CEQ’s Final Rule Modernizing Its NEPA Implementing Regulations For the first time in 40 years, the federal government—via the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)—has revised the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Read More »

More People, Limited Resources: How Florida Is Proactively Managing Public Drinking Water Supply In addition to traffic congestion and the need for improved roadways, population growth in Florida has driven increased demand for drinking water. Learn how ESA is balancing the availability of freshwater supplies with the needs of people and the natural environment. Read More »

Seawall Height in Broward County: The Long and Short of It Most of the developed waterfronts in this part of the country have seawalls to protect the adjacent man-made infrastructure and transition from land to water. However, seawalls are vulnerable to water intrusion and have limited life spans. Many were built in the late 1960s and early 1970s and are in need of replacement. Read about Broward County’s approach to sea-level rise. Read More »

World Landscape Architecture Month ESA’s landscape architecture team has been combining design, planning, and natural resources—rooted in science—to create, enrich, and build the places we love to be. We want to take this moment to celebrate some of our talented team members and their award-winning projects. Read More »

Serving Our Clients During COVID-19 A message from our President and CEO, Leslie Moulton-Post, about our field safety measures, approach to using technology to help our clients, and how we are taking care of our employee-owners. Read More »

New Air Quality Regulations for Vessels At-Berth in California Ports New air quality regulations are now being implemented that will have major impacts on how ports and shipping companies do business in California, including an existing air toxics control measure currently in play and a new regulation with a proposed expansion of emissions reductions at ports. Read the full summary here. Read More »

Using the Friant Ranch Decision to Improve Your EIR While the California Supreme Court’s decision in Sierra Club v. County of Fresno was published on Christmas Eve 2018, agencies will be grappling with how to apply its conclusions to their Environmental Impact Reports (EIR) for development projects for quite some time. Read More »

What You Otter Know About Spatial Epidemiology A pertinent topic for another group of mammals. Read More »

Two ESA California Restoration Projects Featured in Estuary News Two prominent ESA projects are featured in articles in the latest issue of Estuary News, a 25-year-old regional magazine of the San Francisco Estuary Partnership and its partners. We hope you have a chance to read the stories in full―some good news in the realm of restoration projects. Read More »

ESA’s Response
to COVID-19 As our communities enter a unique and challenging period due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), we at ESA want to reach out to extend our best thoughts to you, your family, and your colleagues, and to let you know how ESA is responding. Read More »

ESA Welcomes Senior Project Manager Shannon Bottenberg in Northern California ESA welcomes Shannon Bottenberg to its Northern California team, who will be focused on the energy market, specifically in developing energy generation projects across the United States in both the public and private sectors. Read More »

What Is Blue Carbon, Anyway? The term “blue carbon” refers to the carbon sequestered and stored by coastal habitats, such as seagrass meadows, salt marsh, and mangrove forests. Read more to find out about how restoring and preserving these environments can increase our blue carbon sequestration. Read More »

Leslie Moulton-Post Joins Water Education Foundation’s Board Moulton-Post joins the Foundation’s board alongside four other new members: former Natural Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman, Association of CA Water Agencies’ Executive Director Dave Eggerton, Kronick’s Eric Robinson, the Water and Power Group’s John Bezdek, and GEI Consultants’ Erica Bishop. Read More »

Engineers Week During National Engineers Week—which was founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers in 1951 to ensure a diverse and well-educated future for the engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers—we want to recognize each of the nearly 50 engineers at ESA who have made a positive impact on the world around us. Read More »

ESA Biologist Erika Walther Receives Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse Permits One of the smallest, and arguably cutest, San Francisco Bay endemic species is the salt marsh harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys raviventris). These mice are listed as a federal- and state-endangered species due to habitat loss, but ESA’s biologists are hard at work to restore and preserve these areas. Enter Erika Walther. Read More »

Take a Deep Dive into the Sustainable Water Management Profile The Sustainable Water Management (SWM) Profile, has emerged following several years of work by the Water Foundation. ESA Vice President Betty Andrews, PE, is a member of the SWM Team, a collaborative effort to develop and pilot test the framework, and she provides further insight into this forward-thinking tool. Read More »

