CCST Project
Well Stimulation in California
COMPLETED: July 2016
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.
Defining the Study
Study Authors and Steering Committee (SC) Selection and Approval
Author and Steering Committee Meetings, Information Gathering, Deliberations, and Drafting the Study
Report Review
The report is a collaborative effort by a large number of experts serving in various capacities.
Authors
Staff of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) researched and wrote the body of the report. In addition, staff and faculty at a number of research institutions collaboratedon the report. The following institutions are subcontractors and are not responsible for the final content of the report, which rests with CCST, LBNL and the steering committee.
California State University Stanislaus Endangered Species Recovery Program
Don Gautier, LLC
Pacific Institute
Physicians, Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy
Stanford University
Click below to see a complete list of the authors who contributed to this project.
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
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
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
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
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
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:
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.
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.
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
Jane Long Ph.D
Steering Committee Chair
Principal Associate Director at Large, Retired
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Dr. Long recently retired from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she was the Principal Associate Director at Large, Fellow in the LLNL Center for Global Strategic Research and the Associate Director for Energy and Environment. She is currently a senior contributing scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, Visiting Researcher at UC Berkeley, Co-chair of the Task Force on Geoengineering for the Bipartisan Policy Center and chairman of the California Council on Science and Technology's California's Energy Future committee. Her current work involves strategies for dealing with climate change including reinvention of the energy system, geoengineering and adaptation. Dr. Long was the Dean of the Mackay School of Mines, University of Nevada, Reno and Department Chair for the Energy Resources Technology and the Environmental Research Departments at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Brown University and Masters and PhD from U. C. Berkeley. Dr. Long is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was named Alum of the Year in 2012 by the Brown University School of Engineering. Dr. Long is an Associate of the National Academies of Science (NAS) and a Senior Fellow and council member of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) and the Breakthrough Institute. She serves on the board of directors for the Clean Air Task Force and the Center for Sustainable Shale Development.
Roger Aines Ph.D
Senior Scientist, Atmospheric, Earth, and Energy Division and Carbon Fuel Cycle Program Leader E Programs, Global Security
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Roger Aines leads the development of carbon management technologies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, working since 1984 in the U.S. national laboratory system. Dr. Aines's work has spanned nuclear waste disposal, environmental remediation, applying stochastic methods to inversion and data fusion, managing carbon emissions, and sequestration monitoring and verification methods. Aines takes an integrated view of the energy, climate, and environmental aspects of carbon-based fuel production and use. His current focus is on efficient ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and safer methods for producing environmentally clean fuel. He holds 13 patents and has authored more than 100 publications. Aines holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Carleton College, and Doctor of Philosophy in geochemistry from the California Institute of Technology.
Jens Birkholzer Ph.D
Deputy Director, Earth Sciences Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Dr. Birkholzer joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1994 as a post-doctoral fellow and has since been promoted to the second-highest scientist rank at this research facility. He currently serves as the deputy director of the Earth Sciences Division and as the program lead for the nuclear waste program, and also leads a research group working on environmental impacts related to geologic carbon sequestration and other subsurface activities. His area of expertise is subsurface hydrology with emphasis on understanding and modeling coupled fluid, gas, solute and heat transport in complex subsurface systems, such as heterogeneous sediments or fractured rock. His recent research was mostly in the context of risk/performance assessment, e.g., for geologic disposal of radioactive wastes and for geologic CO2 storage. Dr. Birkholzer has authored about 90 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and has over 230 conference publications and abstracts.
Brian Cypher Ph.D
Associate Director, Endangered Species Recovery Program
California State University-Stanislaus
Dr. Cypher received a PhD in Zoology from Southern Illinois University in 1991. Since 1990, he has been engaged in ecological research and conservation efforts on a variety of animal and plant species and their habitats. Much of this work has occurred in the San Joaquin Valley in central California and has involved extensive evaluations of the effects of hydrocarbon production and energy development on ecological processes and individual species. The information generated has been presented in numerous reports and publications, which have contributed to the development of conservation strategies and best-management practices that help mitigate environmental impacts from energy development activities.
