Johanna M. Blake, Ph.D.
Dr. Johanna Blake is a Research Hydrologist with geochemical expertise at the USGS New Mexico Water Science Center.
Water Quality After Wildfire
Wildfires pose a substantial risk to water supplies because they can lead to severe flooding, erosion, and delivery of sediment, nutrients, and metals to rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. The USGS works with federal and state land managers and local water providers to monitor and assess water quality after wildfires in order to help protect our Nation’s water resources.
Minerals Science Team
The Minerals Integrated Science Team focuses on contaminant exposures in the environment that might originate from mineral resource activities including, transportation, storage, extraction and waste management. Perceived health risks to humans and other organisms will be distinguished from actual risks, if any.
Investigations of Sources of Contaminants of Concern in the San Juan River
Metals attached to suspended sediments or dissolved in river water pose a potential health risk to communities that depend on that water for agricultural and domestic uses.
Johanna Blake has devoted her career to understanding geochemical processes that may effect surface water and groundwater especially related to rock-water, sediment-water, and ash-water interactions. She focuses her research on inorganic geochemistry related to mining, sediment, and wildfires and specializes in elements including uranium, arsenic, molybdenum, selenium, lead, chromium, and rare earth elements. Johanna has worked on issues related to uranium mining in the Grants Mineral Belt, New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation, and along the Texas Gulf Coast. She has been the lead scientist in New Mexico working on post-Gold King Mine spill research in the Animas and San Juan Rivers and has worked on understanding potential effects of mining on two drinking water reservoirs along the Animas River. She is the co-lead for a large project working to track the source(s) of metals to the San Juan River through Navajo Nation. In addition, Johanna works on wildfires and water quality including identifying mechanisms of element mobility from ash especially related to systems with multi-stressors including drought, flood, wildfire, and mining. More recently, Johanna has joined a multi-disciplinary team to understand the effects of coal mining on a transboundary reservoir in Canada and Montana.
Science and Products
Investigations of Sources of Contaminants of Concern in the San Juan River
Assessment of Hydrologic Resources and the Potential Effects from Oil and Gas Development in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Tri-County Planning Area, Sierra, Doña Ana, and Otero Counties, New Mexico
Monitoring for Potential Effects of the Gold King Mine Release on Water Quality in the Animas and San Juan Rivers in New Mexico using Continuous Monitors and Automatic Samplers
Science and Products
- Science
Investigations of Sources of Contaminants of Concern in the San Juan River
Metals attached to suspended sediments or dissolved in river water pose a potential health risk to communities that depend on that water for agricultural and domestic uses. Exceedances of Navajo Nation surface water quality standards for metals (especially lead and arsenic) indicate that communities on the Navajo Nation along the San Juan River are exposed to this potential risk. Sources for these...Assessment of Hydrologic Resources and the Potential Effects from Oil and Gas Development in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Tri-County Planning Area, Sierra, Doña Ana, and Otero Counties, New Mexico
The Tri-County Resource Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement (RMP/EIS) “decision area” (the public lands and resources that are managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Sierra, Doña Ana, and Otero Counties) is a large (4,375 square miles) and varied landscape. The decision area contains both connected and closed surface-water and groundwater basins, some of which cross state and...Monitoring for Potential Effects of the Gold King Mine Release on Water Quality in the Animas and San Juan Rivers in New Mexico using Continuous Monitors and Automatic Samplers
On August 5, 2015, about three million gallons of water and sediment were released from the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado, into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River. The New Mexico Environment Department, among other State, Tribal, and local entities in CO, NM, and UT, is concerned that metals associated with the water and sediment released from the Gold King Mine could have... - Data
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*Disclaimer: Listing outside positions with professional scientific organizations on this Staff Profile are for informational purposes only and do not constitute an endorsement of those professional scientific organizations or their activities by the USGS, Department of the Interior, or U.S. Government