Geologist's Relations with State Agencies
Peter H. Dohms, CPG-7141
Editor’s Note: This article was prepared and should have appeared in the 2024 Student Edition (Apr/May/Jun). Due to an error on my part, this article was accidentally overlooked in the publication schedule, and was not published when it should have been; thus, it appears in this issue. My apologies to the author for this omission.
During the course of your career, it is likely that sooner or later
you will need to deal with state-level regulatory agencies. The purpose of this paper is to acquaint the young professional with such necessary relationships. This effort is deliberately limited to state-level agencies; many of the actions outlined will have equal applicability to local government regulatory entities (city, county, regional). Relationships with Federal-level agencies are, again, deliberately omitted, though one observation is near the conclusion of this paper.
The presumptions governing this discussion include the following:
• Most of the anecdotes and “war stories” noted discuss relations with “staff-level” agency representatives;
• You will be appearing on behalf of your employer or your client;
• Examples in this paper relate to environmental permits and/ or environmental compliance;
• Examples provided are derived principally from solid waste management projects;
• Technical war stories are simplified to eliminate unnecessary detail; and,
• Names and locations are disguised to protect the innocent and the guilty.
The first “tip” I can provide is that you must be courteous and
professional at all times, even in the face of provocation or overt hostility. Winston Churchill is quoted as saying, “A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.” You need to be diplomatic. If you have an appointment, keep it. If you can’t take the call, return it. If you receive an email or text message, respond quickly and with tact.
Secondly, and this is of paramount importance, you have to be
the best scientist in the room. An example: In the latter years of my career, I was working on groundwater
discharges from solid waste facilities situated in environments underlain by unconsolidated sediments with low buffering capacity. It was the case that several of the facilities had elevated iron concentrations in groundwater down gradient from a facility. This particular state agency was applying the “Secondary Drinking Water Standard” (SDWS) for iron as an enforceable numeric standard, and
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was pressing the facility owners for corrective action. The SDWS for iron was 0.3 mg/l at the time (30 ppm). During the course of quarterly groundwater monitoring at a number of facilities, I began to notice that the wells with low dissolved oxygen concentrations always seemed to be the wells with elevated iron concentrations. I worked with the analytical lab and their field sampling technicians to add “Eh” (oxidation / reduction potential) to the field testing and “bingo.” It turned out that with each one volt decrease in Eh, the iron concentration would increase by an order of magnitude. Iron, naturally present in the unconsolidated sediments as an oxide (principally limonite, with iron at a valance of +3 [ferric, “red” iron]), was being reduced to a valence of +2 (water-soluble ferrous, “green” iron, mobile in groundwater). I was further able to demonstrate that several factors, other than the presence of a solid waste management facility, could trigger this process. One example is the presence of an impermeable landfill liner (which interrupts the passage of oxygenated rainfall to the water table). Another was a large, asphalt parking lot. I also found that the presence of a column of construction and demolition debris would also impede the recharge of oxygenated rainwater, triggering the decrease of Eh in the aquifer and mobilizing the iron. The agency was very resistant to this reasoning until their own, highly paid academic consulting research geologist came to the same conclusions.
Another recommendation, especially when dealing with agencies
about sites with a significant record of monitoring. Pay careful attention to the historic findings of the monitoring and be on the lookout for trends. Be prepared for cases with positive or negative trends in the data from you clients’ or employer’s facilities. If you are fortunate enough to have a long-term assignment at a facility with monitoring, become the “institutional memory” for the site – that role makes you more valuable to the site owner.
Another extremely important recommendation. You must know
the regulations that the agency is using to govern your site. You must know them at least as well as do the agency representatives with whom you work, or even better. This can require quite a bit of study and a significant amount of experience. Here’s one brief example, harking back to the situation with the iron in groundwater. I recall one meeting with an agency geologist who tried to pull a fast one. He quoted some recent research which, on its face, seemed to indicate that iron in concentrations well below the SDWS could have an adverse human health impact (this, for an essential human nutrient). I lost patience and demanded that if that was indeed the case, the matter should be raised with the State Commission that
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