civil and environmental engineering at stanford university · • structural engineering and...

Civil and Environmental Engineering

at Stanford University- Volume 3, Newsletter No. 1 December 1998 -

WHAT’S INSIDEFaculty News and Awards ....................................... 2

Alumni Updates ....................................................... 3

In Memorium ........................................................... 7

New Faculty Spotlight, Deierlein ............................9

New Faculty Spotlight, Criddle .............................12

Natural Bioremediation CleansUp Groundwater, Reinhard .................................16

Earthquake Risks to Transportation Systems,Kiremidjian .........................................................17

Environmental Technology and Fluid MechanicsCourses Online .................................................... 18

• Structural Engineering and Geomechanics • Environmental Engineering and Science

• Construction Engineering and Management • Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Stanford University Stanford, California 94305-4020

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In my letter to many of you in October, I talked about thewonderful success we had this past spring in recruiting threenew faculty members to our department. In this newsletter, Iam happy to bring you articles written by Greg Deierlein andCraig Criddle on their respective research interests. Both Gregand Craig have made very smooth transitions to their new re-sponsibilities and are doing very well indeed. Laura Loweswill be joining us in January and we will spotlight her researchin the spring newsletter. In addition to the articles by Gregand Craig, we have included pieces by Anne Kiremidjian onearthquake risks to transportation systems and Martin Reinhardon bioremediation of a fuel-contaminated plume.

One of the great challenges of my job as chair has been in thedomain of faculty renewal. It seems like a Sisiphian task to besure! This year our search for new faculty members contin-ues, and we currently have searches in the risk and reliabilityarea and in environmental engineering. In addition, we haveidentified a candidate in our design/construction integrationinitiative search, and we are currently preparing the papersfor this most exciting appointment. This person will likelybegin at Stanford in September 1999, and will serve as thefocal point for our new MS program in Design/ConstructionIntegration which will come on-line in the 1999/2000academic year. A committee chaired by Bob Tatum andHelmut Krawinkler is currently putting together the curricu-lum for this degree program and it will be announced on ourweb page once it is complete.

While on the topic of curriculum development, I would like tocall your attention to the article on Stanford Online at theend of this newsletter. We are in the process ofinvestigating offering a number of civil and environmentalengineering courses on-line, and we would like to gauge

interest in these courses, not only among our alumni, but alsoin the companies that employ them. Please feel free to bringthis article to the attention of your colleagues and youremployers.

The goal of providing a relevant, current, and exciting under-graduate degree while meeting the demands of a professionaldegree for our Masters students, and a research-oriented de-gree for our doctoral students, requires our constant attentionand vigilance. Together with my colleagues, I find myself con-stantly wrestling with the challenges of bringing the excite-ment of our research into our undergraduate experience, whilestill satisfying the requirements of an ABET-accredited de-gree. Clearly, these are not mutually exclusive issues, but thelimiting factor (as always!) is time and not faculty desire orinterest! Adding to the complexity of the mix is Stanford’sstrong and increasing interest in introductory studies for froshand sophomores, and the goal of providing students with a

Letter from the chair, Professor Jeff Koseff

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FACULTY NEWS AND AWARDS

Allin Cornell , Professor, Research, has just been selected tobe the 1999 Distinguished Lecturer of EERI (EarthquakeEngineering Research Institute). It implies a lecture at theAnnual meeting in February in San Diego, presentation ofthe lecture again at five sites around the country, and a smallhonorarium.

We are very pleased to announcethat Perry McCarty received the1998 Outstanding PublicationAward from the Association ofEnvironmental Professors for hispaper, Removal of Trace Chlori-nated Compounds by ActivatedCarbon and Fixed-film Bacteria.This is indeed very good news!

Bob Tatum is offering a new course, Resources and Opera-tions for Field Construction, as a part of the redesignedconstruction curriculum. He anddoctoral student Thomas Kormanare developing a tool to assist withcoordinating mechanical andelectrical projects on plants andcomplex buildings. At the start ofthis year, Thomas was selected forStanford’s highly competitive Fu-ture Professors of ManufacturingProgram, which provides supportfor doctoral students planningcareers in teaching and research related to manufacturing.

Boyd Paulson has returned from a 97-98 sabbatical spentplanning future research and developing two new courses inhousing construction. This winterhe will introduce CE 148—Designand Construction of AffordableHousing for upper division under-graduates and masters students. Inthe spring he will introduce asophomore seminar titled Issues inAffordable Housing. Bill Behrman,a recent Stanford PhD graduate,has been assisting in these initia-tives. Boyd continues teaching CE240—Analysis and Design of Con-struction Operations, and CE 153— Construction Equipmentand Methods. This fall 28 students elected the one-unit 240Loption for field experience. They work alternate Fridays learn-ing craft skills and applying CE 240 planning and supervisionconcepts, while building two single-family Habitat homes inMenlo Park. Boyd would especially like to hear from alumniand friends of our program who are working in residentialplanning, design, and construction so he can communicatemore directly with you for input on his new initiatives. Someof you have already been very helpful.

This past summer, Leonard Ortolano took a “working vaca-tion” (a clear oxymoron) in Italy. In the course of his visit, heteamed up with his colleague,Virginio Bettini of the University ofVenice, to participate in environ-mental impact assessments for theproposed bridge connecting Sicilyand Calabria, and the proposedhighway linking Milan with thenewly expanded Malpesa Airport.The working vacation culminatedwith a week-long stay at ProfessorBettini’s summer home in Sardiniawhere Ortolano and Bettini made progress on a textbook theyare preparing for use in Italian university courses on environ-mental impact assessment.

ISA, the international society formeasurement control, namedAnshel Schiff, consulting profes-sor in the Department of Civil andEnvironmental Engineering, as anISA Fellow Member at the annualHonors & Awards in Houston,Texas. Schiff was recognized forcontributions to the design, fabri-cation and application of motioninstrumentation for monitoring seismic phenomena. Schiffis the founder and principal of Precision Measurement In-dustries, Inc.

Mark Jacobson, Professor of En-vironmental Fluid Mechanics andHydrology, wrote a book entitledFundamentals of AtmosphericModeling, Cambridge UniversityPress, September 1998.

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ALUMNI UPDATE

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Abraham Meltzer

1940s

◆ Abraham Meltzer (MS 1948)worked for PG&E until 1952 when hedecided to return to Costa Rica andestablish his own construction com-pany. He is currently the chairman ofConstructora Meltzer, S.A. in SanJose, Costa Rica.

1950s◆ Richard Whaley (BS 1958) was in the consulting fieldfor many years, and now works for the City of Palo Alto, CA,in the utilities area replacing water, gas, and sewer systems.

1960s◆ Joel Newgen (BS 1960, MS 1965) is retired from Bechtelwhere he served as Construction Manager and ProjectManager for over twenty-five years.◆ Robert (Jerry) Willey (1965) re-cently retired after thirty years withthe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.He worked at the Hydrologic Engi-neering Research Division in Davis,and provided water resources train-ing courses there. ◆ Richard Wasley(PhD 1961) has been enjoying trav-elling and off-road camping activitieswith his wife, Liena, since he retiredfrom the Lawrence Livermore Na-tional Laboratory in 1994. He con-tinues to work occasionally for the LLNL when needed.◆ Rohit Bodiwala (MS 1965) returned to India and workedfor the “Sarabhai Group” for ten years in Bombay, Baroda,Ahmedabad, and finally in Indonesia, Singapore, Malasia andMauritius. He is now a partner of a consulting constructioncompany and specializes in turn-key projects mainly in theenvironmental field. ◆ Darryl Davis (MS 1966) is currentlyDirector of the Hydrologic Engineering Center with the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers, where he has been an employee fortwenty-eight years. ◆ Quentin Larsen (MS 1969) is currentlyworking for CRSS Constructors, where he is responsible forthe construction management of major Federal projects suchas courthouses, federal buildings, and VA hospitals.

