With expertise in permitting compliance, groundwater hydrology and soil science, GLA supports the agricultural community in developing sustainable water supplies, conjunctively managing surface water and groundwater, adapting to climate change, and interacting with regulatory agencies.
Services include:
- Hydrologic analyses
- Nitrate and selenium treatment
- Permitting and regulatory compliance
- Water quality investigations and treatment
- Water recycling and reuse
- Water resources planning
- Water rights
- Water supply development
Hydrologic Analyses
A solid, scientific understanding of available water resources and their hydrologic framework is essential for informed decision-making. GLA’s professionals routinely provide clients with quantitative hydrologic analyses of groundwater and surface water systems to ensure optimum and energy-efficient use of limited water resources.
Studies we perform include:
- Water balance modeling
- Salt and nutrient management planning
- Irrigation return flow evaluation
- Water chemistry and water quality analyses
- Leaching studies
- Water blending
- Vadose zone modeling
- Watershed runoff hydrology and pollutant load modeling
- Groundwater and surface water modeling
- Recharge and infiltration studies
- Seepage studies
- Statistical analyses
Nitrate and Selenium Treatment
GLA’s extensive experience with trace inorganic treatment extends to the biological removal of nitrate and selenium. Both compounds are utilized by similar anaerobic bacteria as an end electron acceptor. This means that the anaerobic bacteria use nitrate and selenate in a similar way that we use oxygen. In a very simple treatment process, nitrate and selenate can be removed using a relatively new technology called anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR). GLA’s staff members pioneered the AnMBR process for nitrate and selenite removal and recently applied it in a power plant application.
Permitting and Regulatory Compliance
GLA staff help you navigate through the many steps in obtaining and maintaining compliance for your agricultural operation. Our hydrologists assist clients in navigating regulations and providing environmental impact report support for compliance with state and federal programs. Our experience includes development and implementation of soil, vadose zone, stormwater, and groundwater monitoring programs to achieve compliance with regulatory requirements while optimizing agricultural methods. Our staff members perform all aspects of air, water, and waste permitting and are well-versed in performing the audits, inventories, and impact analysis of salt and nutrient leaching, groundwater mixing models, groundwater flow, and transport models.
Water Quality Investigations and Treatment
GLA investigates chemicals in water supplies have the potential to negatively impact water quality, including pesticides and fertilizers. We have the expertise to evaluate the presence, source, transport, and optimal methods for treatment of chemicals impacting water resources to meet appropriate regulatory standards.
Key services include:
- Water quality sampling, monitoring, and evaluation
- Drinking water source assessment and protection studies
- Contaminants of emerging concern studies
- Forensic geochemistry and contaminant source assessment
- Hydrochemical modeling
- Fate and transport analysis
- Bench- and pilot-scale testing
- Total maximum daily load studies
- Surface water and stormwater sampling and monitoring
- Salt and nutrient loading evaluations
Water Recycling and Reuse
Water can be recycled by reusing treated wastewater for beneficial uses, such as scheduled irrigation. GLA is familiar with state recycled water policies and offers proven strategies and the resources necessary to successfully overcome regulatory hurdles.
Water Resources Planning
GLA assists farmers and ranchers, state and local governments, water agencies, and private water companies in making the best use of available water resources. Our scientists develop state, regional, and local water plans and programs to enhance water supply, quality, and sustainability. We write critical hydrologic analyses that support the environmental impact report process and permitting for complex development and water use projects, including water supply assessments and water rights analyses to secure sustainable water supplies. We also conduct public involvement and stakeholder participation processes.
Water Rights
GLA regularly provides clients with technical hydrologic analyses and expert testimony for water rights applications, transfers, and disputes. Technical analyses may include development of groundwater flow or solute transport models; identification or evaluation of the potential water resources and water rights available to support new or existing needs; hydrogeologic analyses to establish well yields, water quality, and operational sustainable yield of groundwater basins; and negotiation for purchase, lease, or transfer of water rights. Our staff have expertise working within the frameworks of state adjudication and administrative processes, interstate water compacts, pueblo and tribal water rights, and other operational protocols under which water rights are administered.
Water Supply Development
Combining practical scientific knowledge with standard engineering principles, GLA provides water supply development assistance to the agriculture industry with water well siting, design, and construction services. We assist our client by optimizing the design of water supply wells and other supply infrastructure, obtaining permits, supporting funding acquisition, and providing the hydrologic technical support needed to acquire and manage water rights.
From shallow, small-capacity wells to deep, high-capacity well fields, our key services in water supply development include:
- Geophysical logging oversight and analysis
- Exploratory drilling and hydrogeologic characterization
- Aquifer testing
- Identification of production zones
- Municipal well and well field design and development
- Permitting
- Construction oversight
- Water rights analysis and acquisition
- Conjunctive use studies
- Water quality sampling, evaluation, and prediction