Conservation of water resources continues to be a growing concern at every level, and the environmental quality can in many ways be tied to the quality of the water. Mission Environmental has deep experience related to water chemistry, toxicology, hydrology, and beneficial uses of finite water resources.

The need for an environmental forensics investigation is usually triggered by a discrete event such as a property transfer of contaminated land, spill to surface water (marine or freshwater), insurance, toxic tort, natural resource damages litigation, or the need to allocate cleanup costs among multiple parties. Increasingly, environmental forensics techniques are also being applied to conventional (i.e., non-litigated) projects due to the power to provide insight and better decision-making.

Natural Resource Monitoring and Assessment requires a deep understanding of how physical and biological factors interact. Whether planning to minimize impacts or assessing post-action effects, robust conceptual models are the basis for designing rigorous monitoring protocols which deliver defensible data.

While routine environmental characterization methods target the presence of contaminants at the time of sampling, fingerprinting techniques provide historical information related to contaminant age, sources, emission pathways, and fate and transport in the environment. In other words, routine methods help answer the question: “Where are the contaminants now?”, while fingerprinting methods help answer the questions: “Where did the contaminants originate from, when have they been released and how did they got where they are now?”

Mission Environmental has well over 20 years of collective experience conducting sediment, water quality, and natural resource evaluations in bay environments. Our expertise relies upon our knowledge of compromised sites or resources, and how best to evaluate ecological risk, the magnitude of degradation, and restoration alternatives.

Mission Environmental staff are adept at recognizing natural resource values as well as the constraints they present for project proponents. Whether surveying for habitats or special status species, we can help with optimizing projects, documenting regulatory compliance, or negotiating the permitting process.

Project permitting requires an understanding of applicable regulations, a sense of how regulators will react, and considerations related to project timelines. Mission Environmental has negotiated project permits with multiple agencies including the US Army Corps of Engineers, EPA, Regional Water Boards, and other State resource Agencies.

Our understanding of the permitting process provides us with focus when it comes to achieving compliance effectively and efficiently.

Coastal Resources play a vital role supporting marine natural resources, recreation, and are a collective resource for climate change planning. Mission Environmental has an extensive history of evaluating open coast, marine, bay, and harbor environments.