Robert (Jerry) Willey

EloyLares-Monserratte

◆ Richard Ferrell (MS 1969),after years of working on real es-tate development and real estate fi-nance, has started his own consult-ing company, which primarily pro-vides litigation services such as con-sulting and expert witness testi-mony. ◆ Eloy Lares-Monserratte(MS 1967) has been partner andgeneral manager of L.M. Ingenieria,an engineering consulting firm inVenezuela, since 1976.

1970s◆ John Ma (MS 1973) established JMEC Engineering, Inc.in 1990, providing bridge engineering services to various gov-ernment agencies. He now has two sons, fifteen and ten yearsof age. ◆ Gerhart Schuëller (PhD 1970) is presently direc-tor and chair of the Department of Engineering Mechanics atthe University of Innsbruck in Georgen, Austria. After com-pleting his PhD at Stanford, he taught for two years at theGeorge Washington University, and then moved to the Tech-nical University of Munich, Germany before assuming hiscurrent position at the University of Innsbruck.◆ L. Younger Klippert (MS 1972) is currently a senior con-struction manager at Brinderson Construction, Inc. in Califor-nia. He has been working in petrochemical projects for twenty-five years. ◆ Captain Quentin Lewis (MS 1972) is presentlyself-employed, engaged in engineering consulting on real es-tate property conditions. ◆ Larry Goldberg (MS 1972) iscurrently the director of Forbes & Associates in South Africa.Before that he worked for the EPA for a number of years.◆ Betty (Mikkelsen) Miller (MS 1973) obtained her profes-sional registration and has now been working with the City ofRancho Cucamonga for eleven years. ◆ Peretz Wittman (MS1973) presently works as a software configuration managerfor Malat, Inc., makers of unmanned air vehicle systems inIsrael. ◆ Steve Schaefer (MS 1976) recently returned to theU.S after two years of engaging in consulting assignments inPeru for water and wastewater system improvements. He con-tinues to be involved in ongoing work in Chile and Peru, andalso works on water treatment upgrades in Tampa Bay area.◆ Gilbert Salvi (MS 1978) has been travelling overseas withthe French company he works for (Soletanche Bachy Group)and serves as CEO of the company. ◆ Susan Pfohman(MS 1978) is currently occupied with raising her children andvolunteering at the public school to make sure hergirls get a good introduction to math and science.

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◆ Juan Gonzalez-Lopez (MS 1979) has returned to Stan-ford this fall, and is part of the Graduate School of BusinessSloan Program. ◆ Adele Ho (MS 1979) is presently workingfor the City of San Pablo in California as a Public Works Di-vision Manager. After graduating from Stanford, she workedin aerospace, spent time as a ski instructor, and earned a fur-ther degree at UC Berkeley. ◆ Carlos R. Hernandez (MS1979) spent nine years of service in Westinghouse, and nowCutler Hammon, Inc. He is currently involved in sales andmarketing as a senior project manager. He is also overseeingfive major electrical equipment contracts at the San FranciscoInternational Airport.

1980s◆ Kenneth Knox (1981) just retired from the U.S Air Forceafter having completed a 20-year career in Air Force civil en-gineering. He is currently a Principal Engineer with AppliedResearch Associates, supporting the Pavements and Facilitiesbranches of the Air Force Research Lab at Panama City,Florida. ◆ Felicia Dean (1981) is currently a Principal andProject Manager at McGill Martin Self, Inc., a 30-person firmin Walnut Creek, which provides engineering, land survey-ing, landscape architecture, and regional land planning ser-vices. She has two children. ◆ George Kiayias (MS 1989)works at BMG Engineering Ltd. in Zurich, Switzerland as anenvironmental engineer. After graduation in 1989 he workedfor Dames & Moore in Bethesda, Maryland doing risk assign-ments for contaminated sites. ◆ Todd Ray (MS 1989) is working

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as a sales engineer at a software company in San Mateo. Sincegraduating from CE, Todd has published a book onin-line skating and opened a restaurant in San Francisco.◆ Steve Sherman (BS 1980) has been involved in ASCE,and was President of the San Jose branch of ASCE, as well asa member of a local civil engineers golf club. He frequentlyhelps coach his two children in soccer and baseball.◆ Albert J. Valocchi (PHD 1980) has been a member of theNational Research Council “Committee on EnvironmentalRemediation at Naval Facilities” since December 1997. Hehas enjoyed seeing fellow SEEP alums who are also membersof the committee. ◆ Janis Cenedella (MS 1981) startedTiburon Construction, a concrete subcontracting firm in June1996. She is involved primarily in commercial and highwaywork. She is married and has an eleven year old son, Jack.◆ James E. Koch (MS 1984) has recently retired from thearmy after twenty-one years of service. He was married toMartha Chapo on May 23, 1998, and they are settled in theirhome in St. Louis, Missouri. He is currently teaching part-time for the Engineering Management department at theUniversity of Missouri-Rolla, and also does part-time con-sulting as an examiner for the state of Missouri’s Quality Pro-gram. ◆ Brian Barr (MS 1986) was recently appointed asVice President in charge of industrial construction for Brasfield& Gorrie, a large Southeast United States contractor, whichwas recently ranked 58th in size among U.S. contractors.◆ Michele Del Duca (MS 1988) is currently a Project Man-ager working on state and federal environmental impact re-ports and statements. She recently completed NEPA environ-mental analysis on SFO’s master plan. She will be starting

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from our archives...

Graduating Class of 1924Do You Recognize Anyone in this Picture?

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Sarah Tracy


work on environmental analysis for the upcoming new run-way at SFO. ◆ Timothy R. Thurston (BS 1988) recentlygraduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor ofArchitecture degree. He has now started his second career inarchitecture with a small firm that specializes in institutionalprojects (libraries, community centers, etc.). He and his wife,Shari are expecting their second child in July.◆ Ronald G. Gonzales (MS 1989) is currently working inthe remote Palau Archipelago in the western pacific. He hasbeen managing several significant projects in this tiny tropi-cal island nation of 17,000 people. He recently completed aproject for a 500-room, $60 million resort, which is supposedto double the nation’s hotel rooms. When not working, he isbusy scuba diving in 82 degree water, and fishing for tunaand barracudas.

1990s◆ John Luce (MS 1990) is currently with the U.S. Armycommanding a Topographic Engineer Battalion in Hawaii. Hespent one year at Command General Staff College, two yearsin Alaska as Deputy Command Engineer, and two years inTexas as Operations Officer and Executive Officer of a Con-

struction Battalion. ◆ Sarah Tracy(MS 1994) works as a staff engineerat Stetson Engineers. She recentlyswitched from site remediation towater engineering, and is enjoyinglife in Southern California.◆ Robert Castillo (MS 1995) is cur-rently a Project Engineer working forSteve P. Rados, Inc. EngineeringContractors. His company is pres-ently working as a sub-contractor un-der “Silverado Constructors.” Theyare building five bridges on the“Eastern Transportation Corridor”

project. This corridor begins in Laguna Beach and runs north-east toward Corona (in Southern California).◆ Stephen Abrusia (MS 1996) is currently working at Camp,Dresser and McKee as an engineer in Walnut Creek.◆ Lawrence Merritt, Jr. (MS 1996) is still working at theFord Environmental Quality Office. He just completed a six-week assignment in England and Germany. ◆ Tony Ermovick(MS 1992) is currently serving with the U.S. Navy’s CivilEngineer Corps as head of a 30 person, $40 million dollar peryear construction and facilities maintenance office in Wash-ington, D.C., and was recently selected for promotion to Com-mander, United States Navy. ◆ Tameeza Asaria (MS 1994)is a Development Engineer at Enron International. She workswith the water group, which is focused on the development of

