What if soap enhances bacterial contamination of water?
Derick Brown, a third year graduate student, is doing his dissertation for a PhD in civil engineering on how surfactants (mostly detergents) promote the transport of bacteria in porous media, thereby enhancing bacterial contamination of ground water. For his PEI-RISE environmental policy project, Brown will evaluate “current environmental policies based on the surfactant-enhanced transport of pathogenic microorganisms in ground water aquifers.” How far, for instance, can a well that provides drinking water be located from a sewage plant given that surfactants from the plant enhance the area of bacterial contamination from the plant? – What if zinc helps explain missing two gigatons of carbon? A second year graduate student in Civil Engineering and Operations Research, Klaus Keller asks where are the missing two gigatons of carbon per year not accounted for in current models of the global carbon cycle. How the carbon is taken out affects predictions of levels of carbon dioxide in the at
