After reading a recent article in the journal Groundwater by Dr. Fred Molz (2017) regarding the history of digital computer modeling of groundwater systems, INTERA President and CEO, Dr. Marsh Lavenue, realized part of the story was missing. In a Letter to the Editor of Groundwater, Dr. Lavenue provides written comments on the contributions that INTERA, and specifically the company’s founder, Dr. Ronald B. Lantz, made in bringing digital computer modeling technology from the petroleum engineering industry into hydrogeology. An abbreviated version of Dr. Lavenue’s comments appears in the January 2018 edition of Groundwater, and his complete response is provided here.
Continue ReadingArchives for 2017
David Jordan to Lead INTERA’s Water Resources Business
David Jordan, a Principal Hydrogeologist and Vice President in INTERA’s Albuquerque office, has assumed the leadership role for the company’s water resources line of business. Announced at INTERA’s annual leadership meeting, Van Kelley, a Senior Vice President and the former water resources lead said, “I look forward to David’s contributions and know he has the skills to further expand the water resources line of business and lead our continually diversifying offerings.” INTERA’s water resources services, which include all aspects of water planning, water supply, alternative water strategies, regulatory support and permitting, and GIS and data management, are provided to a wide range of federal, state, municipal, and industrial clients throughout the U.S.
Continue ReadingINTERA Helps with the Hurricane Harvey Relief Efforts in Houston
After witnessing the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey to so many of his fellow Houstonian’s homes, Wade Oliver, Manager of INTERA’s Houston operations, organized a volunteer day to assist with the cleanup of a water-damaged home. All Hands ( www.hands.org ), a volunteer-powered disaster relief organization dedicated to rebuilding hope for people impacted by natural disasters all over the world, identified a home in northeast Houston where INTERA’s help was particularly needed. The home, located near a bayou, was flooded with over five feet of water inside the structure. The INTERA crew, which included Noreen Baker, Neil Deeds, Debora Piemonti, John Sigda, Kris Spencer, Mary Wilkins, and several family members, spent the day removing sheetrock, flooring, cabinets, and other flood-damaged materials. “We’re just happy to help in this small way to get this family closer to being back in their home,” said Wade.
Continue ReadingINTERA to Sponsor 2017 Clay Conference in Davos, Switzerland
INTERA Incorporated Swiss Branch (INTERA) will be one of the sponsors for the 7th International Conference on Clays in Natural and Engineered Barriers for Radioactive Waste Confinement (Clay Conference) at the Congress Center in Davos, Switzerland, between September 24 and 27. The Clay Conference is held for clay and clay mineral specialists and scientists working in radioactive waste disposal to gather and evaluate the progress of research in this field. Additionally, INTERA personnel (indicated in bold) will present two oral and five poster presentations at the Conference:
- Estimation of anomalous hydraulic heads in low-permeability formations (oral presentation)
- Hydraulic property distributions of the rock formations in the candidate siting regions of northern Switzerland (oral presentation)
- Propagation of parameter uncertainty associated with model abstractions: Inverse modelling of coupled THM
processes with simplified TH- models (poster) - A prediction-evaluation approach for the FE- experiment in Mont Terri: tunnel and nearfield temperatures (poster)
- Parametric sensitivity analysis of heat and gas release for a geological repository for SF/HLW in northern
Switzerland (poster) - Influence of pore pressure on test-zone compressibility and consequences for the interpretation of test data
(poster) - Stochastic modelling of coupled hydromechanical phenomena in bentonite with an abstracted model incorporating subscale information (poster)
R. Beauheim, D. Heagle, J. Avis, R. Roberts
A. Papafotiou, R. Senger, S. Hardie, J. Croisé, P. Marschall
A. Namhata, C. Li, M. Jigmond, A. Papafotiou, P. Marschall
A. Papafotiou, A. Singh, R. Senger, B. Garitte, P. Marschall
A. Papafotiou, A. Namhata, A. Singh, M. Williams, M. Jigmond, P. Marschall
B. Paris, R. Roberts, R. Beauheim
R. Senger, A. Namhata, A. Papafotiou, P. Marschall
INTERA’s Dr. Alison Adams Selected for Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies’ 2017 Donald R. Boyd Award
Dr. Alison Adams, PhD, PE, a Principal Hydrologist at INTERA Incorporated (INTERA), has been selected to receive the
Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies’ (AMWA’s) Donald R. Boyd Award. Her efforts to incorporate climate change into both operational planning and long-term water supply activities during her tenure as Chief Technical Officer for Tampa Bay Water, the largest wholesale public water supplier in Florida, is just one example of why Dr. Adams was selected for the award. AMWA is the United States’ only policy-making organization that focuses solely on the metropolitan water drinking suppliers that provide more than 140 million Americans with safe drinking water. The Donald R. Boyd award, named for one of AMWA’s founding members, acknowledges extraordinary personal service in the drinking water quality field.
Dr. Adams will be presented with her Donald R. Boyd Award on Monday, October 16, at the Awards Luncheon in
St. Simons, Georgia.
Accounting for Uncertainty in Groundwater Sustainability Modeling
Dr. Abhishek Singh, a Senior Environmental Scientist and Manager of INTERA’s California operations, was recently featured in Western Water’s Summer 2017 edition in an article entitled, “Now Comes the Hard Part: Building Sustainable Groundwater Management in California.” California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), enacted in 2014, establishes a new structure for managing California’s groundwater resources at a local level. In the article, Dr. Singh discusses the importance of planning for uncertainty in groundwater sustainability modeling stating, “Planning with certainty is a rare thing. Planning under uncertainty is a necessity. You can account for uncertainty or just ignore it.” Western Water also captured Dr. Singh’s emphasis on the importance of creating conceptual water budgets for basins as part of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) development process. These budgets identify what is known and unknown about a basin, and characterize the basin through data acquisition. The full Western Water article is available here.
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