water and wastewater infrastructure projects around the world.◆ Aaron Mead (MS 1995) just got married and is currentlystudying to take the P.E. exam. He is an Associate Engineerand Project Manager at Philip Williams & Associates.◆ Charles K. Thorn (BS 1997) recently began a graduateprogram in structural engineering at the University of Texasat Austin. He anticipates receiving his MS in May, 2000.◆ Jesse Roach (MS 1997) is currently working as a GrandCanyon River Guide at the Arizona River Runner. Since gradu-ating, he has followed a nontraditional, but greatly rewardingpath. He and a friend hiked from Canada to Mexico on thePacific Crest Trail. He is using his enhanced knowledge aboutdams, soil mechanics, hydrology and water resource to add tohis “river” experience, and is enjoying it tremendously. ◆ Edward Ho (BS 1990) is currently working for Tetra Techas an environmental engineer.He is managing remediationsat former navy facilities inAlameda, Concord, and Trea-sure Island, in California.◆ Monique T. Brechter (MS1990) recently moved to LongIsland. She just started a jobconsulting in the utility indus-try in the environmental area.◆ I-Pei Hsiu Hodge (MS1990) is currently workingwith the East Bay MunicipalUtility District, and is in-volved with the Seismic Improvement Program, a $189 mil-lion project to seismically upgrade the water distribution sys-tem. She and her husband, ◆ Thomas Hodge (MS 1990) hada baby girl in December 1997 (their first). ◆ Roger Kohne(MS 1991) is presently working for Black & Veatch as a projectmanager. He and his wife, Mary Beth recently became proudparents of twin boys. ◆ John DeWitt (MS 1991) has recentlybegun working at Erler & Kalinowski, Inc., CA after six andhalf years at Kennedy Jenks consultants. He and his wife, Kim,purchased a house in San Mateo and are living there with theirthree-year-old daughter. ◆ Bryan Ward (MS 1991) startedSkyward Construction Company in January of 1997, after sixyears of working as a project manager in other companies.Skyward builds commercial structures in the Portland/Vancouver area. ◆ Charles Fell (MS 1991) previously workedas an engineer for Parsons Beinkerhoff, a construction com-pany in Hawaii. In June 1997 he started working for Sky-ward, Inc. ◆ Andrew Janssen (MS 1991) has spent two yearsas a self-employed transit engineer consultant. He recentlystarted medical school. ◆ Lu-Sheng Chen (MS 1992) hasbeen working for the ROC Government Congress in Taiwansince 1997. His main task is to construct and renew the officebuildings and facilities to match the demands of the different

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Thomas Hodge, I-Pei HsuiHodge, and daughter

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departments. ◆ Sophia Skoda (BS 1993) is currently hap-pily working in finance for utilities at Brown and Caldwell inWalnut Creek. ◆ Adjo Amokudzi (BS 1993) took up a mas-ters in transportation engineering at Florida International Uni-versity, where she was named Civil Engineering GraduateStudent of the Year. She also sat on the school’s Tau Beta Picommittee and published several papers. She is currentlyworking on her doctoral degree in transportation engineeringat Carnegie Mellon University. ◆ Jenny Johnston (BS 1994)spent her first year after graduation working in a constructionfirm in Mexico City. After the peso devaluation took its tollon her industry, she began marketing for Procter & Gamble’sCrest brand in Mexico. She has now decided to pursue herstudies in architecture at Harvard. ◆ Michelle Makley (BS1994) is currently on a leave of absence from CH2M-Hillworking for the U.S. Navy. She recently was married.◆ Sunita Deshmukh (MS 1995) has recently switched com-panies and has taken a job in client-server development incomputers in New York. ◆ Kristen Bowman (MS 1995)began working at Woodward Clyde and within one year re-ceived the WC Southern California Young Professional ofthe Year award. She has changed positions recently and isnow calculating at Flow Science, Inc. in Pasadena and is await-ing a transfer to the east coast. ◆ Catherine Engberg (BS1995) has been working at Montgomery Watson in Walnut

Creek, CA for three years. Currently, she is pursuing a lawdegree at Stanford University. ◆ Belinda Wei (MS 1996) iscurrently working as an associate engineer at EDA, Inc. inOakland, CA. She works on storm water projects which aimto keep the creeks and SF Bay clean. ◆ Mark C. Davis (MS1996) just recently moved out of the Maz Waste industry andinto wastewater at Carollo Engineers in Walnut Creek, CA.◆ Josh Burgel (BS 1996) has been working as a landscapearchitect on projects around the U.S. and Asia for the past twoyears. He has also coached the Stanford’s Novice Men’s Crewfor two seasons. He is currently attending Harvard’s GraduateSchool of Design for an MLA Degree. ◆ Maria Steyn (MS1996) is currently working for Fluor Daniel in New York as aconstruction engineer. She just completed work on a maxi-mum security prison in California, and is presently involvedin field engineering on a self-perform buantol project in Loui-siana. ◆ Xiaoying Ma (PHD 1997) is presently an Environ-mental Economist at the Asian Development Bank. He is work-ing on environmental projects mainly in Indonesia and China.◆ John Chung (MS 1997) is working as a Project Engineerwith the Los Angeles County Sanitation District. He is involvedin issues related to landfill sites and gas systems.◆ Flavia C. Zraick (MS 1997) is presently interested in de-veloping private sector water projects in developing countries.

from our archives...

Graduating Class of 1948Do You Recognize Anyone in this Picture?

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IN MEMORIUM

Jack Benjamin, a long-timefaculty member in structuralengineering, died on August 26at the age of 81. Jack came toStanford in 1948 and retired in1973. He was well known as apioneer in the application ofstatistical and probabilisticmethods to civil and structuralengineering. Among his manydistinguished doctoral studentsare Professors Haresh Shah

(PhD 1963) and Allin Cornell (PhD 1964) of Stanford andWilliam Venuti (PhD 1963) and Ted Zsutty (PhD 1962) ofSan Jose State University.

Professor Benjamin was born in 1917 in Olympia, Washing-ton. He was educated at the University of Washington (BSand MS degrees) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology,where he received the Doctor of Science degree in 1942. Hethen served four years in the U.S. Army during World WarII. After the war, he joined the faculty of Rensselaer Poly-technic Institute in 1946, where he taught structural engi-neering for two years in the Department of Architecture. Hethen came to Stanford where he stayed for the remainder ofhis academic career.

The first textbook Jack wrote was titled Statistically Indeter-minate Structures and was noted for its practical approach tothe understanding of structural behavior. This book was fol-lowed by his famous book on statistical methods, titled Prob-ability, Statistics, and Decisions for Civil Engineers and co-authored by Professor Allin Cornell. These books have greatlyinfluenced an entire generation of structural engineering stu-dents.

After retiring from Stanford, Jack started a consulting firm,Engineering Decision Analysis Company (EDAC) in Palo Alto.Jack remained at EDAC from 1974 to 1979 and conductednumerous projects concerned with seismic risk analysis. Witha group of Stanford graduates, he formed a second company,Jack R. Benjamin and Associates, currently headquartered inMenlo Park. This company is now under the presidency ofMarty McCann (PhD 1980).

On several occasions after retiring, Jack returned to the cam-pus to teach classes in structural engineering and statisticalmethods. Before his retirement, he conducted research on

probabilistic methods and taught courses in structural design.He was active in the committee work of the American Con-crete Institute (ACI), and was a member of the AmericanSociety of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Earthquake Engi-neering Research Institute (EERI).

Jack was devoted to his family and greatly enjoyed his fourchildren, numerous grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. His wife, Sarah, died soon after his retirement fromStanford. He was an avid traveler and fisherman, and a fan ofAirstream Trailers. At one time he was president of the WallyByam Caravan Club, which consists of Airstream owners whotravel together.

