Maura Metheny

Maura Metheny Ohio State University

METHENY: Well, modeling is using equations - what we know about the way groundwater flows mathematically.

COUKELL: Maura Metheny is a geologist at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.
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METHENY: By estimating when the contaminants were put on the ground, we can simulate how long it would take from each of those sources to reach the pumping area in the wetland.

COUKELL: Metheny calculated how fast the chemicals in question, known as TCE and PCE, would move, and in what direction.
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COUKELL: Bair and Metheny recently presented their work at a meeting of the Geological Society of America.

"The data collected by EPA at wells G and H indicate there were toxic chemicals in the soil and groundwater on at least five properties around Woburn, and probably in the nearby Aberjona River and wetland," said Maura Metheny, an Ohio State graduate student in the Department of Geological Sciences who performed the work.

Metheny and Bair described the "plume model," as well as its implications to the Woburn trial and public health concerns, in two back-to-back presentations at the Geological Society of America meeting in Seattle on November 5.
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In the first presentation, Metheny related the model's month-by-month, 26-year predictions of how plumes of two industrial solvents, trichloroethene (TCE) and perchlorothene (PCE), traveled in the groundwater system from the five contaminated properties to wells G and H.
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In 2000, Metheny and Bair collected groundwater and dissolved gas samples from wells at the site, so Kip Solomon, a professor at the University of Utah, could calculate the age of the groundwater samples.
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Metheny then compared Solomon's results to the groundwater ages computed using her plume model, and found that the two sets of ages closely matched.
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Metheny ran hundreds of simulations with the plume model to address uncertainties such as the release dates of TCE and PCE, and the concentration of the releases.She then compared the simulated concentrations of TCE and PCE to their measured concentrations in wells G and H and in monitoring wells across the site.

Each simulation took two to three days to run."I can see why nobody did this before -- it took seven years of my life," Metheny said with a laugh.
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Metheny did the work to earn her master's and doctoral degrees at Ohio State.She is now a lecturer in the Department of Geology and Geography at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, while finishing her Ph.D. dissertation.
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"We didn't set out to prove or disprove anyone's trial testimony," Metheny explained."We just wanted to see if we could decipher how and when the chemicals got into the wells."

"Our plume model is as good as it is because we approached it as unbiased scientists," she continued.
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The jury found another local company, Beatrice Foods Corp., not liable for contaminating wells G and H. But according to the model results, Bair and Metheny said most of the TCE entering the wells from the late 1960s through the 1970s probably came from the Beatrice property and the Hemingway Trucking Co. property, which are on the west side of the nearby Aberjona River.
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Metheny realizes her work does not present the absolute answer to what actually happened in Woburn.

"The questions people really want answered, we will never be able to answer with complete certainty," she said.
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Metheny and Bair acknowledge that their research holds emotional significance for many families in Woburn, in particular, those who lost a child or other loved one to leukemia.