Water Management

Focused Applications in Water Management

Susan Murphy, Daniel Sheer, and Joseph Williams

Monday, May 20
International Room
9:30 AM

About the Session

North Central Missouri had an especially challenging 2018, with a severe drought that affected a 10-county region’s potable water supply. A food production plant will share the challenges and successes of regulatory, community, and political corroboration necessary to maintain a source of water for the production plant, while also addressing the needs of the rural community and the local Water Commission. There are financial and regulatory intricacies, including anti degradation concerns, reservoir funding, water resource quality acceptance, and food production plant challenges regarding water reuse or recycling.

About the Presenters

Susan Murphy

Susan Murphy is a Smithfield Director, Environmental Affairs, for a Midwest group of pork production facilities. She received her B.S. Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri. Her job experiences include process and environmental positions for companies such as Cargill, incorporated, Bayer CropScience, and Smithfield, and she worked in environmental consulting for Terracon and Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company.

Daniel Sheer

Dr. Sheer has over 40 years of experience in integrated management of reservoir systems, systems operations, modeling water supply operations, especially using optimization based simulation models. He has been a pioneer in the field of computer-aided conflict resolution in water resources.

Dr. Sheer has authored and co-authored multiple technical papers and articles, including two award winning papers on collaborative modeling and risk assessment. He holds a patent relating to OASIS, a multi-objective optimization based simulation package designed to support computer aided disputer resolution in water resources. OASIS is used to help manage river basins and water supply systems that serve a substantial portion of the U.S. population. He was honored with the ASCE Julian Hinds Award for Meritorious Contributions to Water Resources Development in 2017.

Dr. Sheer earned a Ph.D. with Distinction, from the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, 1975, and has a B.S. in Natural Sciences, 1971, from the same institution. He is a Professional Engineer, State of Maryland. He was a founding member of the National Research Council Water Science and Technology Board.

Joseph Williams

Joseph Williams has eight years of experience identifying new markets for mitigation banking, working with developers to solve their mitigation needs and developing green field mitigation banks nationwide. Joe served two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi, focusing on agroforestry, environmental, business and education initiatives. Joe earned a BS from James Madison University and a Masters of Environmental Management and Master of Forestry from Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment.