Hydrosphere Joins AMEC

11/27/07

Hydrosphere is pleased to announce that it is now a part of AMEC's Earth and Environmental Division.  Read more.

Becky MacKnight Joins Hydrosphere

6/07

Becky MacKnight, a geologist and water resources specialist has joined Hydrosphere.  She brings additional GIS and field sampling expertise to the firm.  Her responsibilities will include environmental permitting and assessments and water resources analyses.

Talon Newton Joins Hydrosphere

11/06

Talon Newton, an environmental engineer specializing in a hydrogeology and geochemistry has joined Hydrosphere's New Mexico office in Socorro.  Mr. Newton’s responsibilities at Hydrosphere include groundwater modeling (both flow and contaminant), stream/aquifer interactions, hydrologic analyses, and technical support for both water rights and toxic tort litigation.

Hydrosphere Hosts Workshop

5/16/07

Hydrosphere will host a workshop in May entitled "Irrigation Diversion Rehabilitation and Fish Passage."  The one-day workshop will include presentations and a field trip to visit relevant sites along Boulder Creek and South Boulder Creek.  Presenters include Doug Laiho and representatives from the City of Boulder, Boulder County, GEI Consultants, the Colorado Division of Wildlife and the US Bureau of Reclamation.

SSD Study Cited

2/26/07

The Severe Sustained Drought Study and Ben Harding were cited in recent news about long-term droughts on the Colorado River.  The Arizona Daily Star reported on potential water shortages for the Central Arizona Project (CAP) in an article published in February.  The CAP draws water from the Colorado River, which was the subject of the 1995 SSD study.  Ben Harding led Hydrosphere's effort in this large, multi-entity study.  He has since performed additional analyses of the SSD scenarios using more recent hydrologic data.

Modeling Presentation

1/26/07

John Winchester will present a paper entitled, Which Model Makes You Obsolete? Or, Differences Between Popular Surface Water Models, at the 2007 Colorado Water Congress Annual Convention.  This presentation will compare the basic differences between commonly used surface water models, including StateMod, Riverware, MODSIM, WRAP, HEC-ResSim and Excel CRAM.

Water Conservation Article

1/07

Water Conservation and Drought Mitigation Planning Update, an article co-authored by Veva McCaig of the Colorado Water Conservation Board and Laura Belanger of Hydrosphere, was published in the January, 2007 issue of the AWRA Colorado newsletter.  The article provides readers with information about the state of Colorado's water conservation programs and provides guidance for seeking financial assistance in developing water conservation plans.

RiverWare Presentations

10/06 and 11/06

John Carron, manager of Hydrosphere's RiverWare team, recently presented two unique project applications of the RiverWare modeling tool.  The first presentation, "Pecos River Decision Support System: Tools for Managing Conjunctive Use of Surface and Ground Water Resources" was a paper given at the U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage conference in Boise, Idaho on October 25-28, 2006.  (You may download a pdf of the paper.)  The second presentation was entitled "Evaluating Tarrant Regional Water District's Water Supply Reliability using RiverWare," and was given at the Texas RiverWare User's Group Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas on Nov 17, 2006.

Blair Hanna Joins Hydrosphere

7/24/06

Blair Hanna is joining Hydrosphere as a project engineer, expanding Hydrosphere's water quality modeling and water resource engineering practices.  Prior to joining Hydrosphere, Dr. Hanna worked on hydrologic and water quality modeling projects with the USDA and the USGS in a number of Western U.S. basins.   He also brings additional groundwater modeling expertise to the firm.

Groundwater Recharge Presentation

7/19/06

Jim McCord will be presenting a paper written by Jim, Jennifer Smith, Lee Rozaklis and Shaden Musleh of Hydrosphere at the 2006 annual conference of the Universities Council on Water Resources/National Institutes for Water Resources.  The subject of this year's conference is Increasing Freshwater Supplies. Their paper, entitled "Hydrological Analysis of Conjunctive Management Approaches to Increase Freshwater Supplies on the Lower South Platte River, Colorado" will be presented during a session devoted to groundwater recharge.  The paper describes Hydrosphere's development of two groundwater models to analyze stream depletion characteristics and aquifer responses to recharge ponds on the lower South Platte River.

Steve Setzer Joins Hydrosphere

7/17/06

Steve Setzer is joining Hydrosphere as a staff engineer, bringing specialized expertise in the application of RiverWare to river and reservoir management problems. Steve spent the last six years as a Professional Research Assistant / Water Resource Engineer at CADSWES developing RiverWare applications and providing technical support and training to end users.  In addition to his RiverWare expertise, Steve also brings water quality and groundwater modeling experience.

