Tracy Connell Hancock, Hydrologist

Education

M.S.

University of California, Santa Cruz, California, 1993, Earth Sciences with a focus on aqueous geochemistry and hydrology

B.S.

University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, 1990, Geology (cum laude) with minor in Chemistry

Professional Associations

• American Geophysical Union
• Association of Women Geoscientists
• Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

Research Interests

Regional and national water-quality studies

Agricultural chemicals and agricultural management practices and policy

Fate and transport of contaminants such as pesticides, nutrients, arsenic, radionuclides, hormones, and antibiotics

U.S. Patent: No. 6,013,254, "Method for Enhancing Oxidation of Methyl Bromide with Strain IMB-1 (ATCC 200197) During Agricultural Fumigations", by R.S. Oremland, T.C. Hancock, and L.G. Miller

Professional Experience

-- Current: Lead Scientist, Northern Altantic Coastal Plain Aquifer System Team, U.S. Geological Survey, Richmond, VA; Executive Secretary, National Water Quality Monitoring Network Steering Committee

-- 2001-2007 Agricultural Chemical Team, National Water Quality Assessment Program, U.S. Geological Survey, Richmond, VA

-- 1998-2001 Hydrologist, Water Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey, Richmond, VA

-- 1993-1998 Hydrologist, Water Resources Division, National Research Program U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA

-- 1992-1993 Geologist, Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, Bishop, CA

-- 1990-1993 Teaching Assistant, Earth Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA

-- 1990 Geologist, Site Investigations/Field Services Division, Tetra Tech Richardson, Inc., Christina, DE

Current Projects

National Water Quality Monitoring Network Steering Committee
http://acwi.gov/monitoring/network/index.html

A pilot phase of the National Water Quality Monitoring Network (Network) for U.S. Coastal Waters and their Tributaries is moving forward. The goal of the Network is to provide information about the health of our oceans and coastal ecosystems and inland influences on coastal waters for improved resource management. The Network is unique because it uses an integrated, multidisciplinary approach and addresses a broad range of water resources, from upland watersheds to offshore waters. The design was developed by 80 representatives working through the National Water Quality Monitoring Council (NWQMC), including Federal, state and local government organizations, universities, water associations, and the private sector. The NWQMC is a sub-committee of the Advisory Committee on Water Information, which is managed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), for the Department of the Interior. The Network Steering Committee was charged to develop the design of the Network by the President's Council on Environmental Quality in response to a recommendation from the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. The Network Steering Committee includes representatives from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and USGS. This Committee will coordinate water monitoring across the Nation to provide a comprehensive database and understanding on water resources and the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources. The pilot phase of the Network will, for three geographic areas including Delaware River Basin, Lake Michigan, and San Francisco Bay, examine current monitoring and gaps in relation to the proposed Network design specifications.

A Fact Sheet on the Network Pilot Phase is available at: http://acwi.gov/monitoring/network/WQPilotPhase.pdf

Regional Assessments of Principal Aquifers
http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/studies/praq/

A major focus of the National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) in its second decade (2002-2013) is on regional- and national-scale assessments of Groundwater status and trends in principal aquifers. The U.S. Geological Survey Office of Groundwater has identified 62 principal aquifers in the U.S. (U.S. Geological Survey, 2003,). About 1/3 of the Nation's principal aquifers are the focus of water-quality assessments at the principal-aquifer scale. The NAWQA framework for principal aquifer assessments considers the physical setting of the aquifer, in addition to its susceptibility and vulnerability to contamination.

More information on Principal Aquifer Assessments: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2005/3013/pdf/PASforWeb.pdf.

Sources, Transport, and Fate of Agricultural Chemicals
http://in.water.usgs.gov/NAWQA_ACT/index.shtml

The U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program is assessing the sources, transport, and fate of chemicals applied to crops in agricultural basins across the Nation (referred to as "study units," see map and table). Chemicals selected for study include nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and about 50 commonly used pesticides and their transformation products, including triazine and acetanilide herbicides such as atrazine and metolachlor, and organophosphorus insecticides such as chlorpyrifos and diazinon. The basins in the studies represent a range of agricultural settings-with varying crop types and agricultural practices related to tillage, irrigation, artificial drainage, and chemical use-as well as a range of landscapes with different geology, soils, topography, climate, and hydrology. Consistent methodology and analysis allow comparisons among the different basins. This study design leads to an improved understanding of the many factors that can affect the movement of water and chemicals in different agricultural settings.Information from these studies will help with decision-making related to chemical use, conservation, and other farming practices that are used to reduce runoff of agricultural chemicals and sediment from fields. This information also will benefit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture, local and regional water managers, and agricultural chemical manufacturers who are involved in managing chemical use and pesticide registration.

