Jim Morgan, an Environmental
Visionary Scientist and educator, through his research, Morgan has established key links between aquatic chemistry and large-scale water quality engineering problems. W A LT E R S H A U B
cientist, engineer, and teacher extraordinaire, Jim Morgan, say colleagues, is one of the most admired and beloved figures in the environmental field. His groundbreaking research studies on improving water quality—by using chemically induced coagulation to remove particle-bound toxic organic and inorganic contaminants, oxidizing Mn2+ to MnO2 to eliminate the metal, and collecting and removing asbestos through pH control and added aluminum—were among his many accomplishments for which he was honored with the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize in 1999. His teaching was recognized with a Danforth Foundation Teacher Award in 1960 and the Caltech Associated Students Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1980. The book Aquatic Chemistry, which Morgan coauthored with his mentor, Werner Stumm, is widely regarded as a classic text. And, perhaps most significant for the dissemination of high-quality environmental research was his role as founding editor of Environmental Science & Technology, which lay the foundation for what would become one of the most cited journals in the environmental research arena.
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M organ w orksw ith a UV–visspectrophotom eterin hislaboratory,soon afterhisarrivalatCaltech in 1966.
Beginnings Morgan’s early life was split between the “new” and “old” worlds. He was born in 1932, in New York City, but returned with his family to Ireland in 1933 for life on the family farm in Knockballyroney, Monaghan. In 1937, the family returned to the United States for “a better life and economic opportunity”. Morgan remembers first becoming interested in the water environment as an undergraduate at Manhattan College in New York under the tutelage of Donald O’Connor, a pioneer of fluid mechanics, river oxygen dynamics, and treatment processes. “[O’Connor] set me on a course that has been very like a river in its own way, with the living flow and eddies and meanders of a stream,” Morgan says. He would eventually earn undergraduate and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Manhattan College in New York City in 1954 and the University of Michigan in 1956, respectively, and then join the civil engineering staff at the University of Illinois. There, he says, “life took a distinctly chemical turn.” At that time, the connection between phosphates in synthetic detergents and the runaway growth of algae was becoming recognized as a major problem that could upset the efficiency of water treatment plants. Even today, he demonstrates the visible effects of that pollution by holding his hand up to his waist and asking, “Can you believe that the foam caused by phosphate-containing household detergents could reach this high above the water surface?” That sight strongly motivated him to begin studying 66 A I ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / FEBRUARY 1, 2002
the chemistry of waterborne pollutants. “For the first time in my young life as a civil engineer, chemistry became of interest to me,” he says, adding that, “I didn’t really care much or know much about chemistry before that. Chemistry turned out to be both consequential and challenging for understanding chemical pollution and the treatment of affected waters.” In 1965, Morgan left Illinois to study for a doctorate in applied chemistry with Stumm at Harvard University. It would turn out to be an extremely productive collaboration and friendship, which would continue even after Stumm left Harvard to head the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (EAWAG) in 1970 and until Stumm’s death in April 1999. Stumm’s friendship meant a lot to me, Morgan says, both personally and as a catalyst to my scientific achievements. “He was my ‘doctor father’,” he adds. “[Morgan] was the keystone in Stumm’s U.S. network,” says Bernhard Wehrli, of EAWAG. In later years, Morgan would be a teacher to his mentor, Wehrli recalls, for example, “convincing him that acid rain was a real problem, not just a media event.” At Harvard, Morgan studied the aquatic chemistry of coagulation, particle removal rates, manganese transformations in natural waters, eutrophication, phosphorus removal from wastewaters, and the influence of particle surfaces on natural environmental conditions and in engineered treatment processes. Morgan says that his goal was to choose experiments that might provide a more general chemical understanding of the complexity of natural waters, which could then be applied to treatment processes. “Werner Stumm had the imagination to look for the common thread that would relate coagulation in water treatment processes, coagulation in lakes, and coagulation in estuaries one to the other so that you could actually start to generate general principles,” Morgan recalls. “That was the motivation of our work.” In 1962, Stumm and Morgan described the chemical aspects of coagulation in what has been called a landmark paper in water treatment. “It set down the important chemical principles controlling the charges on the surface of waterborne particles that need to CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
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“I view Jim as a Moses of the [aquatic chemistry] field,” says former Morgan graduate student Jim Pankow, now a professor at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. John Seinfeld at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) agrees: “Jim Morgan has been a commanding presence in aquatic chemistry for a generation.” Morgan, however, takes a more modest view. “Whatever I have achieved,” he says, “it could not have come about without the partnership of my student, postdoctoral, and faculty colleagues.”