A Memorial Fund in honor of Professor Benjamin has beenestablished in the Department of Civil and Environmental En-gineering. Memorial contributions may be sent to the depart-ment at the address given on the heading of this newsletter.

◆

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Rob Johanson, Professorof Civil Engineering at theUniversity of the Pacific, diedon August 21 after he col-lapsed at Heathrow Airport inLondon. He was returningfrom his native South Africa,where he had worked duringthe summer with local agen-cies to model how changingland use affects water runoff.He was 57.

Dr. Johanson obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees inCivil Engineering, with distinction, from the University of Na-tal, South Africa. He began his distinguished career as an as-sistant engineer to the Harbour Engineer in Durban, and laterenrolled at Stanford University where he studied underRay Linsley in water resources, and received his doctorate in1971.

During the 1970s Dr. Johanson worked with Ray Linsleyand Norm Crawford in developing the Hydrocomp Simula-tion Program. The HSPF software is used very widely in

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William Owen, class of 1978,died on April 4 at the age of51. He held a master’s degreein water resource engineeringfrom the University of Michi-gan and a doctorate degree inenvironmental engineeringfrom Stanford University. Hewas internationally recognizedas an expert in environmentalengineering and was a regis-tered engineer in 10 states. He

wrote a textbook as well as numerous articles in his field.

Bill served as president of Owen Engineering & ManagementConsultants, Inc., a company specializing in water and waste-water treatment. Owen Engineering & Management is a fam-ily-owned business which he owned with his brother. He alsoserved in the Navy.

Bill was a member of many professional organizations and adiplomat of the American Academy of Environmental Engi-neers. He was an avid sports enthusiast and played golf andtennis competitively. He served as an active member and pre-vious board member of Pinehurst Country Club in Denver,Colorado.

He was born to Webster and Elizabeth Hays Owen, July 27,1947 in Pontiac, Michigan. Bill married Janice Pierce Watkins,July 29, 1983 in Glenwood Springs. She preceded him in deathon March 29, 1998.

Our thanks to Webster Owen for writing this tribute.

hydrologic modeling to predict water response in the hydro-logic cycle. Dr. Johanson continued to be a sought-after con-sultant in the use of the HSPF model during his lifetime, andto the many, many graduate students and users of this pro-gram he was an enthusiastic supporter and advisor.

In 1980 he began his teaching career in the civil engineeringdepartment at the University of the Pacific. He was a popu-lar instructor who had a broad intellect and diverse interests.He taught a wide variety of engineering courses as well asmentor seminars, a university general education requirement.He served on many faculty committees including the Fac-ulty Compensation Committee, Program Review, AcademicAffairs and the Academic Council.

Dr. Johanson was an avid sailor. He and his wife, Ginny(MAT ‘70), often hosted foreign exchange students in theirhome. He was an active member of the Stockton CovenantChurch. He is survived by his wife and three children, Astrid,Ingrid, and Carl.

At a service to celebrate Rob Johanson’s life, Dick Turpin,Interim Dean of the UOP School of Engineering, remarkedthat “we will all miss Rob’s cheerful attitude, his marveloussense of humor, his technical and teaching skills, but mostimportantly, we will miss Rob, our friend.”

Our thanks to Dr. Jim Morgali (PhD ‘64, MS ‘57, Bsc, ‘56),Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of thePacific, for writing this tribute.

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Gregory G. Deierlein, Associate ProfessorStructural Engineering and Geomechanics Program

BS 1981 Cornell UniversityMS 1982 University of California at Berkeley

PhD 1988 University of Texas at Austin

NEW FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

Each major earthquake is a learning experience which oftenreveals structural weaknesses in buildings and bridges that wereoverlooked in design and construction. One of the surprises inthe 1994 Northridge earthquake was the occurrence of brittlefractures in many welded steel moment frames—damage thatwas serious enough to prompt the Los Angeles building de-partment to require post-earthquake inspections to over fourhundred steel-framed buildings in areas affected by the earth-quake. While none of the damaged buildings collapsed, thefractures raised serious questions about the integrity of weldedsteel moment frames that were commonly viewed as one ofthe most reliable types of seismic resisting systems. Moreover,the fractures undermined confidence in current seismic designand construction methods for these frames. Since then, theauthor has been involved in a national effort, coordinatedthrough the SAC Joint Venture1, to investigate earthquake-in-duced fractures in welded connections and their implicationson the design and safety of steel-framed structures.

Most of the fractures observed after the Northridge earthquakewere in welded beam-to-column moment connections (Figure1), typically initiating in the welds joining the beam flange tothe column and propagating either through the weld or intothe column. Often occurring with little or no plastic deforma-tions, the fractures invalidated a basic assumption in seismicdesign that the steel members and connections have sufficientductility to dissipate energy induced by earthquake groundmotions. It is now generally recognized that the connectionfractures resulted from a combination of factors including poorquality field welds, low-toughness welding electrodes, largeinherent stress-risers in the connections, and the prevalence oflarge member sizes in non-redundant framing systems. There-fore, solutions to the problem involve many considerationsranging from improving quality control in the constructionprocess to developing new connection details that reduce thetoughness demands on the material.

From the standpoint of fracture, reliable connection perfor-mance requires that the weld and base metal have sufficientfracture toughness to avoid cracking under earthquake-inducedforces and deformations. Ways to achieve this are by increas-ing the available toughness, for example by using higher tough-ness welding electrodes, or by modifying the connection de-tail to reduce the toughness demand. The connection detailsshown in Figure 2 are examples of two approaches for reduc-ing fracture toughness demands in the weld region. In Figure2a the beam adjacent to the connection is reinforced with coverplates, whereas in Figure 2b material is removed from the beamto create a weak fuse away from the column. Both details fol-low an approach of reducing the toughness demand by reduc-ing average stresses on the weld and shifting the plastic hingeregion away from the weld. Other measures for minimizingtoughness demands might entail altering the weld details them-selves to reduce the local effects of stress risers (notch effects).

Fracture Toughness Demands in Welded Steel Structures


Figure 1. Standard Beam-Column Welded Connection

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Our research involves the application of fracture mechanicsto quantify fracture toughness demands in the connection andthereby evaluate the effectiveness of measures such as thosedescribed above in producing fracture resistant connections.Shown in Figure 3 is an example of detailed finite elementmodels (FEM) for calculating local fracture indices in thewelded connections. The finite element mesh is highly refinedaround the lower beam flange weld to investigate crack initia-tion from flaws created by the gap behind the weld-backingbar and other defects such as slag inclusions or lack of fusionin the weld root. The highly refined FEM mesh is necessary toobtain accurate solutions for the stress and strain field aroundthe crack tip that are used to calculate various fracture me-chanics indices, such as elastic stress intensity factors (K

I),

strain energy release rates (J), and Crack Tip Opening Dis-placements (CTOD). These indices are measures of the crackdriving force that can then be compared to standard measuresof the available material toughness.

In addition to confirming that toughness demands in the pre-Northridge connection details greatly exceeded the toughnessprovided by E70T-4 weld metal commonly used in buildingconstruction, our analyses have identified a number of param-eters whose influence on fracture resistance warrant furtherstudy. For example, the ratio of the weld metal to beam flangeyield strength has a significant effect on weld toughness de-mands, suggesting that it may be beneficial to use overmatch-ing rather than matching electrodes. On the other hand, ouranalyses have shown that some of the proposed improvementsto the connection, such as the addition of flange cover-platesas shown in Figure 2a, may not be as effective as implied bysimplifying assumptions that design of connections are notsufficiently refined to accurately predict fracture toughnessdemands in the connections.

