Applied Ecosystem Services, LLC

Ecologists have determined that landscape edges – boundaries separating one type from another – have higher biological diversity and productivity than do the areas on either side of them. These transition zones are important to animals: mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and fish. In terrestrial ecosystems edges are found between woodlands and grasslands and between forests and meadows. In aquatic ecosystems the edges are stream and river banks and pond and lake shores; the edges separating aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems are called riparian zones.

Water quality permit compliance monitoring data with concentration values exceeding statutory thresholds are assumed to result from permitted operations. Fines or penalties might be levied; remedial actions might be imposed. That permitted activities were responsible has not been demonstrated by the submitted data. This is particularly true when permitted activities are dispersed as mining, logging, and agriculture are. Missing in permit compliance monitoring report evaluations is the context for those constituent values that exceeded thresholds.

Regulators require collection and submission of baseline data prior to permit issuance (e.g., NEPA documents or other operating permits), and continuing data to evaluate compliance with permit conditions. The reason is the need to determine whether the proposed project might have unacceptable environmental impacts, and whether operations have such impacts. It is common for analyses accompanying reported data to be inappropriate or superficial and not answer two critical questions. Why do observations and measurements have the values they do?

Everyone recognizes that environmental data have spatial attributes. We are all familiar with GIS-produced maps showing where data were collected in relation to each other and to other variables. However, maps do not provide a critical requirement to objectively make operational decisions, justify environmental policies and regulations, or help finders of fact in litigation reach sound decisions. What maps lack is the quantitative description of patterns and relationships that reflect underlying environmental processes.

Understanding that complying with all your environmental permit conditions shows regulators that you comply with environmental statutes does not protect you from challenges and litigation is a necessary foundation for sustaining your operations. Permit compliance conditions are minimal and do not reflect the effects of the changing climate on your operations and the environments in which it set. This blog post addresses storm water discharge; NEPA, ESA, TSCA and others have the same needs but a broader scope.

It is common for environmental permit holders and regulators to speak past each other and not communicate. This frustrates and angers both sides, yet it is easily avoided. Over the decades I’ve seen the results of such mis-communication and the costs to the permit holder. This blog post will teach you how to effectively communicate with regulators (if you are a permit holder) and with permit holders (if you are a regulator.

The Clean Water Act (CWA) declares it is the national goal of water quality to provide for the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and provide for recreation in and on the water. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s(EPA) historic approach is developing a national chemical criterion for chemical elements. There are so many differences in aquatic ecosystems across the US that a more pragmatic approach uses the aquatic biota – benthic macroinvertebrates – to quantify local community’s variability and response to anthropogenic activities.

The Clean Water Act (CWA) declares it is the national goal of water quality to provide for the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and provide for recreation in and on the water. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s(EPA) historic approach is developing a national chemical criterion for chemical elements. There are so many differences in aquatic ecosystems across the US that a more pragmatic approach uses the aquatic biota – benthic macroinvertebrates – to quantify local community’s variability and response to anthropogenic activities.

The CWA’s objective of restoring and maintaining the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters requires ambient condition assessment. In fact, that’s what the CWA tells regulators to do. This article presentation will define ambient conditions and explain how to measure and interpret the data. The basis for setting water quality standards is decades out of date, given our current understanding of environmental data and availability of recently developed statistical models.

The Clean Water Act’s (CWA) Section 301(m)(2) reads: “The effuuent limitations established under a permit issued under paragraph (1) shall be sufficient to implement the applicable State water quality standards, to assure the protection of public water supplies and protection and propagation of a balanced, indigenous population of shellfish, fish, fauna, wildlife, and other aquatic organisms, and to allow recreational activities in and on the water. In setting such limitations, the Administrator shall take into account any seasonal variations and the need for an adequate margin of safety, considering the lack of essential knowledge concerning the relationship between effuuent limitations and water quality and the lack of essential knowledge of the effects of discharges on beneficial uses of the receiving waters.