M organ explainsthe use ofthe then new lyavailable digitalpH m eterto a prospective studentin hislaboratory (circa 1970).
nalize how metals behave in treating reducing groundwaters. She also notes that Morgan’s studies of the reductive dissolution of manganese oxides demonstrate the significance of manganese redox processes in influencing the fate of other redox-active species, such as organic acids, arsenic, and selenium. “The research of Jim and his students defining the abiotic processes of manganese oxidation and reduction has served as the gold standard against which all other research in this area is compared,” says Brad Tebo of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
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be overcome in order to induce rapid coagulation and efficient removal of particles from drinking water,” says Caltech professor Michael Hoffmann. “Before this work, coagulation and flocculation as treatment technologies were treated more or less as black box, empirical processes.” The faculty at the University of Florida in Gainesville was also impressed, and once he earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1964, he was offered a position. There, Morgan worked with Alvin Percy Black in the civil engineering department, studying the use of polymers as water treatment agents. Morgan’s publications quickly established him as a bright young star in the environmental chemistry field, recalls Russ Christman, professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 1965, Morgan moved from Florida to Caltech, where he would eventually lead the Environmental Science Engineering department and direct the institute’s Environmental Quality Laboratory. At Caltech, Morgan’s reputation as a teacher grew. Pankow says that Morgan took complicated concepts, such as modeling complex species equilibriathe dynamics of chemistry at the interface and chemical coagulationand made them understandable and practical tools for scientists and engineers. Seinfeld agrees, adding, “His depth of knowledge and sense of the ‘real problem’ are truly remarkable.”
Research in detail Through the more than 100 articles that Morgan has published over the years, he has made important basic research contributions in measuring substances such as manganese, phosphorus, and iron in water and understanding how they react. “My greatest sense of accomplishment has come in two areas,” Morgan says. “One is the work on coagulation, especially polyelectrolytes, which were new at the time that I started to work on the problem.” The other contribution, he says, “really came, more than anything else, through my work on manganese.” Morgan’s coagulation studies, such as his investigations of the influence of ligand exchange reactions on promoting particle coagulation, notes fellow Caltech professor Janet Hering, highlighted the effect of source water composition, particularly phosphate concentration, on the coagulation efficiency and the role of organic polyelectrolytes in improving water quality. His investigations, Hering observes, have significantly influenced wastewater treatment practices in coastal areas and established the chemical principles for improving the efficiencies of particle coagulation and filtration and controlling pH levels that underlie the primary treatment of wastewater. “One of Jim’s major achievements with Stumm,” says George Luther, a professor at the University of Delaware in Newark, “is demonstrating to the engineering community how essential it is to understand fundamental chemical and physical processes and how scientific understanding can replace ‘trial-anderror’ methods.” According to Hering, Morgan’s investigations of the chemical basis of the differing behavior of iron and manganese with respect to oxidation help ratio-
Tw o-potreaction:On hislaboratoryroof,M organ “show s” how he collectssam plesforhispioneering studieson acid rain (circa 1982).
Lost in the shuffle of years, says Hoffmann, is REDEQL, a computer program whose acronym stands for “Redox Equilibrium”. Developed in the early 1970s, it was the first comprehensive computational program for use in modeling the equilibrium behavior of complex—multispecies, multiphase—natural water systems, freeing up researchers and investigators from having to depend so heavily on extensive observational data. Around 1972, REDEQL became the working program for all EPA laboratories, Morgan says. REDEQL came about, recalls Morgan, because he realized that the water environment simply could not be understood by making endless observations. “I’ve always been skeptical about massive observations,” he says, “that is, programs dedicated to measuring almost everything, almost everywhere. Observations have to be preceded by scientific imagination and by the guidance of models and theories, and whenever possible, they should be focused on interesting cases that will illuminate the general issues.” In the late 1970s, Morgan’s group at Caltech also performed the first studies of acid precipitation in the western United States, demonstrating that acid deposition in all forms contributes to air pollution in California, Hering says.
The editor years “In the early 60s, there was a strong desire in what was then the ACS Division of Water, Air, and Waste Chemistry for greater visibility for environmental chemFEBRUARY 1, 2002 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY I 67 A
istry,” recalls Christman. A group of environmental scientists, including Stumm, convinced ACS that a new publication was needed. The group then lobbied for Morgan as the editor and, in the fall of 1966, he was offered the position. “I remember when I was invited to become the editor, my first reaction was to say, ‘I think I’m too young for this job!’ I was 34 years old. It was daunting,” Morgan says. In his first editorial, he defined the journal’s mission: “Environmental Science & Technology will place particular stress upon advances in chemistry and chemical technology in relation to the understanding of the nature of the natural environment and control of environmental pollution. It will focus as well on the relationship of chemistry to other branches of science and technology, which contribute significantly to the understanding and control of man’s environment. . . . [It] will work to keep its readers abreast of important technical, economic, and political developments; and it will contain the viewpoints of technically qualified individuals from different fields on significant environmental problems and policies.” “For over 30 years, the editors and authors have been trying to live up to that vision,” says Bill Glaze, ES&T’s current editor.
A teacher of many Despite his many scientific contributions, Morgan cites his role as teacher as his most significant. “My greatest [professional] satisfaction has been to be a teacher. And my greatest sense of accomplishment has been to help some 30 Ph.D. students get their research done.” Morgan’s passion for teaching has been driven by a basic vision. “The major advance and the new insights that will permeate the field will come from special individuals, and we have no way of knowing where they’ll turn up,” declares Morgan. “We simply have to foster it. What faculty can probably do best is always keep new questions in front of the incoming students.” Possibly, there is no better example of Morgan’s credo than the birth of REDEQL, which grew out of an aquatic chemistry coursework project pursued by Morgan’s students Russell McDuff, now at the University of Washington in Seattle, and 68 A I ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / FEBRUARY 1, 2002
MENACHEM ELIMELECH
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M organ explainsthe kineticsofCO2 hydration to one ofhis aquatic chem istrycourse students(circa 1977).
François Morel, now at Princeton University. Many colleagues and students have other stories about how much energy Morgan put into his teaching. “For years, [Jim] would throw away his notes and problem sets at the conclusion of each term and rewrite his notes from scratch each year. I estimate that Jim would spend on average eight hours of preparation time for each class period,” Hoffmann says. Liyuan Liang, a recent Morgan graduate student, now at Cardiff University in Wales, agrees, saying that Morgan always checked and rechecked his notes with papers and references to make sure that concepts were concise and clear. “He was extremely generous with his time and refused even to be a coauthor on my papers, says Wehrli, who was a postdoc in Morgan’s lab. “He just wanted to be helpful as a critical discussion partner and reviewer.” In some sense, Morgan’s lectures have reached a far broader audience than those who have sat in his classes. Sales for the three editions of Aquatic Chemistry (1970, 1981, 1996) have totaled more than 45,000 copies. “Although it found surprisingly wide use as a textbook, I believe it was also used by many as a reference book.” Indeed, as one colleague once quipped to Morgan, “Everyone cites Stumm and Morgan, because everything is in it . . . someplace.”
M organ visitsthe grave site ofhishero,J.W illard Gibbs, during a 1999visitto Yale University.
Acknowledgments Many people, including those mentioned in the article and others, contributed background in support of its development. Thanks to Bernhard Wehrli, Bill Glaze, Brad Tebo, Charles O’Melia, Ed Goldberg, François Morel, George Jackson, George Luther, Gordon Treewek, Hinrich Eylers, Igmar Grenthe, Janet Hering, John List, Jim Murray, Jim Pankow, John List, Laura Sigg, Liyuan Liang, Mark Schlautman, Menachem Elimelech, Mike Hoffmann, Owen Bricker, Paul Roberts, Phil Singer, René Schwarzenbach, John Seinfeld, Roger Bales, Russ Christman, Russ McDuff, Tom Holm, Yigal Erel, and several anonymous contributors for the information that they provided. Walter Shaub is ES&T’s senior editor.