Jim Dieterich Ph.D
Distinguished Professor of Geophysics
University of California, Riverside
Dr. Dieterich's research interests have to do with the mechanics of deformation processes, particularly as they relate to earthquake and volcanic phenomena. Areas of emphasis include development of governing relations for earthquake nucleation and earthquake occurrence; estimation of earthquake probabilities; fault constitutive properties; and coupled interactions between magmatic activity, faulting, and earthquakes. Current research includes (1) numerical simulation of earthquakes processes in interacting fault systems, (2) origins of earthquake clustering including foreshocks and aftershocks, (3) application of seismicity rate changes to infer stress changes in volcanic and tectonic environments, (4) laboratory investigation of fault constitutive properties and surface contact process.
Donald L. Gautier Ph.D
Consulting Petroleum Geologist
DonGautier L.L.C.
With a career spanning almost four decades, Dr. Donald L. Gautier is an internationally recognized leader and author in the theory and practice of petroleum resource analysis. As a principal architect of modern USGS assessment methodology, Gautier's accomplishments include leadership of the first comprehensive evaluation of undiscovered oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle, the first national assessment of United States petroleum resources to be fully documented in a digital environment, and the first development of performance-based methodology for assessment of unconventional petroleum resources such as shale gas or light, tight oil. He was lead scientist for the San Joaquin Basin and Los Angeles Basin Resource Assessment projects. His recent work has focused on the analysis of growth of reserves in existing fields and on the development of probabilistic resource/cost functions. Gautier is the author of more than 200 technical publications, most of which concern the evaluation of undiscovered and undeveloped petroleum resources. He holds a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Colorado.
Peter H. Gleick Ph.D
President
Pacific Institute
Dr. Peter H. Gleick is an internationally recognized environmental scientist and co-founder of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. His research addresses the critical connections between water and human health, the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international security and conflicts over water resources. Dr. Gleick was named a MacArthur "genius" Fellow in October 2003 for his work on water, climate, and security. In 2006 Dr. Gleick was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. Dr. Gleick's work has redefined water from the realm of engineers to the world of social justice, sustainability, human rights, and integrated thinking. His influence on the field of water has been long and deep: he developed one of the earliest assessments of the impacts of climate change on water resources, defined and explored the links between water and international security and local conflict, and developed a comprehensive argument in favor of basic human needs for water and the human right to water - work that has been used by the UN and in human rights court cases. He pioneered the concept of the "soft path for water," developed the idea of "peak water," and has written about the need for a "local water movement." Dr. Gleick received a B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the Energy and Resources Group of the University of California, Berkeley. He serves on the boards of numerous journals and organizations, and is the author of many scientific papers and ten books, including Bottled & Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water and the biennial water report, The World's Water, published by Island Press (Washington, D.C.).
A. Daniel Hill Ph.D
Department Head, Professor and holder of the Noble Chair, Petroleum Engineering Department
Texas A&M University
Dr. A. D. Hill is Professor, holder of the Noble Endowed Chair, and Department Head of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. Previously, he taught for 22 years at The University of Texas at Austin after spending five years in industry. He holds a B. S. degree from Texas A&M University and M. S. and Ph. D. degrees from The University of Texas at Austin, all in chemical engineering. He is the author of the Society of Petroleum Engineering (SPE) monograph, Production Logging: Theoretical and Interpretive Elements, co-author of the textbook, Petroleum Production Systems (1st and 2nd editions), co-author of an SPE book, Multilateral Wells, and author of over 170 technical papers and five patents. He has been a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Distinguished Lecturer, has served on numerous SPE committees and was founding chairman of the Austin SPE Section. He was named a Distinguished Member of SPE in 1999 and received the SPE Production and Operations Award in 2008. In 2012, he was one of the two inaugural winners of the SPE Pipeline Award, which recognizes faculty, who have fostered petroleum engineering Ph.Ds. to enter academia. He currently serves on the SPE Editorial Review Committee, the SPE Global Training Committee, and the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference Program Committee. Professor Hill is an expert in the areas of production engineering, well completions, well stimulation, production logging, and complex well performance (horizontal and multilateral wells), and has presented lectures and courses and consulted on these topics throughout the world.
