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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Groundwater and organic chemicals

Conference ·
OSTI ID:127077
 [1]
  1. Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)

Groundwater is a major source of drinking water for many communities. Unfortunately, organic chemicals such as dry cleaning fluids, solvent, fuels, and pesticides have contaminated groundwater in many areas, rendering the groundwater useless as a drinking water resource. In many cases, the groundwater cannot be cleaned up with current technologies, particularly if the groundwater has been contaminated with immiscible (low solubility) organic liquids. In this talk, I will describe the path I have followed from geologist to geochemist and finally to environmental engineer. As a geologist, I studied the chemistry of rock metamorphosis. As a geochemist, I explored for gold and other metals. Now as an environmental engineer, I investigate the behavior of organic liquids in the subsurface. While these fields all appear very different, in reality I have always focused on the interaction of rocks or sediments with the fluids with which they come in contact.

OSTI ID:
127077
Report Number(s):
CONF-950402--
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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