Working in coordination with other researchers involved withthe SAC Joint Venture, we are continuing our fracture analy-ses to systematically investigate a range of connection designparameters with the objectives to:

• develop equations to predict fracture toughness demandsand recommendations that will assist in the developmentand design of fracture resistant connections,

• assist in the planning of full scale connection tests beingconducted at various universities to verify the performanceof connections for both existing pre-Northridge and newconstruction, and

• relate the results of local material and weld component teststo full-scale connection performance.

One of the exciting challenges of this research is to accuratelymodel fracture phenomena governed by behavior with char-acteristic length scales that are order of magnitudes smallerthan those of typical structural analyses employed in design.For example, the smallest finite elements in Figure 3 are onlya few millimeters in size compared to beam and column mem-bers that are meters long. Because of their large computationaldemands, analyses of the sort shown in Figure 3 have onlybecome practical research methods within the past few years—practical in the sense that multiple parametric


Figure 2. Modified Beam-Column Connection Details

Figure 3. Finite Element Model


11

analyses can be completed with a reasonable level of resources(time and computing capabilities). However, even the refinedmodels of Figure 3 and the associated fracture indices (K

I, J,

and CTOD) are fairly crude representations of the fundamen-tal mechanisms of fracture in steel. Consequently, we have en-countered instances where conventional fracture indices can-not accurately model behavior, such as ductile tearing of shal-low surface cracks, that often controls the mode of failure insteel structures. This has motivated us to begin investigatingmore refined micro-mechanical fracture models that involvelength scales on the order of one-hundredth to one-thousandthof those shown in Figure 3. Applying these micro-mechanicalmodels in a practical way to real problems is pushing the lim-its of knowledge about fracture and modern computationalmethods, but we feel that this approach will enable the accu-rate predictions of fracture limit states that often control theperformance and safety of civil engineering structures.


Acknowledgments: The author gratefully acknowledges the fi-nancial support for this project from the SAC Joint Ventureand FEMA, the excellent leadership of the SAC managementteam, and the many helpful discussions on computational frac-ture mechanics with Anthony Ingraffea and Robert Dodds. Fi-nally, the progress on this research is due in largest part to thesuperb and tireless efforts of Wei-Ming Chi who has beenworking on this project as part of his PhD thesis.

1 The SAC Joint Venture is a project supported by the FederalEmergency Management Agency to address the problems ofcracking in seismically designed moment frames. The organi-zations involved in SAC are the Structural Engineers Associa-tion of California (SEAoC), the Applied Technology Council(ATC), and the California Universities for Research in Earth-quake Engineering (CUREe).

At Tracy they forgot to finish their Sprinkling Filter,but they don’t let such things bother ‘em.

from out archives...

A revolving sewage screen at Lodi.

“Pop” Reynolds is in a somewhat odoriferous environment, but helooks happy...

Stanford Sewerage and Water Class Spring Field Trip, 1932(Quotes are due to the anonymous archivist!)

12


Craig S. Criddle, Associate ProfessorEnvironmental Engineering and Science Program

BS, BA 1982 Utah State UniversityMS 1984 Utah State UniversityPhD 1990 Stanford University

NEW FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

IntroductionI appreciate the opportunity to share some ideas and experi-ences, and I would like to do this by telling you a story. It isthe story of a bacterium, but it is also the story of serendipity,leaps of faith, intuition, hard work by many people, and cross-ing disciplines. It is a ten-year odyssey, beginning with thediscovery of an obscure microorganism at Stanford in 1988and culminating in 1998 with the use of that organism for full-scale remediation. For me and my co-workers, it has been ajourney of wonderful and unexpected surprises.

Serendipity: The Discovery of PseudomonasStutzeri KCIn 1988, I was a graduate student at Stanford working withProfessor Perry McCarty on reductive dechlorination of ha-logenated solvents. I had picked carbon tetrachloride as a modelcompound for my studies. At the same time, another facultymember, Professor Dunja Grbic-Galic, had received fundsto survey aquifer materials from DOE sites for organisms ca-pable of degrading carbon tetrachloride under denitrifying con-ditions. Dunja asked if I would participate. It was a good fitwith my on-going research, and I was happy for the opportu-nity. I was also fortunate to have the assistance of my goodfriend, John DeWitt (MS 1991), who was then a master’sstudent in our program.

To survey for organisms, we first had to choose a recipe for anenrichment medium. I combined the best features of severalmedia to create what I called medium D. Medium D containedacetate as the carbon source and nitrate as the electron accep-tor. It also contained a wide range of trace metals becauseI knew trace metals were needed for many alkyl halide

transformations. The buffer was a typical phosphate buffer,giving a pH of about 6.9. However, before dispensing themedia into separate bottles, I decided to change the pH to8.0. I did this to reduce headspace pressure from CO

2 gas

production so that loss of volatile organics through the septawould be minimal. To my dismay, a white precipitate formedwhen I increased the pH, but I decided to use the mediumanyway. To begin the enrichments, we placed aquifer mate-rials from the various sites into bottles containing medium Dunder a nitrogen atmosphere, spiked the bottles with carbontetrachloride, and incubated them on a shaker. We monitoredcarbon tetrachloride in the gas phase. The source of organ-isms was aquifer materials from several DOE sites, with oneexception. As an afterthought, I remembered some old aqui-fer material sitting in a bucket at the back of a cooler. Thebucket contained material from a hydrocarbon-contaminatedaquifer at Seal Beach, California. Since it was really no extrawork, I set up an enrichment using that material as well.

Within two days, a surprising thing occurred in the bottlecontaining Seal Beach material. Pearly white balls of bio-mass formed, and there was no detectable carbon tetrachlo-ride. Best of all, there was no detectable chloroform, the nor-mal dechlorination product. Within a relatively short period,we isolated a Pseudomonad that rapidly degraded carbon tet-rachloride under denitrifying conditions, and we named itPseudomonas sp. strain KC. Membrane fatty acids and 16SrDNA sequencing later established that strain KC was a mem-ber of the species stutzeri .

At the time, I thought that it was unlikely that we had iso-lated anything unique. Yet the DOE aquifer materials gave

Serendipity and Bioaugmentation:The Strange True Story of Pseudomonas Stutzeri KC

(A story dedicated to the loving memory of our colleague, Dunja Grbic-Galic)

The following talk was originally devliered at the research Symposium“Remediation of Solvents in Subsurface Environments,” Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety,

University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, September 11, 1996.It has been abbreviated and updated for the Civil and Environmental Engineering newsletter.

13

very different results—either no transformation or slow trans-formation with chloroform production. Furthermore, whenwe tested stutzeri strains from the American Type CultureCollection and, later on, other stutzeri isolates from Seal Beachgroundwater, none was able to degrade carbon tetrachloridewhen grown under the same conditions. Using radiolabelledcarbon tetrachloride, we established that the transformationgenerated 40-50% carbon dioxide, 45-55% nonvolatile prod-ucts, and a small amount of cell-associated radioactivity.

One of our first experiments was to add strain KC to ground-water from an experimental site at Moffett Field, California.Little carbon tetrachloride was transformed, and I wonderedwhy. What was different about medium D? When I tried togrow strain KC in medium D without pH adjustment, itwouldn’t grow. I wondered if there was something in the pre-cipitate. I filtered out the precipitate, adjusted the pH back to 7,and inoculated with KC. Now, the cells grew, and they alsotransformed carbon tetrachloride. Somethingthat prevented growth and transformation of car-bon tetrachloride was present in the precipitate.What was it? To find out, I filtered out the pre-cipitate then added each trace metal back intothe medium one-by-one. Addition of iron stimu-lated growth, but inhibited carbon tetrachloridetransformation. After a few more experimentswith iron addition, we concluded that iron-lim-iting conditions were required for transforma-tion. These experiments also established thattrace copper inhibited growth at pH 7.