Disclosure of Conflict of Interest: Prof. Dan Hill
In accordance with the practice of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), CCST makes best efforts to ensure that no individual appointed to serve on a committee has a conflict of interest that is relevant to the functions to be performed, unless such conflict is promptly and publicly disclosed and CCST determines that the conflict is unavoidable. A conflict of interest refers to an interest, ordinarily financial, of an individual that could be directly affected by the work of the committee. An objective determination is made for each provisionally appointed committee member whether or not a conflict of interest exists given the facts of the individual's financial and other interests, and the task being undertaken by the committee. A determination of a conflict of interest for an individual is not an assessment of that individual's actual behavior or character or ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest.
We have concluded that for this committee to accomplish the tasks for which it was established its membership must include among others, individuals with research and expertise in the area of acid treatments for petroleum wells who have studied oil and gas industry operations in the United States and are internationally recognized for this expertise. Acid treatment is of particular public concern in California and is the subject of regulation under SB4.
To meet the need for this expertise and experience, Dr. Dan Hill is proposed for appointment to the committee even though we have concluded that he has a conflict of interest because of investments he holds and research services provided by his employer.
As his biographical summary makes clear, Dr. Hill is a recognized expert in petroleum reservoir engineering with many publications to wit. He is also known as one of the world's key experts in acid treatment.
After an extensive search, we have been unable to find another individual with the equivalent combination of expertise in acid treatment as Dr. Hill, who does not have a similar conflict of interest. Therefore, we have concluded that this potential conflict is unavoidable.
Larry Lake Ph.D
Professor, Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering
University of Texas, Austin
Larry W. Lake is a professor of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and director of the Center for Petroleum Asset Risk Management. He holds B.S.E and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Arizona State University and Rice University. Dr. Lake has published widely; he is the author or co-author of more than 100 technical papers, the editor of 3 bound volumes and author or co-author of four textbooks. He has been teaching at UT for 34 years before which he worked for Shell Development Company in Houston, Texas. He was chairman of the PGE department twice, from 1989 to 1997 and from 2008 to 2010. He formerly held the Shell Distinguished Chair and the W.A. (Tex) Moncrief, Jr. Centennial Endowed Chair in Petroleum Engineering. He currently holds the W.A. (Monty) Moncrief Centennial Chair in Petroleum Engineering. Dr. Lake has served on the Board of Directors for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) as well as on several of its committees; he has twice been an SPE distinguished lecturer. Dr. Lake is a member of the US National Academy of Engineers and won the 1996 Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal of the SPE. He won the 1999 Dad's Award for excellence in teaching undergraduates at The University of Texas and the 1999 Hocott Award in the College of Engineering for excellence in research. He also is a member of the 2001 Engineering Dream Team awarded by the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. He is an SPE Honorary Member.
Tom McKone Ph.D
Deputy for Research Programs in the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Department
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
Thomas E. McKone is a senior staff scientist and Deputy for Research Programs in the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Department at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. At LBNL, he leads the Sustainable Energy Systems Group. His research focuses on the development, use, and evaluation of models and data for human-health and ecological risk assessments, as well as the health and environmental impacts of energy, industrial, and agricultural systems. Outside of Berkeley, he has served six years on the EPA Science Advisory Board, has been a member of more than a dozen National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committees including the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, and has been on consultant committees for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. McKone is a Fellow of the Society of Risk Analysis and has received two major awards from the International Society of Exposure Analysis - one for lifetime achievement in exposure science research and one for research that has impacted major international and national environmental policies.
William A. Minner Ph.D
Principal Consultant
StrataGen, Inc.
Minner is an independent petroleum engineering consultant, with a primary focus on hydraulic fracture well stimulation technology and application. After receiving B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering with a petroleum option from the University of California, Berkeley, Minner joined Unocal in 1980, and began to focus on hydraulic fracturing well stimulation in 1985. In 1995, he left Unocal to open an office for Pinnacle Technologies in Bakersfield. Pinnacle's focus was on the development and commercialization of hydraulic fracture mapping technologies; Minner's role was in engineering consulting, using fracture diagnostics and mapping results to assist clients with hydraulic fracture engineering design, execution, and analysis. His engineering consulting role continued after the fracture mapping business was sold in 2008 and the company name was changed to StrataGen Engineering, and after February 2015, when he left StrataGen to venture out in the independent engineering consulting arena. Minner is a registered Petroleum Engineer in California, and received Society of Petroleum Engineers regional awards in 2011 and 2015 for his contribution to technical progress and interchange. He has authored or coauthored 21 industry technical papers on hydraulic fracturing.
