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against local and state officials. Tragically, thousands of residents suffered long-term exposure to lead. Addressing about 50 attendees at an invitation-only general managers’ dinner, Dr. Hrudey pointed out that the crisis could have been prevented. “There was a colossal failure to apply knowledge that we already have — in spades; to recognize that doing what was done — or not done — could and ultimately did result in a public health disaster,” he told the audience. He compared the crisis in Flint to the water contamination tragedy in Walkerton, Ont., in May 2000, which killed seven peo- ple and made thousands ill. In both cases, he said, the inability of officials to perform competently was the primary driver of disas- ter. He advised attendees to take note of what happened in Flint, because it could happen in their community, too. “You need to help decision-makers understand that providing safe, high-quality drinking water is a knowledge-intensive un- dertaking. It cannot be done successfully without a fundamental commitment to excellence,” said Dr. Hrudey. Dr. Hrudey was a member of the Research Advisory Panel for the resulting Walkerton Inquiry and has served on several expert panels on safe drinking water. He received the top AWWA research award in 2012, at the time only the second Canadian to receive the award since it was established in 1967.
LONGTIME COMMITMENT TO EARTH SCIENCE EARNS GEOLOGIST PRESTIGIOUS MEDAL
have focused on Cayman Island carbonates, which are, geologi- cally speaking, mere babes at 30 million years old. “Such studies provide a measure of the heath of the environments in the face of universal changes such as ocean warming and ocean acidification and are critical to our understanding sediment generation changes with time,” Dr. Jones wote in a newsletter of the Royal Society of Canada, of which he’s a fellow. Dr. Jones also studies hot spring deposits found in places like Kenya, New Zealand, Iceland, Chile, and Canada. More recently his focus has been on springs found in Yunnan Province, China. His research has provided a much clearer understanding of the role that microbes play in the formation of many different minerals. A Distinguished Professor with the University of Alberta’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, he’s been a role model for thousands of undergraduate and graduate students over the past 40 years. Last year, he co-authored a textbook, Origin of Carbonate Sedimentary Rock s, with professor Noel James, and he’s currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sedimentary Geology. HEAT OF A MOMENT -photo courtesy Dr. Brian Jones, P.Geol. This location, visited here by Dr. Brian Jones, P.Geol., is Frog’s Mouth, featuring a temperature of about 100 C. It’s in the Tengchong geothermal area in the province of Yunnan, China. And soon for something completely different, the Logan Medal recipient is off to the Cayman Islands for the territory’s Geology Week.
Brian Jones, P.Geol. , heads south in October to spend some time in the beautiful Cayman Islands — but not for a holiday. He’ll be attending Geology Week, volunteering his time to teach students, teachers, and government employees about the geology of the islands. It’s a subject he’s intimately familiar with, having spent the last three decades of his career regularly visiting the islands to study the carbonates found there — limestone and dolostone mostly — to better understand what they can tell us about sedi- mentary process changes on Earth. For the past three years he’s been sharing his knowledge in the classroom as part of a new program started by the Cayman Islands Water Authority. This typically includes 30 lectures over four days to 500 high school students, plus a one-day course for teachers and government employees. “Many of the schools there follow the curriculum of the United Kingdom and geology is an integral part of the requirements, involving such subjects as plate tectonics, coral reefs, and the rock cycle,” he explains. His research in the Cayman Islands is just one reason Dr. Jones was awarded the Logan Medal from the Geological Association of Canada in June. The association’s highest award, it honours Dr. Jones for his exemplary service to the Earth science community and his research on the role of organisms and fluids in the origin of carbonate sediments and rocks. His interest in carbonates started when he was an under- graduate student at the University of Liverpool in the late 1960s. While this passion has taken him around the world, his studies
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