When I joined the faculty at Michigan StateUniversity, I believed that the activity of strainKC was linked to trace metal scavenging. Idoubted that it would ever be more than a labo-ratory curiosity.

Characterization of CarbonTetrachloride-Degrading ActivityIn 1991, Greg Tatara, a doctoral student in Microbiology,joined my lab. Greg came to us filled with enthusiasm, andwithin a short time, he had obtained interesting results. Oneof the first involved copper. Because copper was toxic at pH7, I advised him to remove it from the pH 8 growth medium.When he did, the cells grew very well, but they were no longercapable of carbon tetrachloride transformation. He discov-ered that trace copper was essential for the transformation ofcarbon tetrachloride, but it was toxic at pH 7. We realizedthat strain KC was unique, and that we had been incrediblylucky in its isolation. I had fortuitously hit on the right aqui-fer material, the right pH, and the right trace metal composi-tion. By adjusting the pH to 8, I had inadvertently creatediron-limiting conditions essential for transformation, and Ihad altered the toxicity of the trace copper, enabling growthof strain KC.

In early 1992, Dr. Michael Dybas joined our lab. Greg andMike evaluated the idea that some kind of secreted factor wasresponsible for the transformation. This was accomplished byfiltering actively transforming cells through filters of differ-ent pore size and assaying the transformation capacity of thefiltered supernatant and washed cells. These experiments es-tablished that: (1) washed cells did not transform carbon tet-rachloride; (2) the filtered supernatant exhibited limited car-bon tetrachloride transformation; and (3) rapid transformationwas obtained when washed cells were recombined with thefiltered supernatant (Figure 1). We concluded that both a se-creted supernatant factor and a cell membrane component werenormally required for the transformation. Greg and Mike es-tablished that the secreted factor was small, with a nominalmolecular weight near 500. Mike also established that for-mate was a transformation product, and that the transforma-tion required actively respiring cells.

In reviewing the literature, Greg found that biomolecules simi-lar to our secreted factor are sometimes used by organismsother than the one that produced them. He wondered whetherthe secreted factor would be activated for carbon tetrachlo-ride transformation by cells other than strain KC. To test this,he grew up cells of Pseudomonas fluorescens, washed them,and combined them with filtered KC supernatant. Rapid trans-formation of carbon tetrachloride ensued. He wondered howgeneral this would be. Surely there must be some cells that donot transform when combined with KC supernatant. Gregtested many other bacteria, groundwater consortia, and, as ajoke, he even tested Baker’s yeast. When combined with theKC secreted factor, all of these cell types transformed carbontetrachloride—with half lives of less than ten minutes. Gregwent on to learn that the secreted factor was produced byactively growing cells under either aerobic or denitrifying con-ditions, but oxygen inhibited the transformation. He also foundthat the secreted factor was stabilized by lyophilization to pow-der. Work to purify and identify the secreted factor is on-going.



Figure 1. Transformation of carbon tetrachloride (CT) by a mixture ofPseudomonas stutzeri KC cells and filtered supernatant (<500 molecular weight).

14

Other researchers who have contributed greatly to the under-standing of carbon tetrachloride transformation by strain KCare Tom Lewis and Ron Crawford at the University of Idaho.Tom and Ron used a trapping technique to identify intermedi-ates in the transformation. Lycely Sepulveda-Torres, a Micro-biology PhD student working with me, used an assay based onthe trapping of transformation products to obtain mutants ofstrain KC that did not degrade carbon tetrachloride. Using thesemutants, she has now cloned and sequenced genes that are as-sociated with carbon tetrachloride degradation in strain KC.

Microcosm ExperimentsI now must make a confession. Not that long ago, I did notreally believe in bioaugmentation. I thought the indigenousflora would nearly always have a competitive advantage. I alsodoubted that strain KC could make it in the real world becauseof its sensitivity to trace metals. One of the great things abouthaving new people in the lab is their ignorance of the “impos-sible.” When Mike Dybas joined our lab, he didn’t get hungup on such things. He even grew KC on Valvoline motor oil.More importantly, he added KC to soil and groundwatersamples spiked with carbon tetrachloride. As long as he alsoadded acetate and adjusted the pH to ~8, he observed transfor-mation. His findings led us to wonder whether pH adjustment,besides turning on the transformation, also improved compe-tition with the indigenous flora. This speculation has sincebeen confirmed.

About this same time, I was teaching a graduate course onbiological processes. At the end of one class, I described ourKC work. One of the students, Tim Mayotte, wanted to talkmore after class. Tim told me that he had worked for six yearsas the lead hydrogeologist on a carbon tetrachloride plume inthe village of Schoolcraft in southwest Michigan. The site wasan “orphan” site as the state of Michigan was responsible forits clean-up. The plume was migrating through a highly perme-able aquifer contaminated with ppb levels of carbon tetrachlo-ride and ppm levels of nitrate, conditions that were well suitedto strain KC. Mike Dybas obtained some Schoolcraft ground-water, spiked it with acetate and carbon tetrachloride, adjustedthe pH, inoculated with KC, and observed transformation.Would long-term continuous transformation be possible in asystem containing solids? Tim, Mike, and Mike Witt all per-formed bench-scale studies showing that strain KC could colo-nize Schoolcraft sediments creating a treatment zone capableof continuous long-term removal of carbon tetrachloride.

The Pilot-scale Experiment at Schoolcraft

Armed with these preliminary successes in “dirty” systems,we contacted state regulatory officials to see if they would beinterested in a field experiment at Schoolcraft. Although theyhad never approved anything like this before, they were re-ceptive. They were looking for cheaper and more effectiveways of cleaning up the site.

To carry out the field experiment, we teamed withTim Mayotte’s consulting firm, Golder Associates, and withMike Barcelona and his colleagues at the University of Michi-gan. During 1995-96, we treated a small test section of theaquifer to create pH conditions favorable for KC, then we in-oculated the test grid with culture grown aerobically on site.We sustained activity with weekly pulses of acetate-amendedground water. In regions with effective substrate delivery, KCwas detected, nitrate levels fell by 85%, pH levels increased,and carbon tetrachloride levels decreased by ~65%, althoughthere was some chloroform production when strain KC wasinadequately stimulated. An important finding was that weneeded to do a better job of ensuring contact between strainKC and the contaminated groundwater, and we needed to do abetter job of delivering acetate and base to strain KC. Thiswould be especially important if we hoped to proceed to full-scale. We wondered how we could ever distribute strain KCacross a 90 m x12 m “window” downstream of the plume.Even if we could get it there, how could we maintain its activ-ity long-term?

Full-scale DemonstrationThe key insight came from our modeling group directed byProfessors David Hyndman and David Wiggert. Computersimulations indicated that injection and extraction wells spacedone meter apart could deliver substrates with very little pump-ing. Furthermore, cost analyses indicated that this approachwas quite competitive with conventional pump-and-treat tech-nology. We used these findings as the basis for a proposal tothe Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for a full-scale demonstration at Schoolcraft.

During the summer and fall of 1997, we worked with our pri-vate sector partners—EFX Systems, Inc., Golder Asssociates,and the Traverse Group—to design and built a demonstrationsystem for the closely-spaced well concept (Figure 2). The sys-tem includes 15 delivery wells for the extraction and injectionof groundwater, 96 downgradient monitoring wells, 23upgradient monitoring wells, and 20 monitoring wells locatedoutside the treatment zone. The delivery wells are spaced onemeter apart and screened over the anticipated depth of con-tamination, from 30 to 80’ below ground surface. Collectively,the delivery wells form a “gallery” that transects a 50’ sectionof Schoolcraft Plume A at its advancing edge and extends from30 to 80’ below ground surface. Each delivery well is con-nected to an above-ground mixing and injection system. Theabove-ground system includes a recirculation loop and mix-ing devices for nutrient, base, and organism delivery. It alsoincludes provisions for above-ground growth of inoculum intwo 2,500 gallon fermentation vessels.

