Joe Ryan

Ryan interviewed on mine wastewater research

July 25, 2024

Joe Ryan spoke to the Colorado Sun about the use of viruses to kill bacteria in mining wastewater. This wastewater, which can come with radioactive, cancer-causing materials, and yes, bacteria, often gets shoved back underground for storage. But increasingly, Colorado and other states are looking at ways to clean the...

Joe Ryan

Prof. Ryan talks Colorado oil and gas drilling in new podcast

Aug. 23, 2023

Joseph Ryan is a featured in a new episode of The Sweaty Penguin podcast, a product of New York PBS affiliate WNET. The podcast focuses on issues related to climate change with a serious and humorous edge. This episode focuses on the Denver-Julesburg Basin, a major oil and gas formation...

Joe Ryan

Denver7: How oil and gas drilling might affect your drinking water

Jan. 30, 2023

Joe Ryan's research into leaking oil and gas wells is being spotlighted in Denver and nationally. Denver 7 ABC TV interviewed Ryan for a feature on research into groundwater risks from abandoned and gas wells. The station also syndicated the story to stations across the country. Ryan, a professor in...

Drawing of a vertical oil and gas well.

Compromised oil and gas wells pose risks to groundwater in Weld County

Jan. 2, 2023

When gas leaks into and contaminates a household water well near an oil and gas drilling site, there is always a question of where it came from. Is it from a failure in the drilling or was the gas migrating naturally? New research in the...

Joe Ryan in a stream.

Faces of Engaged Scholarship: Professor Joe Ryan

Feb. 22, 2022

Joe Ryan started doing community-engaged scholarship in 1999 and hasn鈥檛 looked back. 鈥淚 had moved up near Jamestown and realized I was driving past old mine sites. I connected with a community group concerned about off-road vehicle use along James Creek and the effects on the water supply. The treatment...