Scott Bair, professor, earth sciences, has been appointed to a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) panel of independent experts to peer-review the agency's hydraulic fracturing research. Bair is one of 31 experts selected from 170 nominees nationwide.

Panel members, from academia, national laboratories, federal agencies, and industry; are top experts in a variety of areas, including earth sciences, toxicology, rock-mechanics engineering, aqueous geochemistry, and pharmaceutical science.

“I was picked for my specific expertise in groundwater hydrology and computer modeling of groundwater flow and contaminant transport,” Bair said. Panelists will serve a two-year term, beginning May 1.

Ohio State, Penn State, Carnegie Mellon, Rice, Yale, Virginia Tech, Purdue and several other leading research universities are represented on this panel that will assist the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, under the auspices of the EPA Science Advisory Board. They will develop a “Progress Report: Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing on Drinking Water Resources,” whose goal is to describe the status of EPA research on the potential environmental and human health implications of hydraulic fracturing.

“The proper terminology is hydraulic fracturing, meaning the breaking of rocks by means of excessive hydraulic (water) pressure,” Bair said. “Although the terms "fracking" and "fracing" are engrained in the literature, I prefer the formal term, hydraulic fracturing, because these two words explain the actual physical process. The terms “fracking” and “fracing” are not self-explanative.”

The EPA will offer the public an opportunity to provide oral and written comment for individual experts’ consideration.

Bair is part of the School of Earth Sciences’ Division of Water, Climate, and the Environment; his research focus areas are: Hydrogeology, Environmental Geology, Petroleum Hydrodynamics, and Speleology. He also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering in the College of Engineering.

He received his PhD, specializing in hydrogeology, from The Pennsylvania State University. After graduate school, Bair worked for six years in the Geotechnical Division of Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation before joining Ohio State’s faculty in 1985.

Bair teaches courses in general geology, petroleum geology, hydrogeology, karst geology and speleology, and modeling groundwater flow and contaminant transport.

He has advised 36 master’s and doctoral students who have worked on a variety of projects funded by state and federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the U.S.D.A., and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Bair is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and during 2000 served as its 23rd Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer, which took him to 53 colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, and Japan.

He is co-author of the textbook Practical Problems in Groundwater Hydrology and has published more than 40 referreed journal articles and technical reports.