Applied Ecosystem Services, LLC

Operational and regulatory decisions depend on insights and knowledge gained from analyses of data collected in compliance with water quality permit conditions. These data need to be set in their spatial and temporal contexts and associated with aquatic biota, beneficial uses of the waters after leaving the project boundaries, and the geomorphic settings through which they flow. This report on the relationships of total dissolved solids (TDS) with selected minerals from a sample of streams on both sides of the Independence Mountains is the first aspect to be analyzed and reported.

This paper addresses turbidity, temperature, and the reasonable potential analysis for toxic pollutants from the perspective of science rather than from that of statutes or regulations. Turbidity and temperature are physical characteristics of waterbodies, but the reasonable probability analysis is not such a characteristic. Regardless, for all three concerns it is important for those in the regulated community to understand what each is, how it is measured, and why it is part of the regulatory environment.

often either that science is not presented or is deemed insufficient by permit applicants and others. The result can be administrative appeals and legal challenges that increase time and costs for the applicant and indecision by regulatory agency staff. Download the PDF.

Every project in the mining and energy industries exists only as long as it has valid environmental permits. No project can begin, operate, expand, close, be reclaimed, or be decommissioned without required environmental permits. This makes environmental data—correctly analyzed, interpreted, and clearly communicated—as important as commodity prices or energy demand data to regulators, senior corporate executives, bankers, and equity investors. This is particularly true when commodity prices are in a trough and energy prices are in flux.

Regulatory implementation of the Clean Water Act sets quality standards as maximum concentration limits (MCL) of individual elements. Applied to all single-element constituents such values are misleading. Toxic metals (arsenic, lead, mercury) are of particular concern yet concentrations of the isolated element do not reflect the various compounds in which these metals are found in rocks, soils, surface waters, or ground waters. More importantly, such elemental concentrations do not reflect bioavailability or ecotoxicity of multi-element chemical compounds.

Regulatory implementation of the Clean Water Act sets quality standards as maximum concentration limits (MCL) of individual elements. Applied to all single-element constituents such values are mis-leading. Toxic metals (arsenic, lead, mercury) are of particular concern yet concentrations of the isolated element do not reflect the various compounds in which these metals are found in rocks, soils, surface waters, or ground waters. More importantly, such elemental concentrations do not reflect bioavailability or ecotoxicity of multi-element chemical compounds.

Nonpoint source pollution (NPS) policy and regulation under the Clean Water Act (CWA) is difficult for regulatory agencies, and is open to challenge as being too restrictive or not sufficiently restrictive. The accepted standard for regulating nonpoint source pollutants are total daily maximum loads (TMDLs) which affect all natural resource operations, among others. Download the PDF.