Water Resources
Vital to life as well as every economic sector, water is our most valuable and yet ever-fragile resource. As populations grow and concerns regarding drought and climate variability continue to increase, ensuring the availability of safe and reliable water becomes an even greater challenge. The depletion of groundwater reserves and tightening regulation of pollutants in urban runoff and storm water, combined with aging infrastructure in an era of doing “more with less,” requires innovative and efficient solutions to serve our communities for years to come.
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HELIX Environmental Planning has extensive expertise and a proven track record helping water districts, municipal water departments, and other public agency and utility clients successfully navigate environmental compliance requirements for water resource, wastewater, and storm water projects. We have worked on hundreds of water infrastructure and management projects – many under long-term on-call contracts – including water storage/reservoirs, water and wastewater treatment plants, pump stations, pipelines, groundwater extraction/ replenishment, wells, outfall construction, canal lining, drainage infrastructure, and emergency repairs.
Proposition 1 & State Revolving Funds
Water district clients may be interested in seeking financing from the Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act (passed by Proposition 1 in November 2014) as well as the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) Program for their water infrastructure projects. Since the SRF Facility Program is partially funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), these projects require compliance not only with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), but also with federal regulations such as the Clean Air Act (CAA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) Section 106 as part of the SWRCB’s CEQA-Plus requirements. HELIX has prepared the air quality/greenhouse gas, biological resources, and cultural resources technical reports; IS/MND; and CEQA-Plus package for these applications as well as conducting Native American outreach per the requirements of Section 106 and the CEQA-Plus process.
STORM WATER MANAGEMENT
HELIX provides storm water compliance services as they relate to the Construction General Permit (CGP) including Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) development, Best Management Practices (BMP) monitoring, and discharge sampling and reporting. Our staff holds Qualified SWPPP Practitioner (QSP) and Certified Erosion, Sediment, and Storm Water Inspector (CESSWI) certifications and can assist with monitoring during construction as well as emergency response efforts.