Todd DeJournett, PhD, PE, (Minnesota) will present “Groundwater/Surface Water Interface – Emerging Regulatory Challenges and New Solutions” at the 2023 Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) Minnesota Conference at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center in Virginia, Minnesota, at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18, 2023.

Todd’s co-presenter is Karen Olson of Spencer Fane, LLP.

Todd DeJournett is a Senior Engineer based in Minnesota with more than 15 years of experience focused on industrial water and wastewater treatment, drinking water treatment, aquatic chemistry, and remedial system design. He helps clients in the mining, agriculture, power, fuels, manufacturing, and municipal sectors to make sound decisions with respect to the treatment, use, reuse, and discharge of water. Todd’s clients benefit from his experience across multiple industries and rely on him for perspective regarding trends in water supply, water use, and water quality regulations impacting their businesses.

The SME Annual Conference and Exhibition is a three-day event that brings together more than 6,000 industry professionals from across the world to share ideas, best practices, and research in more than 120 technical sessions.

The SME is a nonprofit professional society with more than 15,000 members most of whom are professionals serving the minerals industry worldwide. SME members include engineers, geologists, metallurgists, educators, students, and researchers.

The 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the County of Maui, Hawaii vs. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, et al., has opened the door for new groundwater quality compliance requirements for facilities where there is a functional equivalent of a direct discharge. While this issue is still in its early stages of development, it has the potential to impact operations where groundwater quality is influenced by industrial activities, such as mining and other surface impoundments. The “Groundwater/Surface Water Interface – Emerging Regulatory Challenges and New Solutions” presentation will describe the possible impacts on regulatory requirements as this Supreme Court decision is implemented by the federal government and the individual states, and will present methods and technologies to characterize and mitigate compliance risks associated with the groundwater/surface water interface.

This presentation will provide a summary of the Supreme Court decision and its possible regulatory impact on the mining and related industries. It will provide an update of how other cases have interpreted the decision and what the federal government has done in response. The use of groundwater modeling tools and methods to characterize compliance risks and evaluate monitored natural attenuation alternatives for compliance will also be discussed. Finally, the application of semi-passive treatment technologies for mitigating compliance risks at the groundwater/surface water interface will be examined. The participants will also discuss how the technical professionals who will serve as consulting or testifying experts can best work with legal counsel.

The presentation will address such questions as the following:

• What is a functional equivalent of a direct discharge, and what conditions might lead to this equivalency?
• What tools can be used to evaluate functional equivalency and the effect of natural processes on compliance risks?
• How can semi-passive treatment technologies help reduce and manage compliance risks?
• How can technical experts and legal experts identify issues early on and work best together?

More Information

About the 2023 SME Conference: SME Minnesota Conference

For consultation regarding groundwater and surface water, contact Todd DeJournett at tdejournett@geosyntec.com.
Learn more about Todd: Todd Dejournett