RiverWare Presentation

5/7/06

John Carron and Kevin Wheeler presented their work at the 2006 RiverWare User Group Meeting in Boulder.   John's presentation, entitled "Integrated Surface and Ground Water Modeling using RiverWare: Examples from New Mexico," described various methods for modeling the interdependencies between surface and ground water systems, including direct model coupling between RiverWare and MODFLOW and the use of response functions within RiverWare itself. Application of these modeling approaches from Hydrosphere's work for the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission were used as examples.  Kevin's presentation, "Investigation of Hydrologic Variability on the Colorado River Using Prehistoric Tree-ring Data and the Reclamation CRSS Long-Range Planning Model," provided a preliminary look at the effects of extending the hydrologic period of record used in Reclamation's official planning model, the Colorado River Simulation System (CRSS). Using six paleo-extensions of the hydrologic flows at Lee's Ferry developed by various published researchers, Hydrosphere and Reclamation collaborated to test the robustness of CRSS and to evaluate potential implications of a recurrence of prehistoric drought conditions.

Jean Marie Boyer Recognized by NALMS

Winter, 2005

Jean Marie Boyer's contributions to the North American Lake Management Society were recognized in the winter edition of their publication, Lakeline.  Jean Marie served on the NALMS board as the Region VIII director.

Kevin Wheeler Joins Hydrosphere

1/24/05

Kevin Wheeler has joined Hydrosphere as a staff engineer, bringing expertise in operational and hydrologic modeling, hydrology, water quality, GIS and field investigations. Mr. Wheeler has recently returned from serving as water resources engineer in the capacity of Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. Prior to that, he conducted research at the Center for Advanced Decision Support for Water and Environmental Systems and at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, both at the University of Colorado. At Hydrosphere, he will specialize in RiverWare modeling, stormwater modeling and engineering support. He earned his Masters degree in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering from the University of Colorado.

Colorado River Basin Drought Presentation

9/21/04

Ben Harding spoke to assembled local and state political leaders and members of the public at the 2004 Colorado River Water Seminar sponsored by the Colorado River Water Conservation District. Mr. Harding's presentation, Reality vs. the 1995 Severe and Sustained Drought Study, provided a comparison between the unfolding drought in the Colorado River system and the conditions assumed in the SSD study. Mr. Harding told the group that the onset of the current drought is intense, and that water use in the Lower Basin is considerably higher than the levels that were used in the original SSD study. As a result, reservoir storage is at substantially lower levels than would have been expected, based on the assumptions used in the SSD study. This leaves water users in the Colorado River basin exposed to severe shortages should the current drought conditions continue for a sustained period.

Subhrendu Gangopadhyay Joins Hydrosphere

11/01/2004

Subhrendu Gangopadhyay has joined Hydrosphere as a senior staff engineer, expanding our services in hydroclimatology, forecasting, stochastic hydrology and statistical techniques.  Dr. Gangopadhyay obtained his PhD in Civil Engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand and did his post-doctoral work at the University of Colorado.  Prior to joining Hydrosphere, Dr. Gangopadhyay was conducting collaborative projects at the University of Colorado with the NWS/NOAA, NCAR, and USGS.  At Hydrosphere, Dr. Gangopadhyay will be participating in the development of hydrologic and groundwater models, in addition to working in the service areas listed above.

Shaden Musleh Joins Hydrosphere

10/01/2004

Shaden Musleh has joined Hydrosphere as a senior staff engineer, supplementing our capabilities in hydrologic and groundwater modeling.  Mr. Musleh has a Master's degree in Irrigation Engineering from Utah State University and brings substantial expertise in hydrogeology.  Prior to joining Hydrosphere, Mr. Musleh worked on a number of groundwater flow and contaminant transport modeling projects in Arizona, California, New York and Pennsylvania.  In addition to hydrologic and groundwater modeling, other projects that Mr. Musleh will participate in at Hydrosphere include stream-aquifer interaction studies, consumptive use analyses and water rights evaluations.

Doug Laiho Joins Hydrosphere

10/01/2003

Doug Laiho has joined Hydrosphere as a senior project manager and water resources engineer.  Mr. Laiho enhances our capabilities by bringing 30 years' experience in water resources engineering.  His expertise includes hydrology, river restoration, flood plain analysis, urban drainage, small and medium dam design and irrigation diversion and irrigation systems design.  Prior to joining Hydrosphere, Mr. Laiho was the water resource project manager and regional manager of Ayres Associates.  Mr. Laiho is a registered Professional Engineer in Colorado, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and South Dakota.  He holds a Master's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado.