Our environmental regulatory experience with natural resource projects includes:
- preparing applications for and obtaining all necessary permits;
- preparing and obtaining approvals for reclamation plans;
- conducting hydrologic evaluations;
- performing air quality modeling and air toxic risk assessments;
- designing and completing cultural resource, wildlife/botanical, and “waters of the United States” inventories;
- evaluating hazardous material, hazardous waste contamination, and acid mine drainage issues;
- coordinating communications between clients and the environmental regulatory agencies.
On behalf of natural resource project clients, EM Strategies has prepared and obtained approval of these applications:
- county Conditional Use Permits;
- air quality Authority to Construct permits and Permits to Operate;
- water quality discharge and NPDES permits;
- Plans of Operations;
- The State of California Surface Mining and Reclamation Act permits;
- The State of Nevada Permits for Reclamation.
Our staff also has direct experience with
- the Federal Land Policy and Management Act,
- the Clean Water Act (including Section 401 certifications and Section 404 permits),
- Clean Air Act (including new Title V programs),
- Endangered Species Act,
- National Historic Preservation Act,
- Native American Religious Freedom Act.
Our company works regularly with agency staff and decision-makers on the development and clarification of agency regulations and interpretations.
EM Strategies is committed to understanding the limits of agency jurisdiction and responsibility. Such an understanding helps clients and involved agencies achieve acceptable decisions.
Our company works regularly with agency staff and decision-makers on the development and clarification of agency regulations and interpretations.
EM Strategies is committed to understanding the limits of agency jurisdiction and responsibility. Such an understanding helps clients and involved agencies achieve acceptable decisions.
EM Strategies was founded to provide clients with environmental regulatory services and environmental assessment document services. These two services often overlap, and the environmental regulatory process interacts intimately with the environmental assessment or NEPA/CEQA process.
Although the best examples of this interaction are with threatened and endangered species and cultural/paleontological resources, other resources, which are described and evaluated in the EIS/EIR, are frequently subject to a parallel regulatory process (e.g., air resources and water quality).
EM Strategies has substantial experience with both of these regulatory requirements and the NEPA/CEQA process and has successfully integrated them in a number of cases.
However, it should be noted that in certain circumstances, integrating the regulatory and the NEPA/CEQA process may not be desirable; the advantages or disadvantages of the integration should be carefully weighed prior to any final decision.
Decisions should be clearly documented in an environmental assessment document preparation plan.