SMG POV
Climate Change Analysis Added to the NEPA Process
January 5, 2015
On December 18th, the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued a revised draft guidance describing how Federal agencies should assess impacts to climate change in their NEPA project reviews. This new guidance supersedes a similar CEQ document released in 2010 that was never finalized. The new document is significant in that it now […]
Common Permits for Industrial Facilities
December 23, 2014
Some of my most exciting work at SMG is to manage environmental permitting for new facilities or facility expansions. Identifying all of the permits and registrations required is no simple job, especially when the site is located in a jurisdiction where we have not had previous projects. It is common to have federal, state, and […]
TOILETS, Drugs, Wipes, Babies, Cats!
December 22, 2014
One daily action most often taken for granted is flushing the toilet. Where does the water go when we flush? How many miles of pipe does wastewater travel before reaching the treatment plant? How is wastewater treated to become an acceptable effluent for discharge into a receiving water? We typically don’t think about these things […]
EPA Recognizes Market-Based Nutrient Trading Program
December 19, 2014
The EPA, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the White House Council on Environmental Quality recently recognized a market-based nutrient trading program run by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The nutrient trading program works to offset increases in phosphorus loads by creating a market supply and demand for land capture and storage of nutrients. For […]
Chesapeake Bay Region Streams are Warming
December 16, 2014
Based on the new U.S. Geological Survey research published in the journal Climatic Change, the majority of streams in the Chesapeake Bay region are warming which appears to be driven largely by the rising air temperatures. Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, with a watershed covering 64,243 square miles including parts […]