Water management, access and treatment are key to the work Oklahoma State University’s College of Arts and Sciences’ faculty are doing to ensure communities have the resources to nourish the world for years to come. OSU’s land-grant mission inspires the work CAS researchers are taking on. With that vision in mind, these individuals use their skills and knowhow to impact society’s sustainability — sometimes in unseen, but no less important, ways. INVISIBLE WATER SOURCE Dr. Todd Halihan, a professor and interim head of the Boone Pickens School of Geology, has been conducting water research within the geosciences at OSU since 2000. Halihan’s work centers on Earth’s subsurface, which is then applied to address groundwater issues. “In the ‘good old days,’ we said, ‘Water comes in and water goes out,’ and we worked with that understanding,” Halihan said. “If you’re really going to understand the subsurface, you need to know where it’s going in, how it’s moving through and how it’s coming out because along the way, the water is going to undergo chemical, biological and physical changes. Sometimes those lead to good outcomes and sometimes bad outcomes.” Halihan added that the ultimate question he seeks to answer is, “How are we going to provide and manage clean water for 10 billion people?” In September 2023, Halihan was awarded $2 million from the Environmental Protection Agency to study the use and risks of enhanced aquifer recharge (EAR). Halihan and a team of researchers from OSU, the Oka’ Institute at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, and Texas State University in San Marcos are using EAR to improve groundwater availability and quality. “We know the aquifer is declining,” Halihan said. “So, we’re looking at developing a system to get more water into it and not have adverse effects while doing so. And then taking it a step further to develop an incentive program of ‘invest this much to get this much additional water and then we will pay this much’ to rally people around supporting the future of the aquifer.” Having earned his bachelor’s degree from Monmouth University, a liberal arts college, Halihan learned early on to value collaborations between diverse fields of expertise. “My work with water has led me to working with other faculty in disciplines you might not expect,” Halihan said. “I’ve worked with history professor Dr. Tonia Sharlach on how the Sumerians used water. I’ve worked with art professor Liz Roth to make cover art for articles, and she has joined me in the Bahamas on geological projects. A land-grant university gives us that opportunity to think about getting involved and trying to change the outcome.” CONTAMINANTS AND PURIFICATION Dr. Sabrina Beckmann, an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, is addressing the need for clean water for household use and irrigation. She is working on projects that directly impact Earth’s water supply quality. “Our lab studies microorganisms in anaerobic groundwater habitats for enhanced groundwater supply and health,” Beckmann said. “Most of these microbes don’t breathe oxygen as we do, but they can breathe a wide range of other electron acceptors like sulfate and nitrate, contaminants which are chlorinated compounds, or climateactive gases like CO2 and isoprene.” In conjunction with Halihan, Beckmann is working to understand the impacts of EAR by studying microbes in the water within the Arbuckle Simpson Aquifer in southcentral Oklahoma. The Arbuckle Simpson Aquifer provides public water for municipalities and agricultural or industrial needs. “The Arbuckle Simpson Aquifer is the primary — and often only — water source for at least 150,000 people,” Beckmann said. “We are analyzing the groundwater before and after implementing the EAR structures to prohibit and/or eliminate the inflow of microbes that cause a potential threat Drs. Sabrina Beckmann, Todd Halihan and Caitlin Barnes are among many CAS faculty working to improve and sustain the future of groundwater and groundwater careers. OSU COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 13
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAxMjk=