usgs_staff_profile:
meta: status_code: 200 timestamp: '2023-09-30T17:22:57.339310' url: https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/gerard-j-gonthier profile: abstracts: [] affiliations: [] education: - Master's of Science in Geology, Louisiana State University - Bachelor's of Science in Geology, Louisiana State University email: gonthier@usgs.gov expertise_terms: - Groundwater - Water-quality honors: [] intro_statements: - Gerard Gonthier is a hydrologist with the South Atlantic Water Science Center in Norcross, Ga. with more than 30 years of experience in groundwater studies. He is currently project chief for the assessment of water quantity and quality of groundwater resources in Richmond County and is performing a census of public-supply wells in Georgia. name: Gerard J Gonthier name_qualifier: null orcid: 0000-0003-4078-8579 organization_link: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/sawsc organization_name: South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC) personal_statement: Gerard began his career in 1989 as a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Little Rock, Arkansas working mainly on surface-water/groundwater interactions within a bottomland hardwood wetland in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain of eastern Arkansas. By 1994, he served as the groundwater specialist for the Mississippi Embayment National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program, focusing on the water quality in the Tertiary aquifers, Mississippi Alluvial aquifer, and the shallow aquifer system in the Memphis metro area.Gerard transferred to the Georgia District in Norcross, Georgia in 1999 where he worked with a team assessing a contaminated site at Air Force Plant 6 near Marietta, Georgia. It is then that he operated a continuous-recorder network of about 50 wells around the site, performed slug tests, and an aquifer test within fractured-crystalline rock. By 2010 Gerard was interpreting results from several constant-discharge aquifer tests performed in the Cretaceous or Floridan aquifer systems, using analytical methods and axis-symmetric groundwater models. Gerard has also interpreted flow-meter survey data for Waynesboro, Georgia; and Wake County, North Carolina; and interpreted data from slug tests performed in Wake County, North Carolina.Gerard is currently program chief for the assessment of groundwater resources in Richmond County working in cooperation with Augusta Utilities. The project annually monitors water levels throughout the county and water quality in several of the production wells within the area. The data are compiled and interpreted to determine the state of the groundwater for the study area which includes assessing trends through time. Gerard is also performing a census of public supply wells throughout Georgia, verifying the location and construction information, and determining from which aquifer the wells withdraw water. professional_experience: - 1999 - present - Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Norcross, Georgia - 1989 - 1999 - Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Little Rock, Arkansas title: Hydrologist