Disclosure of Conflict of Interest: William Minner
In accordance with the practice of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), CCST makes best efforts to ensure that no individual appointed to serve on a committee has a conflict of interest that is relevant to the functions to be performed, unless such conflict is promptly and publicly disclosed and CCST determines that the conflict is unavoidable. A conflict of interest refers to an interest, ordinarily financial, of an individual that could be directly affected by the work of the committee. An objective determination is made for each provisionally appointed committee member whether or not a conflict of interest exists given the facts of the individual's financial and other interests, and the task being undertaken by the committee. A determination of a conflict of interest for an individual is not an assessment of that individual's actual behavior or character or ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest.
We have concluded that for this committee to accomplish the tasks for which it was established its membership must include, among others, individuals with direct experience in the area of well stimulation practice, specifically in California. Well stimulation is of particular public concern in California and is the subject of regulation under SB4. The practice in California is significantly different than in other states so we require someone with direct experience in the state.
To meet the need for this expertise and experience, William Minner is proposed for appointment to the committee even though we have concluded that he has a conflict of interest because of investments he holds and research services provided by his employer.
As his biographical summary makes clear, William Minner is a recognized expert in petroleum reservoir stimulation with a long history of practice in California as well as around the world. He is one of the most recognized experts in California well stimulation design and execution.
After an extensive search, we have been unable to find another individual with the equivalent combination of expertise as William Minner, who does not have a similar conflict of interest. Therefore, we have concluded that this potential conflict is unavoidable.
Amy Myers Jaffe
Executive Director, Energy and Sustainability
UC Davis
Amy Myers Jaffe is a leading expert on global energy policy, geopolitical risk, and energy and sustainability. Jaffe serves as executive director for Energy and Sustainability at University of California, Davis with a joint appointment to the Graduate School of Management and Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS). At ITS-Davis, Jaffe heads the fossil fuel component of Next STEPS (Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways). She is associate editor (North America) for the academic journal Energy Strategy Reviews. Prior to joining UC Davis, Jaffe served as director of the Energy Forum and Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Jaffe's research focuses on oil and natural gas geopolitics, strategic energy policy, corporate investment strategies in the energy sector, and energy economics. She was formerly senior editor and Middle East analyst for Petroleum Intelligence Weekly. Jaffe is widely published, including as co-author of Oil, Dollars, Debt and Crises: The Global Curse of Black Gold (Cambridge University Press, January 2010 with Mahmoud El-Gamal). She served as co-editor of Energy in the Caspian Region: Present and Future (Palgrave, 2002) and Natural Gas and Geopolitics: From 1970 to 2040 (Cambridge University Press, 2006). Jaffe was the honoree for Esquire's annual 100 Best and Brightest in the contribution to society category (2005) and Elle Magazine's Women for the Environment (2006) and holds the excellence in writing prize from the International Association for Energy Economics (1994).
Seth B. Shonkoff Ph.D, MPH
Executive Director
Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy
Dr. Shonkoff is the executive director of the energy science and policy institute, PSE Healthy Energy. Dr. Shonkoff is also a visiting scholar in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, and an affiliate in the Environment Energy Technology Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley California. An environmental and public health scientist by training, he has more than 15 years of experience in water, air, climate, and population health research. Dr. Shonkoff completed his PhD in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and his MPH in epidemiology in the School of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a contributing author to the Human Health chapter of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). He has worked and published on topics related to the intersection of energy, air pollution, water quality, climate, and human health from scientific and policy perspectives. Dr. Shonkoff's research also focuses on the development of the effectiveness of anthropogenic climate change mitigation policies that generate socioeconomic and health co-benefits. Dr. Shonkoff's current work focuses on the human health, environmental and climate dimensions of oil and gas development in the United States and abroad.
Dan Tormey Ph.D, P.G.