In November, 1997, we performed tracer studies to determinehow water moved within the delivery well gallery. Tracer de-livery was consistent with computer predictions. We then added



15

base to adjust the pH of the delivery well gallery to a levelappropriate for strain KC. On January 7, we injected two 2,500gallon cultures of strain KC into the delivery well gallery, alongwith acetate and bromide tracer. Nitrate levels declined

rapidly, and, after a 2-month lag, carbon tetrachloride concen-trations also fell to levels that were well below the regulatorylimit (5 ppb) at most locations. Low levels of chloroform (typi-cally <10 ppb) were detected at some locations, indicatingthat the indigenous microflora also played a role. Initially, fewKC cells were detected in groundwater samples, but, over time,KC was detected with increasing frequency, suggesting agradual colonization of the biocurtain. Currently, the systemis treating about 2,500 gallons per day, with carbon tetrachlo-ride and nitrate removal efficiencies in excess of 95% in mostlocations. The major operational costs are associated with wellconstruction and labor. Accordingly, we are focusing currentefforts on ways to reduce the number of wells and the timerequired for system operation. To ensure that technologies de-veloped at the site are adopted by the private sector, we aredeveloping design and operations manuals. These manuals willbe used by the state of Michigan to solicit bids for clean-up atSchoolcraft and other similar sites.

Lessons Learned

I would like to conclude with a few generalizations based onten years of experience with strain KC. Although I started thisjourney as a bioaugmentation skeptic, I now find myself abeliever. I am optimistic that microbiologists will discover or


create new and exciting microorganisms. I am also optimisticthat engineers will develop new and exciting means of deliv-ering and sustaining these microorganisms.

Bioaugmentation is like farming. Much old fashionedcommon sense from the farm also applies. Farmersknow that if you want to grow corn reliably, you shouldlearn as much as you can about it: its nutrient andclimate requirements, weed control, pests, and so on.This is true for anything you want to grow, whether itbe mushrooms or catfish or Pseudomonas stutzeri KC.Each organism has its own special needs and attributes.If you want to grow it, you need to learn as much asyou can about it. For me, this is what makes biologyso much fun.

Why would we want to add microorganisms? At onetime, I believed that this was unnecessary becausemicrobes are so metabolically diverse and so widelydispersed. I now realize that there are some good rea-sons, including a need for faster rates of transforma-tion and better control over the pathway of degrada-tion. The story of strain KC suggests that usefulcapabilities are not always distributed uniformly, thatsome capabilities are uncommon. Furthermore, evenif a capability is common, we may not have the knowl-edge needed to stimulate it selectively. Withbioaugmentation, we have a better opportunity to knowwhat is going on, improving our chances for success.

The potential of bioaugmentation stems from the wonderfuldiversity of microbial life, with its unique and unimaginablecapabilities. It is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing be-cause of its enormous potential; a curse because each case canbe special, requiring time, effort, and money to figure out whatis going on. It is also a lesson in humility. The story of strainKC shows that the microbial world is full of unexpected sur-prises, and that serendipity can play a big role, maybe biggerthan we care to admit.

Acknowledgments and DedicationSupport for this work was provided by the Michigan Depart-ment of Environmental Quality Grant #Y40386, the Centerfor Microbial Ecology under Grant BIR-9120006 from the Na-tional Science Foundation, the Great Lakes and Mid-AtlanticHazardous Substance Research Center under Grant R-81570from the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environ-mental Protection Agency, and the Institute for EnvironmentalToxicology under Grant P42ES 04911-08 from the Departmentof Health and Human Services Superfund Basic Research Pro-gram. The content of this article does not necessarily representthe views of any of the above agencies.

Figure 2. The Schoolcraft Demonstration Project:lay-out of delivery wells with above-ground mixing and inoculation.

16

NATURAL BIOREMEDIATION CLEANS UP GROUNDWATER

A team of investigators from Stanford University(Martin Reinhard and Gary Hopkins), and the NavalFacilities Engineering Service Center, Port Hueneme(Carmen Lebron), is demonstrating the feasibility and costeffectiveness of enhancing natural bioremediation of fuel-con-taminated sites. The test site is located at the Naval WeaponsStation, Seal Beach, CA, and the demonstration is sponsoredby the Department of Defense (DOD) Environmental Secu-rity Technology Certification Program (ESTCP). Enhancingnatural (or intrinsic) bioremediation utilizes naturally occur-ring anaerobic microorganisms that transform hydrocarboncontaminants under nitrate-, sulfate-reducing andmethanogenic conditions. Enhancement involves addition ofnitrate and/or sulfate as electron acceptors and removal ofinhibitory compounds.

The potential benefits of this technology are: (1) significantcost savings by accelerating the process over natural attenua-tion which may be very slow (2) anaerobic processes circum-vent the need for the addition of poorly water soluble oxygenor oxygen releasing compounds, (3) nitrate and sulfate arereadily water soluble and cost effective electron acceptors,(4) anaerobic processes are less likely to produce pore-clog-ging biomass and (5) may require less process control, (6) insitu processes are preferred over pump-and-treat technolo-gies which produce secondary waste streams and are limitedby slow mass transfer.

The demonstration involves the establishment of three differ-ent test zones that will allow for the parallel evaluation ofthree different treatment approaches.

The approach is to add an electron acceptor, such as nitrate orsulfate, to the groundwater to enhance the activities of natu-ral anaerobic bacteria already present in the ground. Withouthelp the natural bacteria degrade these compounds very slowly.

Different electron acceptors and electron acceptor combina-tions will be released into these test zones along with ben-zene, toluene, ethylbenzene, o-, m-, and p-xylene, and aro-matic hydrocarbon transformation will be evaluated as a func-tion of the electron acceptors added.

The investigators pump out 1000 L-batches of groundwaterfrom a common extraction well, add sulfates or nitrates plus atracer and BTEX compounds and reinject it into the ground.Each test zone has five multilevel observation points that pro-vide samples for a three-dimensional evaluation of the area.Samples from 105 different observation points are analyzedautomatically.

In addition to two test zones for testing sulfate and nitrate,a third one tests sodium bicarbonate as an electron acceptor.The BTEX level in the water that it reinjects is in the200-300 m/L range. It takes two to three months after reinjec-tion for the level to drop significantly.

The data from the study will indicate mass balances, removalrates, rate-limiting factors, and transformation intermediates.This information will be useful for developing protocols tooptimize in situ bioremediation approaches and monitor theprogress of site clean up.

EPA reports estimate that approximately 300,000 fuel-contami-nated sites exist across the nation. Within DOD alone, thereare over 2,400 sites with contaminated ground water from un-derground storage tanks. Compared to conventional pump-and-treat technology with activated carbon treatment, enhancedintrinsic bioremediation is estimated to be less costly, result-ing in $100 million in savings for clean up of these SOS sitesnation wide.

Martin Reinhard, Professor(Research) of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Assistant Director, Western Hazardous Substance Research Center

Demonstrating Enhanced Intrinsic Bioremediationof a Fuel Contaminated Plume

at the Seal Beach Naval Weapon Station, California

17

Recent major earthquakes such as the 1989 Loma Prieta, Cali-fornia, 1994 Northridge, California, and the 1995 Kobe,Japan, earthquakes have providedcompelling reminders of how criticaltransportation systems are to urban lifeand in ensuring recovery.

