ESRI-USC lands major groundwater model grant

USC's Earth Sciences and Resources Institute (ESRI-USC) has been awarded a three-year, $720,000 grant to assist the Department of Energy's Office of Science in better predicting the movement of groundwater contaminants near a defunct reactor at the Savannah River Site.

The project will tap into ESRI-USC's expertise in near-surface hydrogeophysics research. ESRI-USC will lead a team of researchers from USC, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The total project cost is $1.65 million. Results from the project could be applied at other DOE-owned contamination sites around the country.

"The Department of Energy is looking for better prediction models to understand not only where and how quickly contaminants are moving in the groundwater but what is happening to them biologically and chemically," said John Shafer, ESRI-USC director and principal investigator. Michael Waddell, also with ESRI-USC, and Camilla Knapp, a USC geology professor, are co-investigators. "This is a unique opportunity to build a better computer model to predict the flow and transport of groundwater contaminants."

USC scientists and their colleagues at LBNL and SRNL will first map out a plume of liquid contaminant called TCE (trichloroethylene), a common industrial solvent used extensively at Savannah River Site in the 1950s and 1960s. The solvent currently does not threaten drinking water or the environment beyond the few acres surrounding the site.

"We'll use seismic and ground-penetrating radar to characterize, with high-level detail, the subsurface environment where the TCE resides," Shafer said. "We'll then use this information to formulate a new type of groundwater model to better understand what's happening to the TCE."

Scientists have used mathematical modeling for years to predict groundwater contaminant transport. But just as digital camera technology has vastly improved in its ability to capture a detailed image, so, too, groundwater transport modeling and equipment have become far more sophisticated in detailing the extent of underground contamination.

ESRI-USC, which was established at USC in 1973 to conduct basin-level studies of petroleum geology, has transitioned in the past decade to environmental and agricultural research. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has adopted decision support system software tools developed by ESRI-USC over the past six years to prepare comprehensive nutrient management plans and to more effectively manage grazing lands.

4/06