference Proceedings in Geoscience Journals: What’s the Use?” published in volume 34 of the Geoscience Information Society Proceedings. The award is given to the best professional paper in the field of geoscience information published during the previous year. Noga’s study examined citation frequencies of conference papers published in earth science periodicals and monographic proceedings, and compared their usage to that of research articles.

Noga is Earth and Planetary Sciences Librarian and Collection Manager for Science at MIT. He holds degrees in biology and in library and information science from Case Western Reserve University and a Masters degree in geography from the University of Cincinnati. Before coming to MIT Noga worked in geoscience libraries at Stanford and UCLA. He is active in GSIS and the Western Association of Map Libraries.