Lily Barkau is the Groundwater Section Manager of the Water Quality Division at the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and has been with WDEQ for 18 years.  In her current role at WDEQ, she oversees groundwater quality assessments across the State.  She worked on the UIC Class VI primacy application with Wyoming receiving primacy of the Class VI program in 2020.  She is a Board Member for the Groundwater Research and Education Foundation and was recently appointed to the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Federal Lands CCS Permitting Task Force. 

Ms. Barkau holds a Bachelor of Science in Geology from Wichita State University and a Master of Science in Environmental Science and Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.  She is also a licensed Professional Geologist in Wyoming.  

Wyoming Geological Association, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, October 11, 2024 Presentation for the Wyoming Geological Association:

Wyoming Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration Regulations and Projects

Wyoming has been and continues to be one of the leaders in carbon capture and sequestration regulations with legislation dating back to 2009.  In 1983, Wyoming received primacy of Underground Injection Control Class I through V wells. Already having primacy of five well classes, Wyoming applied for primacy of Class VI wells in 2018 and was the second state to receive primacy of Class VI wells in 2020 for the purposes of long-term storage of carbon dioxide, also known as geologic sequestration.   Primacy programs are established pursuant to Section 1422 of the SDWA which requires applicants to meet EPA’s minimum requirements for UIC programs, including a demonstration that the state has: (1) jurisdiction over underground injection; (2) regulations that meet the federal requirements for 1422 programs; and (3) the necessary administrative, civil, and criminal enforcement penalty remedies pursuant to 40 C.F.R. § 145.13 authorities.  Without primacy, operators work with EPA to obtain permits.   Three states currently have primacy of Class VI wells; North Dakota being the first, followed by Wyoming, and in December 2023, Louisiana. Since receiving primacy of Class VI wells, Wyoming has been active in working with interested parties to complete Class VI permit applications with the first three Class VI permits to construct issued in December 2023.  This presentation will provide information on Wyoming regulations for CCUS, the permitting process, and concluding with a status of projects for CCS to date.

Topic:  A broad overview of the UW Energy Research Program

2024 WGA/SPE Christmas Party

Casper’s Cretaceous Sea Fossils

J. P. Cavigelli, The Tate Geological Museum

So, you wanna see some cool fossils from right here in Casper?  Well, let’s start with a housing development near Sagewood Elementary School.  Early in my career at the Tate a local fellow brought us some unusual fossils he had found in a pile of rock removed from some future basements.  This led the Tate to exploring the site and collecting over 250 fossils from here over several visits.  The fossils are form the Cody Shale, which is known to produce fossil, primarily in concretions.  Most of these fossils are in the shale itself, rather than in concretions.  The fossils tend to be impressions with very little organic material left.  But many are fossils of creatures we rarely see in the Cody Shale and other Western Interior Seaway deposits.  Come to this presentation for a trip into the Cretaceous sea as it is seen right here in Casper.       

Jean-Pierre Cavigelli

               JP Cavigelli was born back east in the summertime, of Swiss immigrant parents (from the type Jurassic area).  He is prep lab manager and field trip organizer and collections manager at that Tate Geological Museum at Casper College.  As a biology major at the University of Chicago, JP became interested in paleontology, although way too late to get a degree in it.  This led him to a summer spent in Wyoming (mostly in the Big Horn Basin) in 1983 doing field work in search of small Cretaceous mammal teeth with a University of Wyoming team.  JP fell in love with Wyoming but left for a five year adventure in fun and poverty as a ski bum and whitewater rafting guide in Colorado and Australia.  JP came back to Wyoming in 1990 to be part of a paleontology field crew at the UW again.  He lived in Laramie working off and on in paleontology for 14 years, doing field work as well as a two year post as the Collections Manager for the UW's Dept. of Geology and Geophysics.  He also was a fossil outfitter, running Western Paleo Safaris for six years.  For the past 25 or so years, JP has been doing freelance fossil preparation in his personal prep lab.  He has had the good fortune of having been invited to join international paleontological expeditions to Niger, Mongolia, Tanzania, Alaska and North Dakota.  In his 19 years at the Tate Museum he has led collecting trips all over the state to collect small and large fossils from Dee the Mammoth and Lee Rex to microscopic mammal teeth and really old insects and ichthyosaurs.  When he is not involved with fossils JP enjoys birdwatching, traveling, and hanging out with his supercalifragilisticexpialidocious wife (they were married on a dinosaur skeleton).

Topic:  Liability is Forever: Risk Elements in the Implementation of Decommissioning and Well P&A

14th Annual Gene R. George Memorial Golf Tournament

The WGA's annual Pioneer Picnic honors 50- and 60-year members of the Wyoming Geological Association.