by Sherri Kroening, MGWA Newsletter Team
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the MGWA spring conference was held virtually on April 27th via Zoom. The conference theme was “Groundwater Research: What’s New and Useful.” The meeting covered a diverse suite of topics with clear applied value in groundwater science including emerging methods, new ideas about old problems, and improved ways to monitor, manage, and remediate. Given this wide range of topics, there should be something of interest to all of the membership. Because the conference was held virtually, MGWA was able to bring in many more outside speakers compared to the past in-person meetings!
Morning Session
The first session of the conference included talks from Dr. Peter Kang from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Melinda Erickson from the US Geological Survey, and Dr. Jessi Meyer from the University of Iowa. Dr. Kang presented on Aquifer Storage and Recovering, including injection capacity estimation and the challenges associated with predicting solute transport in fractured aquifers. Dr. Erickson spoke about her latest research on arsenic in Minnesota’s groundwater. This work was done in collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Health and identified factors affecting arsenic mobilization, detected shortcomings in arsenic speciation sample preservation and laboratory methods, and identified potential ways to drill domestic drinking water wells with lower arsenic concentrations. Dr. Meyer gave the final presentation of the session, which described a multidisciplinary study that improved the understanding of the migration pathways of a complex mixed organics plume in central Wisconsin.
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Mid-Morning Session
The mid-morning session included two technical presentations. Dr. Colby Steelman from the University of Waterloo spoke about how geophysics can be used to understand hydrogeologic problems, specifically with respect to fractured rock. His presentation centered on two Canadian case studies on how fracture networks affect groundwater-surface water interactions within sedimentary bedrock riverbeds and the lithostratigraphic controls on groundwater flow in relation to bedrock valleys. John Nieber from the University of Minnesota presented his work on quantifying the water stored in the lakes, wetlands, streams, soils, and groundwater in 17 watersheds located between the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area and Moorhead.
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Afternoon Session
The afternoon technical session also included two presentations. Dr. Crystal Ng from the University of Minnesota discussed her interdisciplinary research with tribal collaborators on wild rice. Dr. Bonnie Keeler from the University of Minnesota spoke about her work on the economic value of groundwater protection, equity implications of water pollution, and her insights from statewide surveys on water values in Minnesota.
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Late Afternoon Session
The late afternoon session included three technical presentations. Dr. Jens Blotevogel opened the session with a presentation on treatment technical for PFAS that destroy these chemicals. Dr. David Hart from the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey followed with a discussion on low cost and easy-to-use technology for measuring groundwater/surface water interactions. Finally, Dr. Randy Hunt from the US Geological Survey closed the conference with a presentation on new tools and approaches for groundwater problems, including improvements to the SWB recharge estimation, MODFLOW 6, automated model constructors, and advances in model calibration and uncertainty analysis tools.
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