Rales Fellow Takes Green Chemistry Personally
Heidi Opdyke
- Associate Dean of Marketing and Communications, MCS
- Email opdyke@andrew.cmu.edu
- Phone 412-268-9982
Growing up in rural Grant Township, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Smith saw how fracking can affect a community firsthand. Now as a Ph.D. student in Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Chemistry, she wants to help other communities.
Hydraulic fracking is a common practice in Pennsylvania to access oil and natural gas. The process involves injecting fluid into the ground to create large cracks, allowing oil and natural gas to flow more freely. The process results in wastewater, which contains chemicals that can harm humans and the animals if it gets into the drinking water supply.
This wastewater and other byproducts are stored in disposal injection wells deep underground, but sometimes, these wells leak into other groundwater.
When Smith and her family were told that a disposal injection well was going to be built in their community, they did not know what it was or what the repercussions could be. Her grandmother, Judy Wanchisn, a third grade elementary school teacher, started investigating. The family grew concerned with the findings.
“This well was really close to my family’s houses,” Smith said. “We all live off private well water. The entire community lives off private well water because we live in the middle of nowhere. If an injection well leaks, it’s going to poison our well water that we all drink from.”
Wanchisn started digging into the law to see how the community could prevent the disposal well from being installed. She found out that native salamanders – known as hellbenders — would suffer if the local waters were tainted. The community filed a lawsuit to protect the salamander and their own water supply.
As the community worked to protect their water, Smith started learning more about chemistry. Seeing the way chemistry played a role in the fracking fluid and the environment, she grew interested in pursuing green chemistry.
“Whenever we talk about hydraulic fracturing fluids, there are a lot of proprietary secrets that the companies don’t have to disclose. So whenever wells leak, there seems to be a lack of ability to know where to look or what to look for or how to treat the water. I thought chemistry was a great way of solving that,” Smith said.
The case was settled during Smith’s first year as an undergraduate at Allegheny College. Though the court did not rule in Grant Township’s favor, the community had protested enough that the disposal well was never built.
“We were able to say that we didn’t want to have this injection well,” Smith said.
At Allegheny College, Smith focused on organic chemistry synthesis. She enjoyed conducting research where she created small molecules that could be used in drug development, but she wanted more hands-on experiences with environmental chemistry. Through the National Science Foundation, she was participated in two Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs): one at Michigan State University and one at the Université de Lorraine in France.
During the REUs, Smith explored different aspects of environmental chemistry. At Michigan State, she primarily investigated roundworms’ gut-brain axis — the network of nerves between the digestive system and the brain. She also assisted with another project involving PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), forever chemicals that persist in the environment and often have the potential to harm human and animal health. At the Université de Lorraine, Smith investigated how wood degrades in an oxygen-free environment during the process of changing it into a biofuel. She found that magnesium prevented the wood from completely degrading.
Smith’s research experiences inspired her to deepen her knowledge of chemistry and pursue a Ph.D. To her, Carnegie Mellon’s Department of Chemistry was the perfect fit, and she knew she wanted to work with Carrie McDonough, associate professor of chemistry.
“Carrie’s work is something that I found so applicable to where I’ve always wanted to be in life,” Smith said. “It was a no-brainer for me.”
Smith was accepted as a CMU a Rales Fellow, a program that fully funds graduate students studying the sciences and provides community, advising and support in and out of the lab.
“I knew I needed that support system and encouragement not just from students but from mentors,” Smith said. “Rales has been that support for me.”
The support from Rales has allowed Smith to focus on her work in the McDonough lab where she will investigate the same subject that got her interested in chemistry — fracking.
Multiple disposal injection wells leaked south of Pittsburgh in Washington County. A member of the affected community reached out to McDonough, asking for help testing the drinking water for fracking fluid. Given Smith’s history with fracking and passion on the subject, McDonough thought Smith would be the best student to work on the project.
“Communities in western Pennsylvania and around the world are grappling with dwindling supplies of clean freshwater,” McDonough said. “Water utilities are struggling to identify optimal treatment techniques to remove chemicals of concern from drinking water, but uncertainties remain regarding which of the thousands of chemicals found in water are of most concern for human health. Elizabeth’s work will provide actionable data to inform contaminant mitigation and regulation in western Pennsylvania.”
After developing new methods to test the water, Smith and McDonough will offer the Washington County community steps they can take to filter their drinking water or mitigate any damage. Smith said she is excited to work on a topic that hits so close to home.
“Chemists created this problem, so chemists are the only people knowledgeable enough to fix it,” Smith said. “I want to be someone who can fix it.”
