Allen W. Hatheway

Geoenvironmental protocol for site and waste characterization of former manufactured gas plants; worldwide remediation challenge in semi-volatile organic wastes ☆

Abstract The most common and difficult of all hazardous waste sites are those that historically produced artificial (manufactured) gas; for gas-making was international in scope and at the very core of the industrial revolution. With former manufactured gas plants (FMGPs), virtually no geologic region in the industrialized or urbanized world or its trade centers and ports escaped the gas industry. These plants applied pyrolysis of organic matter (roasting to drive off volatiles in the form of useful gases) to illuminate the world and to fuel all manner of progress. Gas was and is the universal fuel. Its prominence stemmed from the omnipresence of organic matter and the universal process for the extraction of its volatile contents to manufacture useful gas. Furthermore, for most of the century and a half-long history of manufactured gas, natural gas was unavailable to slow or daunt the production of man-made gas and the universal creation of its toxic tar residues and other harmful waste residuals. Today we face the presence of toxic organic gas manufacturing residuals as a unique threat to both the health and welfare of contemporary society, as well as being a long-term threat to the environment that is dominantly geologic in character. Most of these tar residuals are highly resistant to natural degradation or attenuation in the environment and their lives, therefore, they are measured in geologic time. Given its environmental persistence, potential problems associated with tar may exist centuries to thousands of years. Engineering geologists and geological engineers are, by training and experience, particularly well equipped to plan, manage and conduct site and waste characterization efforts for FMGPs and related coal-tar sites.

Geology in the Siting of Nuclear Power Plants

During the “great decade” of siting and construction of nuclear power plants that ended in 1975, the nuclear industry mustered the largest geologic task force in this country’s history, resulting in rapid advances in geologic technologies. Many of the advances are discussed in this volume, a major contribution to engineering geology. Subjects treated are the regulatory, siting, and licensing processes; seismicity of the central and western U.S., with a consumer’s guide to instrumental methods for determination of hypocenters; and techniques, such as remote-sensing, microfacies analysis, dating techniques in faults, trenching as an exploratory method, borehole geophysics, and ground-water studies. Includes a useful glossary.

Encompassing hydrogeology, environmental geology and the applied geosciences

Abstract The year began with a good deal of international tension as well as various indications of recessional economics. Two weeks into the new year, a rash of bankruptcies visited the geoenvironmental consulting industry, in which some of the very companies that had grown by expansion in takeover of smaller firms were the unstable targets. The year ended with the demise of many established geotechnical and geoenvironmental consulting firms and the establishment of new entities, generally by the more substantial of the personnel becoming castaways in the reorganizations. Employment in the private sector remained brisk but much adjustment was going on because of a generally shrinking work load related to shortfalls on taxes collected by government as the basis for public-works construction, especially in the infrastructure. All nations were in deficit spending and retraction of major projects.

9th Annual Report on the International Status of Engineering Geology—Year 2003-2004. Encompassing hydrogeology, environmental geology and the applied geosciences

In Year 2000, it became clear that Engineering Geology was moving into a higher plane of personal dedication by its practitioners. For economic reasons there has been an increased reliance by clients on the practitioner, who universally is expected to deliver more for less, as well as more rapidly. This pressure will have but one positive result, to produce surviving engineering geologists who will be masters of site characterization, as the true core method and product of the profession. We believe that the engineering geologist can become even more indispensable on the world scene. Wherever our brother and sister colleagues are not involved, there clearly will be increased risks in construction, operation, and maintenance of engineered works for societal and environmental protection purposes.

Field Methods for Geologists and Hydrogeologists(Fakhry Assaad, Philip E. LaMoreaux, and Travis H. Hughes)

Three long-time practicing hydrogeologists have combined to bring together information that they have found essential to their own practices. There is a common thread; all three individuals have been associated at one time or another with P. E. LaMoreaux & Associates (PELA), a prominent American groundwater geological consulting firm of Birmingham, Alabama, and other cities. The three colleagues list themselves as both editors and authors because much of the book has been brought over from both published and unpublished sources that the three compatriots have found useful in their own careers. Although it is not admitted, this reviewer calculates that each individual has between 40 and 60 years of heavy subsurface exploration and interpretation experience in groundwater and petroleum geology. Furthermore, although again not stated, the book is a presentation of the higher levels of corporate hydrogeological knowledge of the PELA consulting firm, of which Hughes is a former officer. This approach to a hydrogeological field manual gives the book a special flavor because the three seasoned editor/authors have brought together their own favorite and staple reference materials. The three collaborators also have an affiliation with the American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG) and the American Geological Institute (AGI), both of which have striven to codify guidelines of practice for field hydrogeologic investigations. For readers who have retreated from petroleum geology, both Assaad and Hughes were trained in the oil patch and then migrated to join LaMoreaux, who has always practiced as a hydrogeologist. That having been said, what do you find in this retrospective …

Annual status of the profession: 1999: Encompassing hydrogeology, environmental geology and the applied geosciences

All professions began the countdown to the new world, considering the year 2000 to be the first year of the new millennium. Most of the actual impacts are already in place, including multinational businesses and the Euro as the first regional multinational currency. Most of the impacts have been harsh, and relief to individual consumers and professional people will be minor and felt mainly in enhanced ease of communication and media offerings. On the side of the conduct of the profession, the advantages will be far more narrow, as individual practitioners will be facing far stronger forms of competition for their services. Truly, the only way to survive will be for all of us to become more aware of the forces that impact engineering geology and the opportunities that engineering geologists have to provide their services, so basic to all forms of engineering, environmental protection and resource utilization.

A second review of the international status of engineering geology — encompassing hydrogeology, environmental geology and the applied geosciences

Abstract Engineering geology, in 1996, worldwide, was experiencing considerable turmoil due to the uncertain nature of national economies and the general situation of inadequate funds to meet the demands of failing of the national infrastructures that serve citizens. Aside from the previously war-damaged cities of Western Europe, new public service systems of transportation and utilities elsewhere often lagged well behind growth. It will be some time before international aid and civil engineering contracts are initiated for anything other than humanitarian and basic emergency aid work in these areas. Many countries in the western hemisphere, eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and developing nations in particular are still in need of basic water and sewage services as well as repair and replacement of old existing systems. Continued partisan warfare in the Balkan states of Albania, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia forecast the eventual need for redevelopment. Rumblings of broad-scale economic problems in Far-Eastern economies did little to make overseas contract opportunities in these areas very attractive. Large consulting firms were challenged by an increasing number of individual and small practices who are prepared to operate on 1970s rates and prices for services and government and industry was taking advantage of that situation. More and more individuals were offering services in engineering geology and associated engineering fields and there was a sense of not having enough work to go around. Hence, price competition was again being promoted. Consequently in both Europe and the Americas, the variability of competence was enlarging and a significant amount of so-called ‘professional ’ work was lacking in overall quality. This was especially evident in ‘Environmental’ areas of work. This begs the question: ‘ Is not engineering geology, or any other aspect of applied geosciences, not environmental in nature and essence, fundamentally and in entirety? ’ Environmental restoration demands were still being made by governments, but the pressure to complete such work was being relaxed on account of economics. Our clients were asking for more service at lower fees. Clients were still largely unwilling to openly acknowledge that less money spent on competent engineering geologic consultation means that more risk should be accepted by the owner or operator of projects.

Status of engineering geology in North America and Europe

Abstract 1995–1996 has been informally declared as a watershed year for the United States in many ways. Pervasive change has been the tenor of the times and engineering geology has not escaped what the nation faces. In particular, the nation has run out of easy money and the Congressional elections of 1994 empowered a majority of new members expressing fiscal accountability. Accordingly, agencies have been given reduced budgets and programs have been slashed or removed, early retirements have been accomplished and reductions in force (RIFs) have been concluded among personnel. Priced competition for professional work reached a new and regrettable peak of use and industries struggled with successive waves of both corporate acquisitions and “downsizing” of staffing. In the UK and Europe, drought conditions developed and became more severe during 1995. The first land link between the UK and Europe since late glacial times (the Channel tunnel rail link) developed full working schedules. The input of geotechnical engineering into this prestige international project was further demonstrated by a final series of major conferences and publications ( Byrd, 1994 ; Institution of Civil Engineers, 1992 , Institution of Civil Engineers, 1993 , Institution of Civil Engineers, 1994 ). The major downturn in “normal” civil works, and the associated preparatory geotechnical investigations, for roads, redevelopment and housing, etc. continued, with many smaller site investigation and associated specialists either “downsizing”, being subsumed into larger groups, or going out of business.

Ralph B. Peck; Educator and Engineer—The Essence of the Man by John Dunnicliff and Nancy Peck Young

It is appropriate to applaud yet another gift from Professor Ralph B. Peck to the profession, rather than to dwell on the man and his prominence in engineering. There are two general associations by which Dr. Peck has influenced our profession: (1) more narrowly, through his own engineer-student alumni of the University of Illinois; and, (2) more broadly among practicing engineers and geologists who have come to know, value, and follow the Peck teachings. This review flows from the latter camp, a place where Dr. Peck is widely recognized for his ultimately practical engineering wisdom. He cannot help but be a genuine hero to geological practitioners who have learned from his writings and from occasional attendance at his lectures and oral papers. We geologists see him mainly in the light of his remarkable ability to detect and grasp the practical essentials and then, with the true calling of a great engineer, to pass his own proven lessons-learned on to us. Regrettably, however, this tribute is devoid of commentary by the many geologists who have crossed Ralph Pecks path over the years. In his own humble words, Peck recalls his chance meeting on a geological field trip (early 1930s) of Winifred Goldring, a geological curator at the New York State Geological Museum in Albany. Previous to this point, Peck, the developing structural (bridge) engineer, had only a ripening curiosity about geology. He recalls (p. 28) “I think I have to credit her with the interest that I later found in the field of geology in general, without which I certainly could not have progressed very far in soil mechanics.” …

Carbonate Sediments and Rocks: A Manual for Earth Scientists and Engineers(Colin Braithwaite)

Here, in one thin book, are the means to extend your project coverage well into all manner of carbonate earth materials, save some of the more complex metamorphic varieties. As noted in the books advertisement, the author is a geologist and his message is for both geologists and engineers. Author Braithwaite, formerly Senior Lecturer in the Division of Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow, UK, even follows the practice of geologists in use of the term “compaction,” which we know to be more appropriate to our practice as “consolidation.” From the standpoint of engineering geology, the content of this book is …