Principal
ENVIRON International Corporation
Dr. Daniel Tormey is an expert in energy and water and conducts environmental reviews for both government and industry. He works with the environmental aspects of all types of energy development, with an emphasis on oil and gas, including hydraulic fracturing and produced water management, pipelines, LNG terminals, refineries and retail facilities. Dr. Tormey was the principal investigator for the peer-reviewed, publicly available, Hydraulic Fracturing Study at the Baldwin Hills of southern California, on behalf of the County of Los Angeles and the field operator, PXP. He conducts projects in sediment transport, hydrology, water supply, water quality, and groundwater-surfacewater interaction. He has been project manager or technical lead for over two hundred projects requiring fate and transport analysis of chemicals in the environment. He has a Ph.D. in Geology and Geochemistry from MIT, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering and Geology from Stanford. He is a Principal at Ramboll Environ Corporation; was named by the National Academy of Sciences to the Science Advisory Board for Giant Sequoia National Monument; is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Society of Petroleum Engineers; is on the review committee on behalf of IUCN for the UNESCO World Heritage Site List and member of the IUCN Geoscientist Specialist Group; is volcanologist for Cruz del Sur, an emergency response and contingency planning organization in Chile; was an Executive in Residence at California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo; and is a Professional Geologist in California. He has worked throughout the USA, Australia, Indonesia, Italy, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Senegal, South Africa, Armenia and the Republic of Georgia.
Sam Traina Ph.D
Vice Chancellor of Research
University of California, Merced
Dr. Traina is the Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development at the University of California, Merced, where he holds the Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology. He serves as a Board Member of the California Council of Science and Technology. Prior to joining UC Merced in 2002 as a Founding Faculty member and the Founding Director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, Dr. Traina was a faculty member for 17 years at The Ohio State University, with concomitant appointments in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Department of Earth Science and Geology, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Microbiology and Chemistry. He has served on the National Research Council's Standing Committee on Earth Resources. In 1997 - 1998, he held the Cox Visiting Professorship in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. Dr. Traina's past and current research has dealt with the fate, transformation, and transport of contaminants in soils and natural waters, with an emphasis on radionuclides, heavy metals, and mining wastes. Dr. Traina holds a B.S. in soil resource management and a Ph.D. in soil chemistry. He is a fellow of the Soil Science Society of American and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as a recipient of the Clay Scientist Award of the Clay Minerals Society.
Laura Feinstein Ph.D
Project Manager
CCST
Laura Feinstein serves as the project manager and author for CCST on this report, and CCST's previous report on well stimulation prepared for the Bureau of Land Management. She previously served as a CCST Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the California Senate Committee on Environmental Quality. She was the director of the GirlSource Technology and Leadership Program, where she developed and ran a program teaching computer and job skills to low-income young women. She also was a web/media developer and researcher with the Center for Defense Information, a think-tank focusing on security issues. She was awarded a CalFED Bay-Delta Science fellowship for scientific research on ecological problems facing the Bay-Delta watershed, and a California Native Plant Society research scholarship. She has a Ph.D. in Ecology from University of California, Davis.
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.
Meetings
Thursday, July 9, 2015 at 3pm PST
Public Webinar on Release of CCST's Scientific Review of Oil and Gas Development Technologies in California - Volumes 2 and 3
February 3, 2015
Location: California State University, Bakersfield, Student Union/Multipurpose Room, 9001 Stockdale Highway, Bakersfield, CA 93311.
Pursuant to Senate Bill 4 (Pavley, Statutes of 2013), the California Natural Resources Agency has commissioned the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with the participation of the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, to conduct an independent scientific assessment of well stimulation. Volumes II and III of the study focus on the potential impacts on the environment and contain case studies with evaluations of environmental issues and public health risks. Attendees at the workshop learned more about the scientific assessment and provided input to the scientists who are working on Volumes II and III, scheduled for release in July 2015.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015 at 3pm PST
Public Webinar on Release of CCST's Scientific Review of Oil and Gas Development Technologies in California - Volume 1
Monday, November 17, 2014 at 12 noon PST
Public Webinar on CCST's Scientific Review of Oil and Gas Development Technologies in California