Hydro-Carving Approach a Success at Balm-Boyette Stallion Creek Restoration This restoration project seemed fairly straightforward at first blush: grade the pits, plant native species, and restore the freshwater wetland and upland communities back to the way they were before the area was mined. Then Tom reviewed a historic aerial of the site. “There was a creek there that was breached by the mining activities, which resulted in the creek being cut off from the natural flow patterns in the region,” Tom Ries explains. “As soon as I saw that, I thought, ‘well, we have to restore that creek.’” Read More »

Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR) On January 23, 2020 the EPA and Department of the Army finalized the “Navigable Waters Protection Rule” (NWPR) to define “waters of the United States” (WOTUS). The new rule finalizes a two-step process to replace the 2015 Clean Water Rule, which also re-defined WOTUS. ESA’s team of environmental permitting specialists are reviewing the NWPR to understand how it may affect our clients and their projects, including the potential jurisdictional status of various aquatic features. Read More »

Assessing the Impacts of Watershed-Scale Decision Making: The Santa Ana River Sustainability Assessment Pilot Read More »

Press Release: Environmental Science Associates Opens San Jose Office “For all of us, opening a new office during our 50th anniversary year is especially exciting—it’s a celebration of the firm’s important relationships with our South Bay clients, a continuation of our long-standing tradition of supporting the development of healthy, livable communities, and, of course, it supports our mission of providing value for our employee-owners,” said ESA President and CEO Leslie Moulton-Post. Read More »

Co-Equal Benefits of Habitat Protection and Water Supply Security The City of Buenaventura (commonly known as Ventura) relies completely on local water supplies and does not receive any imported water. When these supplies are cut back during droughts, it’s a dire situation. During the recent multi-year drought, each of the local supplies—groundwater, the Ventura River, and Lake Casitas—experienced cutbacks that threatened the need for substantial rationing in the city. It became evident that a new reliable, locally controlled water source was required to meet existing and future demands Read More »

Charting the Course for Water: Washington’s Hirst Decision Washington state may not be the first place one thinks of when considering water scarcity, but recent court decisions and legislation have put the issue front and center in the Evergreen State, particularly in Puget Sound watersheds. Read More »

SWM Upstream: How Sustainable Water Management Is Changing the Way We Think About Water No one can ignore the effects of climate change in California. From severe drought and widespread flooding, to historic and devastating wildfires, this new reality makes coordinated, inclusive water management more of a necessity than ever. Read More »

ESA Connects:
Integrated Water Resource Management The latest issue of ESA Connects is out, and it is overflowing with water news: an overview of the California Water Plan Update 2018 and Sustainable Water Management, a look at the City of Ventura’s new VenturaWaterPure project, the latest outcomes of Washington State’s Hirst Decision, and much more. Read More »

CEQA Water Supply Assessment Changes: Show Me the Water With the most recent CEQA updates that went into effect in 2019―the most comprehensive overhaul of the CEQA Guidelines in decades―water supply resiliency formally entered the Utilities section of CEQA Appendix G thresholds of significance for land use change/development projects. See what this means for your project. Read More »

Inside Look: ESA’s Fisheries Team Matthew Silva is a part of our Northern California Fisheries team consisting of 20 fisheries biologists. He oversees the implementation of large-scale fisheries research efforts as a field lead and project manager. We interviewed Matt to get an inside look on our fisheries team; here’s what we found out. Read More »

ESA Welcomes Mary Laux as Principal Planner in Northern California We are glad to welcome Mary Laux back to our Northern California team. Laux began her consulting career at ESA in 2001 with the airports group, and has spent the last 16 years with AECOM as an Associate Principal/Planner managing large, multidisciplinary projects. Read More »

Acoustic and Air Quality Specialist Dr. Tony Chung Joins Southern California Team Having completed thousands of noise and air quality studies, and as a certified member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering since 1991, Dr. Chung is recognized as one of the premier noise experts in the nation. He has also been involved in more than 100 greenhouse gas and climate change impact analyses. Read More »

California Supreme Court Rejects Challenges to EIR for Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project The California Supreme Court, in a late-August decision, denied challenges to the sufficiency of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR)/Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) prepared for California American Water Company’s (CalAm) long-awaited desalination plant, the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project (MPWSP). Read More »

Research Shows Nutrient Diet Improves Water Quality, Fishery Habitat Across the globe, coastal zone management efforts have concluded that restoring fish populations often requires acting on land-based human activities. With a few notable exceptions, most commercially and recreationally important species of fish, crabs, and shrimp spend at least a portion of their lives in estuarine locations, where waters from the open ocean mix with runoff from land. Read More »