More information on Agricultural Chemicals Assessment: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2004/3098/pdf/fs2004-3098.pdf

Awards and Honors

• STAR Awards (USGS), 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2007(2x), 2008 (2x)
• Quality Step Increase (USGS), 2002
• Special Act Service Awards (USGS), 1996, 1998, 1998
• Special Achievement Awards (USGS), 1994, 1995
• College of Arts and Sciences Award for Most Outstanding Geology Senior (Univ. Delaware), 1990
• Woodward-Clyde Award for Best Senior in Geology (Univ. Delaware), 1990
• H. Fletcher Brown Scholarship for Chemistry (Univ. Delaware), 1985-1989

Training Courses

• Isotope Hydrology, G0192, USGS, March 1994
• Radioactive Safety Training, WRRSC, Menlo Park, California, 1993-1998
• Applied Environmental Statistics, IGMC, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado, May, 2001
• Principals & Applications of Estimating the Age of Young Groundwater, GW2238N, USGS, Reston, VA 2001
• Applications of the Tracer Injection Method to Streams and Small Rivers, USGS, Baltimore, Maryland, April 2002
• Water-Quality, NWIS 4_1, USGS, Richmond, Virginia, February, 2002
• NAWQA Data Warehouse/ORACLE Discoverer Training Workshop, USGS, Raleigh, North Carolina, April 2004
• Quality-Control Sample Design and Interpretation, QW2034, USGS, Denver, Colorado, January-February 2005
• Meeting the Supervisory Challenge in the USGS, NCTC, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, October, 2005

Selected Publications

Published Papers: Peer-reviewed Journals

(note: last name changed from Connell to Hancock 11/97)

Ator, S.W., J.M. Denver, and T.L. Connell Hancock, 2000, Relating Shallow Groundwater Quality to Surficial Hydrogeology in the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain, National Water Quality Monitoring Conference Proceedings, April 25-27, Austin, TX, p. 409-423.

Bayless, R., P.D. Capel, J.E. Barbash, R.M.T. Webb, T.C Hancock, and D.C. Lampe, 2008, Simulated Fate and Transport of Metolachlor in the Unsaturated Zone, Maryland, USA, J. Environ. Qual. Vol. 37, Issue 3, p. 1064-1072. available on the internet: http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/37/3/1064.

Connell, T.L., and S. Dreiss, 1995, Chemical Evolution of Shallow Groundwater Along the Northeast Shore of Mono Lake, California. Water Resources Research, Vol. 31, No. 12, p. 3171-3182.

Connell, T.L., S.B. Joye, L.G. Miller, and R.S. Oremland, 1997, Bacterial Oxidation of Methyl Bromide in Mono Lake, California. Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 31, No. 5, p. 1489-1495.

Connell, T.L., 1993, The Chemical Evolution of Shallow Groundwater Along the Northeastern Shoreline of Mono Lake, California. Masters thesis: University of California, June 1993.

Connell Hancock, T.L., A.M., Costello, M.E. Lidstrom, and R.S. Oremland, 1998, Strain IMB-1, A Novel Bacterium for the Removal of Methyl Bromide in Fumigated Agricultural Soils. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 64, No. 8, p. 2899-2905.

Denver, J.M., S.W Ator, L. M. DeBrewer, M. J. Ferrari, J. Barbaro, M.J. Brayton, and T.C. Hancock, 2004, Water Quality in the Delmarva Peninsula, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, 1999-2001, USGS Circular 1228.

Hancock, T.C. and M.J. Brayton. 2006. Environmental Setting of the Morgan Creek Basin, Maryland, 2002-04, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2006-1151.

Hancock, T.C., M.W. Sandstrom, J.R. Vogel, R.M.T. Webb, R.E. Bayless, and J.E. Barbash, 2008, Pesticide Fate and Transport throughout Unsaturated Zones in Five Agricultural Settings, USA, J. Environ. Qual. Vol. 37, Issue 3, p. 1086-1100, available on the internet: http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/37/3/1086.

Joye, S.B., T. L. Connell, L.G. Miller, and R.S. Oremland. 1999. Oxidation of ammonia and methane in an alkaline, saline lake. Limnol. Oceanogr. Vol. 44, No. 1, p. 178-188.

McDonald, I.R., P. Kämpfer, E. Topp, K. L. Warner, M.J. Cox, T.L. Connell Hancock, L.G. Miller, M.J. Larkin, V. Ducrocq, C. Coulter, D.B. Harper, J.C. Murrell and R.S. Oremland, 2005, Aminobacter ciceronei sp. nov. and Aminobacter lissarensis sp. nov., isolated from various terrestrial environments, International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, vol. 55, p. 1827-1832. Available on the internet: http://ijs.sgmjournals.org/cgi/reprint/55/5/1827.pdf.

Miller, L.G., T.L. Connell, J.R. Guidetti, and R.S. Oremland, 1997, Bacterial Oxidation of Methyl Bromide in Fumigated Agricultural Soils. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 61, No. 7, p. 4346-4354.

Oremland, R.S., L.G. Miller, P. Dowdle, T.L. Connell, and T. Barkay, 1995, Methylmercury Oxidation Degradation Potentials in Contaminated and Pristine Sediments of the Carson River, Nevada. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 61, No. 7, p. 2745-2753.

Oremland, R.S., L.G. Miller, C.W. Culbertson, T.L. Connell, and L. Jahnke, 1994, Degradation of Methyl Bromide by Methanotrophic Bacteria in Cell Suspensions and Soils, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 60, No. 10, p. 3640-3646.

Webb, R.M.T., M.E. Wieczorek, B.T. Nolan, T.C. Hancock, M.W. Sandstrom, J.E. Barbash, E.R. Bayless, R.W. Healy, and J.I. Lindard, 2008, ariations in Pesticide Leaching Related to Land Use, Pesticide Properties, and Unsaturated Zone Thickness, J Environ Qual Vol. 37, Issue 3, p. 1145-1157, available on the internet: http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/37/3/1145.