A PEER workshop on the earthquakerisks to transportation systems launcheda demonstration project that will applyinnovations and developments in riskanalysis to a selected region with highearthquake vulnerability. The workshopwas held July 10-11, 1998, at StanfordUniversity, Palo Alto, CA. Approxi-mately 40 invited representatives attended from the academic,government, public, and private sectors with strong interestsin seismic safety, transportation, and emergency planning andmanagement issues. The workshop was hosted by AnnKiremidjian, Director of the John A. Blume Earthquake Engi-neering Center at Stanford. Chairs of the different focus areaswere James Moore (PhD 1986) of USC, Professor Sam Chiu(Engineering-Economic Systems and Operations Research),and Stephanie King (PhD 1994, MS 1990) of Stanford, andFrieder Seible, of UCSD.

The objectives of the workshop were to identify issues critical(1) to modeling the earthquake risks to transportation systemsfor preparedness planning, emergency response, and economicrecovery and (2) to developing technologies to enable emer-gency response and post-disaster recovery.

After an earthquake, changes in how people approach trans-portation occur as inevitably as other changes in behavior.Simulation-based methodologies were discussed that can ac-count for the day-to-day dynamics that occur in route and de-parture-time choices.

Although the Loma Prieta and Northridge earthquakes resultedin the loss of major freeway and bridge arteries, little damageto local streets provided easy alternate routes for motoristsand emergency vehicles. In the Bay Area, alternative meansof transportation were readily embraced; in Los Angeles, evencarpooling did not increase substantially. However, the rapidrepair of roadways in Los Angeles, where “the car is king,”brought overwhelming public support for rebuilding.

The Loma Prieta and Northridge earthquakes also providedstrong regional contrasts in post-earthquake decisions about

moving traffic. The lack of a working transportation center inthe Bay Area greatly hampered this process. The Metropoli-

tan Transportation Commission(MTC) now unifies the Bay Area’sinstitutionally complex nine countiesand 100 cities. MTC and the StateOffice of Emergency Services re-cently participated in a vulnerabilityassessment of transportation facilitiesbased on forecast and mapping ofroad closures for each of 11 earth-quake scenarios. MTC developedconsensus among 32 agencies that re-sulted in the Trans Response Plan(TRP). When the next earthquake

occurs, MTC will serve as a regional transportation informa-tion clearinghouse, providing interagency coordination andtransportation information to the public.

A number of approaches to seismic risk analysis (SRA) oftransportation systems rank transportation bridges by vulner-ability and importance. One such methodology presented wasbased on data obtained on damage in the Northridge and LomaPrieta events, and applied to several case studies forNorthridge. Fragility curves have been developed as an im-portant part of this methodology. Following Northridge,Caltrans used a prioritizing system to inspect an astounding1800 bridges in just two days.

Another SRA, based on a Memphis study, involves improv-ing the prioritizing of the road and bridge components forseismic retrofit, and defining seismic performance require-ments for new components. An important element of the SRAprocess is a GIS database to accommodate new developmentsin modeling.

The post-earthquake process for gathering and transmittingreconnaissance data on roads and bridges is difficult and proneto errors. Future solutions may be mobile based, such ashandheld Pcs that would connect to a notebook or to a server.

Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) William Savage pointedout that utility companies are also transportation providers.Because life-safety is paramount, PG&E’s post-earthquakegoal is performance, not the physical reconstruction of its fa-cilities. The numerous lines that cross the Hayward fault andall substations are being analyzed for a damage model so thatPG&E has also been working with other agencies to createredundancies—alternative systems that can provide the same

Anne Kiremidjian of Civil and Environmental EngineeringDirector, John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center

EARTHQUAKE RISKS TO TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS


Professors Anne Kiremidjian and Sam Chiu ofStanford, and Professor James Moore of USC

18

functions—for example, generators in Silicon Valleycompanies. Savage conceded that post-earthquake redundanciescould still be improved.

In discussing regional transportation vulnerabilities, Richard Eisnerof the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES)stressed that however much professionals have learned, this knowl-edge should be considered limited in the context of a major earth-quake. The Bay Area’s narrow transportation corridors, definedby geography, suggest a logical but uneasy comparison to Kobe,Japan, especially if the ground motion forces from an earthquakeon the Hayward fault have been underestimated. According toEisner, “Kobe is our worst nightmare...all systems going bad...”The unknowns of a major earthquake combined with little redun-dancy in the transportation systems—airports, bridges, port facili-ties, and interchanges—make the Bay Area very vulnerable. Onan optimistic note, Eisner said that the OES provides “near failsafecommunication”: radio for MTC, and RIM, a network-based re-sponse system using satellite and the Internet.


meaningful opportunity to do research at the undergraduate level.In our continuing effort to address these issues, the faculty of thedepartment will be holding a retreat in February1999 together withrepresentatives of our current and past undergraduate classes todiscuss the future of our undergraduate program. Any input youmay wish to offer on these challenges will be most welcome!

I received quite a bit of mail after our last newsletter commentingon the “Ode to Spring” by John Milton, which I had included atthe top of my piece. I am happy to say that all the mail was quitepositive! One of our alums even held the poem up to his spouse asa “… shining example that engineers are quite educated, thankyou!” Thank you to all of you, as always, for writing to us and forletting us know what you have been doing over the past few years.The pictures are always appreciated and we have done our best toinclude as many of them as possible in this newsletter, togetherwith news of your colleagues and fellow alums.

Sadly, we also bring you news of the death of Jack Benjamin,Emeritus Professor of Structural Engineering, as well as twoalumni, Rob Johanson and Bill Owen. Like his colleagues RolfEliassen and Gene Grant, who also passed on recently, Jack was atrue giant in his field and many, many students at Stanford andelsewhere benefitted greatly from his wonderful classes and histext on probability, statistics, and decision analysis. Rob was anextremely popular professor at the University of the Pacific andBill was the president of a company he owned together with hisbrother. All three men will be greatly missed.

In closing, the CEE faculty, staff, and students join me in wishingyou a joyous and safe holiday season and all the very best for awonderful and successful 1999!

Letter from the Chair continued from front page

ENVIRONMENTALTECHNOLOGY AND FLUID

MECHANICS COURSESONLINE

The Department of Civil and EnvironmentalEngineering, in partnership with the StanfordCenter for Professional Development (SCPD),are planning to offer the following courses tothose beyond the campus boundaries:

Aquatic Chemistry and Biology

Crash Course in Molecular Biology

Environmental Microbiology I

Biological Processes

Groundwater Flow

Bioremediation: Bench to Field

Movement, Fate, and Effects of Contami-nants in Surface Waters and Groundwater

Environmental Fluid Mechanics: FlowBasics

Transport and Mixing Processes in SurfaceWater Flows

Sediment Transport Modeling

Modeling of Environmental Flows

If you would be interested in enrolling or havingyour company and/or staff participate in any ofthese courses please respond by e-mail [email protected].

The Stanford Center for ProfessionalDevelopment, provides the highest quality con-tinuing education to industry and government or-ganizations worldwide. SCPD uses distancelearning technology to deliver the Stanford cur-riculum to engineers, scientists and technologyprofessionals at industry worksites.

At the core of SCPD is the Stanford InstructionalTelevision Network, now in its 30th year at Stan-ford. Courses and programs are delivered in avariety of formats, including television broad-cast, the Internet, two-way videoconferencing,videotape, multimedia and customizedcourseware. For more information on SCPD pro-grams, please visit http://scpd.stanford.edu orcontact Imelda Oropeza at 650-725-1538.

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Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford

is published twice a year by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,School of Engineering, Stanford University

Department ChairmanJeffrey Koseff

Department ContactLucretia Dibba

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WWW URL: http://www-ce.stanford.edu/cive.html

EMAIL: [email protected]

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The Alumni News Update is an important part of all our newsletters.Please help us by filling out and sending us the questionnaire below, and include a photo if you have one!

We are anxious to stay in touch. Return your comments by fax (1-650-725-8662), or mail to:CEE Newsletter, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,

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