CCST Project

SB 1281 - Oil and Gas Water Cycle Reporting

Process

CCST studies follow a process modeled after the National Academies study process with checks and balances at each stage. The report is a collaborative effort by a large number of experts serving in various capacities.

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Authors

Dr. Brie Lindsey, the lead author of Phase I, and Dr. Laura Feinstein and Dr. Seth Shonkoff, lead authors of Phase II of the report, are the primary analysts and writers of the body of the report. In addition, Lee Ann Hill has assisted in writing sections of the Phase I report.

Brie Lindsey, CCST - Lead Author, Phase I
Laura Feinstein, Pacific Institute - Lead Author, Phase II
Seth Shonkoff, PSE Healthy Energy, UC Berkeley - Lead Author, Phase II
Lee Ann Hill, PSE Healthy Energy

The following institutions are subcontractors and are not responsible for the final content of the report, which rests with CCST and the Steering Committee:

Pacific Institute
PSE Healthy Energy

Steering Committee Members

The steering committee oversees the report authors, reaches conclusions based on the findings of the authors and writes an executive summary.

Committee Selection and Approval

Selection of appropriate committee members, individually and collectively, is essential for the success of a study. All committee members serve as individual experts, not as representatives of organizations or interest groups. Each member is expected to contribute to the project on the basis of his or her own expertise and good judgment. A committee is not finally approved until a thorough balance and conflict-of-interest discussion is held, and any issues raised in that discussion are investigated and addressed. Members of a committee are anonymous until this process is completed.

Careful steps are taken to convene committees that meet the following criteria:

Expertise

The committee must include experts with the specific expertise and experience needed to address the study's statement of task. A major strength of CCST is the ability to bring together recognized experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds who might not otherwise collaborate. These diverse groups are encouraged to conceive new ways of thinking about a problem.

Perspectives

Having the right expertise is not sufficient for success. It is also essential to evaluate the overall composition of the committee in terms of different experiences and perspectives. The goal is to ensure that the relevant points of view are, in CCST's judgment, reasonably balanced so that the committee can carry out its charge objectively and credibly.

Screening

All provisional committee members are screened in writing and in a confidential group discussion about possible conflicts of interest. For this purpose, a "conflict of interest" means any financial or other interest which conflicts with the service of the individual because it could significantly impair the individual's objectivity or could create an unfair competitive advantage for any person or organization. The term "conflict of interest" means something more than individual bias. There must be an interest, ordinarily financial, that could be directly affected by the work of the committee. Except for those rare situations in which CCST determines that a conflict of interest is unavoidable and promptly and publicly discloses the conflict of interest, no individual can be appointed to serve (or continue to serve) on a committee used in the development of reports if the individual has a conflict of interest that is relevant to the functions to be performed.

Point of View

A point of view or bias is not necessarily a conflict of interest. Committee members are expected to have points of view, and CCST attempts to balance these points of view in a way deemed appropriate for the task. Committee members are asked to consider respectfully the viewpoints of other members, to reflect their own views rather than be a representative of any organization, and to base their scientific findings and conclusions on the evidence. Each committee member has the right to issue a dissenting opinion to the report if he or she disagrees with the consensus of the other members.

Considerations

Membership in CCST and previous involvement in CCST studies are taken into account in committee selection. The inclusion of women, minorities, and young professionals are additional considerations.

Committee Selection

Specific steps in the committee selection and approval process are as follows:

Step 1: Nominees

Staff solicit an extensive number of suggestions for potential committee members from a wide range of sources, then recommend a slate of nominees. Nominees are reviewed and approved at several levels within CCST.

Step 2: Provisional Committee

A provisional slate is then approved by CCST's Board. The provisional committee members complete background information and conflict-of-interest disclosure forms. The committee balance and conflict-of-interest discussion is held at the first committee meeting. Any conflicts of interest or issues of committee balance and expertise are investigated; changes to the committee are proposed and finalized.

Step 3: Board Approval

CCST's Board formally approves the committee. Committee members continue to be screened for conflict of interest throughout the life of the committee.

Committee Members' Bios

Mike Kavanaugh PhD, P.E., NAE

Steering Committee Chair

Senior Principal

Geosyntec Consultants, Inc.

