The electric power industry faces numerous challenges in the coming decade. These include shifts in fuels, increasing pressures from the public and environmental advocacy groups, regulatory changes for air, water, and coal-burning byproducts. Along with such challenges, high-profile events like the tsunami that struck Fukushima, Japan, are reshaping plans and decisions for producing and delivering electricity.
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Geosyntec partners with owners and operators of dams, levees, and flood control facilities to accomplish the following: Assess flood risk hazards and regulatory compliance. Obtain water quality certifications and permits. Evaluate water quality and use impacts on the environment. Develop engineering solutions integrating geotechnical and water resources design requirement. Deliver conservation and restoration projects. Our team leverages its expertise to perform tailored hydrologic and hydraulic studies. Geosyntec develops, calibrates, and uses a variety of hydrologic, hydraulic, hydrodynamic, and other ....
Owners of new and existing dams, dikes, levees, and other hydraulic containment structures depend on consultants with expertise in geotechnical engineering, hydrology and hydraulics, and risk management. They need a reliable provider with a proven track record delivering a wide range of technical solutions.
State and local governments, utilities, landowners, businesses, and communities must navigate National Pollutant Detection and Elimination System (NPDES) Permit compliance through watershed-scale planning.
Low impact development (LID) aims to mimic natural hydrology by using small-scale, decentralized techniques that infiltrate, evaporate, and transpire rainwater. The guiding principles of LID are to reduce imperviousness, disconnect imperviousness, conserve natural resources and areas, maintain natural drainage courses, and minimize clearing and grading. Geosyntec practitioners have designed and integrated a number of innovative system architectures to help clients meet each of these goals. Through the use of the latest green infrastructure (GI) and by implementing new sustainable practices, many of our clients have addressed challenges that previously were intractable, unachievable, or not cost effective using conventional passive solutions. We provide specialized stormwater and watershed management services for private facilities, large developers, stormwater utilities, and municipal agencies throughout the United States and have implemented many of the nation's first GI projects. Our stormwater management specialists form one of the leading practices in the country and include individuals whose applied research earned the American Society of Civil Engineers Civil Engineering State-of-the-Art Award and similar accolades at the state and regional level. Our firm's efforts in LID are geared to lower costs for stormwater infrastructure and maintenance, improve surface water quality and groundwater recharge, and design an attractive, ecologically functional landscape. We also have incorporated LID approaches into new development and retrofit projects to improve control of both quantity and quality of stormwater. Geosyntec personnel continuously shape the state of the practice with projects that involve original research, development, and application of LID techniques. Our engineers and scientists are represented on the Board of Directors of the Low Impact Development Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancing LID technology, and maintain joint research projects with civil engineering faculty at leading academic institutions.
Recent updates to Sections 316(a) and 316(b) of the Clean Water Act regulate the use and operation of cooling water intake structures and revised national effluent limitation guidelines, significantly impacting many factory and power plant operators. The use of cooling water involves significant regulatory hurdles to address aquatic environmental impacts caused by thermal discharges and the impingement and entrainment of fish and shellfish at water intake structures. Geosyntec offers years of experience to support factory and plant operators with successful environmental permitting and compliance services, especially related to Section 316(a) and (b) compliance. While Section 316(a) addresses the thermal discharges of point sources, Section 316(b) applies to the cooling water intake structures. Although often evaluated independently during the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting process, the interplay between thermal discharge and cooling water withdrawal permit limits can result in complex compliance issues for existing facilities. Notably, Section 316(a) provides that the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and delegated state agencies may authorize alternate thermal conditions in NPDES permits where the effluent limitation is more stringent than necessary to assure the protection and propagation of a balanced, indigenous community of shellfish, fish, and wildlife in and on the body of water into which the thermal discharge is made. The USEPA's regulations and guidance provide a broad for framework for developing the studies and data necessary to demonstrate that the alternative effluent limit is justified. To guide clients through this regulatory framework, Geosyntec's scientists and engineers provide compliance strategy support through the management and integration of multidisciplinary studies and study plan development. We provide peer review of data collection plans; prepare early data submittals; conduct studies of fisheries, aquatic invertebrate, and water quality; and delineate areas of influence delineation using acoustic Doppler technology. In addition, we employ computational fluid dynamics modeling to examine cooling water intake and discharge flows. For example, Geosyntec performed a reverification study for a steam electric station discharging to a tidal river. We developed a limited study plan, scaled to provide only the direct information necessary to reverify the conditions upon which the existing 316(a) thermal variance was based without being a full-fledged 316(a) demonstration study, which would have been much more costly. The study plan has since been circulated inside USEPA Region 4 as model for other facilities pursuing renewals of 316(a) thermal variances. Geosyntec implemented thermal plume monitoring, aquatic biological sampling, and reporting, which found no evidence of prior appreciable harm to a balanced indigenous population and supported continuation of the existing thermal variance. In addition, Geosyntec prepared and implemented a study plan incorporating an innovative study approach that integrated contemporary multi-metric bioassessment methods with more traditional 316(a) demonstration guidance. This provided for a structurally definitive decision-making process, which was otherwise lacking, for assessing biological community impacts. The results of our studies met prior performance standards, demonstrating the presence of a balanced indigenous biological community in the thermal discharge area.
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