Underground Construction - December 2021 - 9

Tulane University Team to Study
Water Pollution from Hurricane
A researcher at a private university in New
Orleans is getting nearly $50,000 to study how
pollution spread by Hurricane Ida's floods has
affected south Louisiana groundwater and water
systems, the university said.
Tulane University associate professor
Samendra Sherchan said the National Science
Foundation grant will let his team sample water
from about 150 sites.
" This project is a time-sensitive and unique
opportunity to collect perishable data and improve
understanding of the extent of contamination in
floodwaters from inland areas to groundwater, " he
said in a November news release.
Ida hit southeast Louisiana as a category 4
hurricane, bringing catastrophic floods from
storm surge and downpours to many rural areas.
Those floods could have spread dangerous
microbes and chemicals to groundwater and
wells, said Sherchan, who teaches environmental
health sciences at Tulane's School of Public
Health and Tropical Medicine.
California's PUC OKs Boosting
Storage at Infamous Gas Field
California regulators voted to increase the natural
gas storage capacity of Aliso Canyon Field, the
Los Angeles-area field where a 2015 blowout
caused the nation's largest-ever methane leak
and forced thousands from their homes.
The California Public Utilities Commission
voted unanimously to increase the storage
capacity at Aliso Canyon field to 41 billion cubic
feet (1.1 billion cubic meters) of natural gas from
the current capacity of 34 billion cubic feet
(962 million cubic meters).
The move is aimed at ensuring supplies of
natural gas for the upcoming winter months
" in a safe and reliable manner " even as the PUC
continues working on longer-term plans to close
the field, Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves
said in a statement.
The field, which stores gas in old wells, has
been at 50% capacity since 2018, but the PUC vote
raises that to 60%. The PUC rejected an alternative
plan to allow the field to operate at 100% capacity.
A well failure on Oct. 23, 2015, led to the
release of nearly 100,000 tons of methane and
other substances into the air for nearly four
months before it was controlled. Aliso Canyon is
operated by Southern California Gas Co.
Tennessee Woman Pleads Guilty
to Falsifying Water Tests
A Tennessee woman has pleaded guilty to
submitting hundreds of false reports to state
regulators about the cleanliness of wastewater
she was paid to analyze, federal prosecutors said.
DiAne Gordon, 61, faces up to five years
in federal prison after she pleaded guilty on
Oct. 26 to making and using false writings and
documents in a matter within the jurisdiction
of the Environmental Protection Agency, the
U.S. attorney's office in Memphis said. She is
scheduled to be sentenced in March.
UCONonline.com | DECEMBER 2021
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Underground Construction - December 2021

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