Mike Kavanaugh is a chemical and environmental engineer with more than four decades of consulting experience in a number of technical areas. Mike's professional practice started in the areas of municipal and industrial wastewater treatment, water quality management, and water reuse and drinking water treatment. He expanded his practice to include contaminated groundwater studies, particularly CERCLA-driven remedial investigations/feasibility studies (RI/FS), groundwater remediation, waste minimization and pollution prevention studies, pioneering technology development, as well as third-party peer review and strategic consulting on environmental management and compliance issues. He has also provided technology evaluations including patent reviews of environmental technologies.

As a testifying expert and a fact witness on engineering and hydrogeologic issues related to hazardous waste sites as well as on other issues related to his areas of expertise, Mike has been tapped more than 60 times by attorneys, arbitrators, judges, and government agencies to serve. He also has participated on several mediation and arbitration panels as a neutral technical expert as well as serving as an individual facilitator, mediator, arbitrator, court appointed expert, or "blue ribbon" expert panelist working on project-specific and policy-level issues.

To advance the state of the practice, Mike has contributed to over 80 technical publications and more than 150 presentations to audiences that included congressional and state committees. Currently, he is an instructor for the Princeton Groundwater Course and a consulting professor in the Stanford University Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. He also served on the Board of Directors for the Environmental Law Institute and was the chair of the National Research Council's Committee on Future Options for the Nation's Contaminated Groundwater Remediation Efforts. He was elected into the National Academy of Engineering in 1998.

Nicole Deziel M.H.S., PhD

Assistant Professor of Epidemiology

Yale School of Public Health

Nicole C. Deziel, M.H.S., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. Her research involves applying existing and advanced statistical models, biomonitoring techniques, and environmental measurements to provide quantitative assessments of exposure to combinations of traditional and emerging environmental contaminants. Her exposure assessment strategies aim to reduce exposure misclassification for epidemiologic studies, advancing understanding of relationships between of exposure to environmental chemicals and risk of cancer and other adverse health outcomes. She has investigated several types of pollutants including pesticides, persistent organic pollutants, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Dr. Deziel's research also includes hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," and how chemicals used in the process and released into the air or water may adversely affect communities of people living nearby. She is leading an inter-disciplinary team of investigators on a project entitled "Drinking water vulnerability and neonatal health outcomes in relation to oil and gas production in the Appalachian Basin." In this 3-year study funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), her team is evaluating whether exposure to water contaminants from the process of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") is associated with adverse human developmental and teratogenic effects.

Eric M.V. Hoek PhD

Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

California NanoSystems Institute and Institute of the Environment & Sustainability

Eric Hoek is an internationally recognized expert in water treatment, UCLA environmental engineering professor, founder of 4 successful water technology startups, and considered a thought leader in the water industry. He has worked on various aspects of water treatment including drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment, desalination, oil & gas produced water treatment, municipal and industrial water reuse and oil spill remediation. He has served as a consultant to municipal water authorities, water technology startups, hedge funds, venture capital funds, law firms, private research foundations, non-profit foundations, US federal, state and local agencies and foreign national research agencies. He has over 130 scientific publications, over 70 patents filed in the U.S. and internationally, and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Nature Publishing Group journal npj Clean Water. He is a graduate of Penn State (B.S.), UCLA (M.S.), Yale University (Ph.D.) and the Executive Management program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Susan Hubbard PhD

Associate Laboratory Director & Senior Scientist, LBNL
Adjunct Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

University of California, Berkeley

As the Associate Lab Director for Earth & Environmental Sciences Area at Berkeley Laboratory, Dr. Susan Hubbard leads a premier group of ~500 staff that has a significant research portfolio in climate science, terrestrial ecosystem science, environmental and biological system science, fundamental geoscience, and subsurface energy resources. Research within this Area of Berkeley Lab is tackling some of the most pressing environmental and subsurface energy challenges of the 21st Century. Dr. Hubbard is also an Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. Dr. Hubbard earned her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, and prior to joining Berkeley Lab, she was a geologist at the US Geological Survey and a geophysicist in industry.

