December 5, 2022
Charles Stephen (Steve) Haase, Ph.D., of Jonesborough, TN passed away on November 15, 2022. Steve was born on September 20, 1951 in Duluth, Minnesota. His bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology were received, respectively, from Carleton College and Brown University in 1973 and 1975. After receiving a Ph.D. degree in geology at Indiana University in 1979, he continued post-doctorate studies in geochemistry at Yale University.
Steve started his professional career in 1980 at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as a research scientist; and most of the large body of his peer-reviewed publications relates to geohydrologic investigation he initiated in the ORNL Y-12 Plant area (See: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Charles-Haase).
In 1991, Steve joined the staff of the NM Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources, a research division of NM Tech, where he was co-leader of a multi-institutional hydrogeologic investigation in the northern Albuquerque Basin. During the next 2 years, he made a number of seminal contributions to our present understanding of the hydrogeology and hydrochemistry of that area (see references below). His geohydrologic research in New Mexico continued through the mid-1990s, when he was Director of Environmental Services at the Albuquerque office of GRAM, Inc.
In retrospect, the professional activity that Steve found most life affirming took place in the lower Arkansas River basin and Mississippi Embayment wetlands where he served as the “first biohydrologist” for The Nature Conservancy between 2003 and 2013. During his final years, in addition to planning for full-time retirement in a new home in Jonesborough, Steve remained involved in DOE-supported subcontractor work on environmental restoration in Tennessee’s Oak Ridge Reservation area.
Steve enjoyed traveling, photography, gardening, growing orchids, music, and cooking, as well as the friendship of many. He had a special love for the people, culture, and landscape of Central America and Mexico. Most of all, Steve was a wonderful, loving husband; and a generous, kind hearted, and gentle soul with a wicked sense of humor.
Steve was preceded in death by his parents, Charles and Zelda Berg Haase; and he is survived by his beloved wife Helen Haase, and their cat, Lilly. Other surviving family members include brothers-in-law, Bill Hite and Rick (Susan) Hite, a niece, and numerous nephews.
Donations is Steve’s memory can be made to Doctors Without Borders at https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org.
John W. Hawley, Ph.D.
Emeritus Senior Environmental Geologist,
NM Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources, N.M. Tech
Contributions on the Albuquerque Basin Area
Haase, C.S., 1992, Borehole geophysical data, in Hydrogeologic framework of the northern Albuquerque Basin: New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Open File Report 387, p. V-1—V-18.
Hawley, J.W. and Haase, C.S., 1992, compilers, Hydrogeologic framework of the northern Albuquerque Basin: New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Open-file Report OF-387, 74 p., 8 Appendices, Glossary (cf. Thorn et al. 1993).
Haase, C.S., and Lozinsky, R.P., 1992, Estimation of hydrologic parameters, in Hydrogeologic framework of the northern Albuquerque Basin: New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Open File Report 387, p. VI-1—VI-3.
Hawley, J. W., Haase, C. S., and Lozinsky, R. P., 1995, An underground view of the Albuquerque Basin, New Mexico, in Ortega-Klett, C. T., ed., Proceedings of the 39th Annual New Mexico Water Conference, New Mexico Water Resource Research Institute Report 290, p. 37-55. http://wrri.nmsu.edu/publish/watcon/proc39/contents.html
Thorn, C.R., McAda, D.P. and Kernodle, J.M., 1993, Geohydrologic framework and hydrologic conditions in the Albuquerque Basin, central New Mexico: U. S. Geological Survey, Water-Resources Investigations Report 93-4149, 106 p.