As a Senior Scientist at Berkeley Laboratory, Dr. Hubbard's research focuses on quantifying how terrestrial environments function, with a particular emphasis on the development of geophysical approaches to provide new insights about processes relevant to contaminant remediation, carbon cycling, water resources, and subsurface energy systems. She has been honored by the scientific community with several awards, including as an: American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fellow, Geological Society of America (AGU) Felow, receipent of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) Frank Frischknecht Award for leadership and innovation in near-surface geophysics, the Birdsall Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer Award, Distinguished Alumni of UC Berkeley, and the SEG Harold Mooney Award for Near Surface Geophysics. Dr. Hubbard has served widely on many scientific boards and has served on the editorial boards of JGR-Biosciences, Water Resources Research, Vadose Zone Journal and the Journal of Hydrology.

James McCall P.S.M.

Distributed Energy and Environment Analyst

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

James joined the Systems Modeling & Geospatial Data Science Group in the Strategic Energy Analysis Center in 2015. His interests include techno-economic analyses for various renewable technologies, economic and employment impacts, and systems analysis associated with the energy-water-food-nexus. Prior work experience was as a researcher at a utility law think tank at ASU and a project manager/facilities engineer for an upstream oil and gas producer.

Steve Weisberg PhD

Executive Director

Southern California Coastal Water Research Project Authority (SCCWRP)

Dr. Stephen Weisberg is Executive Director of the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project Authority, a research consortium formed by 14 leading water quality agencies in California to ensure a solid scientific foundation for their management activities. Dr. Weisberg's research emphasis is in developing tools to support implementation of, and data interpretation from, environmental monitoring programs. Beyond his research activities, Dr. Weisberg focuses on linking the needs of the management community with science. He serves on numerous advisory committees, including the State of California's Clean Beach Task Force, the California Ocean Protection Council Science Advisory Team, the California Sea Grant Program Advisory Council, and the California Water Quality Monitoring Council. Dr. Weisberg received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware.

William Stringfellow PhD

Emeritus Professor / Research Engineer

University of the Pacific / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

William T. Stringfellow, Ph.D. is an Emeritus Professor at the School of Engineering & Computer Science at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA and a Research Engineer in the Geochemistry Department, Earth & Environmental Sciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He received his B.S. in Environmental Health from the University of Georgia (Athens, GA) in 1980 and his Master’s Degree in Microbial Physiology and Aquatic Ecology from Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) in 1984. He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1994 and worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of California at Berkeley. Prof. Stringfellow is the first author on over 50 journal publications, has been the lead author on numerous government reports, and has made hundreds of presentations on the subjects of water quality, water treatment, and the microbiology of engineered systems. He has over 35 years research and consulting experience in wastewater treatment and management in both the US and Europe. Prof. Stringfellow’s research interests include treatment and management of agricultural and industrial wastes. Prof. Stringfellow was the WaterGroup Leader for the SB-4 Study examining the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing in California and Lead Scientist on the Low Dissolved Oxygen Study investigating disuse pollution impacts on the San Joaquin River and Estuary. He is currently a member of the Food Safety Advisory Panel examining the beneficial reuse of produced water for irrigation. On-going projects include an extensive examination of water and chemical use during oil and gas development and the treatment and reuse of oil-field wastewater.

Peer Review

Peer review is the process of the evaluation of the scientific and technical merit (and likelihood of success) of the proposed research project/program by a panel of reviewers with direct expertise in the area of research to be evaluated who have no personal stake or interest in the outcome of the evaluation process. The salient features of the peer review process are the evaluation of the research program by "peer" experts in relevant fields who are deemed qualified to evaluate the product based solely on the scientific and technical merit of the content. It is standard practice to keep the identity of peer reviewers confidential as well as all of the comments and deliberations.

All CCST reports are peer reviewed using guidelines and processes established by CCST to assure the highest scientific and technical standards. Guidelines are similar to those of the National Academy of Science, adapted to be appropriate for California. It is standard practice to keep the identity of peer reviewers confidential as well as all of the comments and deliberations.

The Phase I white paper was circulated for discussion and comment purposes among the project Steering Committee. The authors responded to all Steering Committee questions and comments. This white paper has not been peer reviewed through CCST's standard process.