Stratus Consulting

Josh Lipton
Chief Executive Officer and President

PhD, MS natural resources, BA ecology

Environmental toxicology, applied ecology, NRDA

Joshua Lipton supervises the firm’s environmental sciences and natural resources group, as well as its natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) work area. Dr. Lipton is an environmental toxicologist with expertise in aquatic and terrestrial toxicology, applied ecology and population biology, and uncertainty analysis.

His recent toxicological research activities include investigations into the bioavailability of metals to fish and plants, sublethal and behavioral responses of organisms to hazardous substances, effects of acclimation and adaptation on sensitivity to metals, community/ecological responses to chronic contamination, lethal and sublethal effects of petroleum hydrocarbons on marine organisms and communities, and reproductive, sub-lethal, and behavioral effects of chlorinated organics. He also directs field studies on fish and wildlife populations, field studies of aquatic and terrestrial habitat and community composition, and extensive environmental sampling and monitoring programs.

Dr. Lipton has published peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals such as the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Ecotoxicology, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, Environmental Management, and Aquatic Toxicology. Dr. Lipton is an elected member of the editorial board of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Dr. Lipton holds a PhD in natural resources/environmental toxicology and an MS in natural resources from Cornell University, and a BA in ecology from Middlebury College.

Bob Rowe
Chairman of the Board

PhD economics, BS computer science

Resource and environmental economics, benefit valuation and survey methods, risk assessment

Robert D. Rowe specializes in environmental and natural resource economics, econometrics, risk assessment, and survey research. He is a nationally recognized expert on the measurement and valuation of health and welfare effects of environmental pollutants. Dr. Rowe has served as the lead economist on some of the most prominent natural resource damage assessments conducted in the United States under CERCLA statutes. Dr. Rowe also served as the project manager for the New York State Electricity Externalities Study and the recent transportation externality studies. He has designed numerous stated preference surveys concerning a wide range of health and welfare effects of pollution. The author of three books, Dr. Rowe has also published more than two dozen articles in leading peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Land Economics, International Economic Review, and Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association. Dr. Rowe has served as a consultant member of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, and as a board member of the Association of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists. Formerly, Dr. Rowe was an economics faculty member at the University of Wyoming and Denver University.

Douglas Beltman
Executive Vice President

MS land resources, BS chemistry

Ecological risk assessment, NRDA, environmental chemistry, toxicology, ecology

Douglas Beltman has over 15 years of experience in ecological risk assessment, environmental chemistry, toxicology, and ecology. He has managed and conducted ecological assessment and restoration activities at sites in Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and California. Mr. Beltman’s experience includes all aspects of designing and conducting environmental investigations on surface waters, sediments, soil, and aquatic and terrestrial biota; project management; and the integration of NRDA and ecological risk assessment. His experience includes field and laboratory study design, directing and conducting field work, preparation of quality assurance project plans, working with analytical laboratories, and data analysis. Formerly, Mr. Beltman was an ecologist with the U.S. EPA where he was responsible for directing ecological risk assessments in the Superfund program. He has helped develop national guidance on conducting ecological assessments, sediment toxicity evaluation protocols, training courses on conducting ecological risk assessments, and ecological screening criteria for Superfund sites. Mr. Beltman holds a BS in chemistry from the University of Rochester and an MS in land resources from the University of Wisconsin. He has provided oral testimony in deposition and has prepared written testimony for trial.

Chuck Herrick
Executive Vice President

PhD public policy, MA political theory, BA political science

Environmental policy analysis, program management and evaluation, information management

Charles N. Herrick has more than 17 years of experience in environmental information policies and applications, environmental program management and evaluation, applied environmental policy analysis, and science/policy assessment in an environmental context. Before joining the firm, he was vice president of Princeton Economic Research, associate director of the Council on Environmental Quality, and assistant director of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program. He has published articles in journals such as Global Environmental Change, Issues in Science and Technology, and Science, Technology, and Human Values. Most recently, he contributed two invited essays to a book from Island Press titled Prediction: Science, Decision Making, and the Future of Nature. He also serves as a peer reviewer on several NAS and USGCRP panels.

Bob Raucher
Executive Vice President

PhD natural resource economics and public finance, MS econometrics, BA economics and anthropology

Environmental economics, water resource economics, policy analysis, benefit-cost analysis, risk management, security and response

Dr. Robert Raucher, a founding partner and executive vice president at Stratus Consulting, specializes in economics, risk management, strategic planning, and regulatory policy analysis related to water utilities, water resources, and environmental quality. He is a noted expert on water resources management, benefit-cost analysis and water-related valuation issues, regulatory policy, and climate change-related vulnerability assessment and adaptation strategies for water resource management. Dr. Raucher has been involved in desalination and water reuse planning and implementation issues, and is actively engaged in research assessing reliability values associated with water supply portfolio diversification through desal and other “new” water options that offer drought-resistant yields. Dr. Raucher is an active member of the water supply and wastewater community, serving on numerous expert panels and committees, including three workgroups for the National Drinking Water Advisory Council. He is a member of the WateReuse Foundation’s Research Advisory Committee.

David Allen
Vice President

MS natural resources, BS zoology

Wildlife biology, regulatory analysis, NRDA, water quality standards development, ecological restoration

P. David Allen II is a wildlife biologist with expertise in natural resource damage assessment (NRDA), regulatory analysis, field studies, and zoology. He has conducted all phases of NRDAs, including preassessment, assessment planning, assessment, negotiation, litigation, restoration, and public outreach, working closely with natural scientists, economists, attorneys, and managers. His work has included field studies with white-tailed deer, tree swallows, spotted sandpipers, belted kingfishers, double-crested cormorants, bald eagles, waterfowl, smallmouth bass, yellow perch, and brown bullhead, and he has directed work on pathway, injury, economics, and restoration. Mr. Allen has also conducted regulatory analyses for federal and state agencies, both as an employee and as a consultant. He has published his work as formal determinations of the U.S. Department of the Interior, as well as in peer-reviewed publications, including as book chapters and in journals such as Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, Fisheries, and Southwest Hydrology. Mr. Allen holds an MS in natural resources and a BS in zoology from The Ohio State University at Columbus, is a Certified Wildlife Biologist with The Wildlife Society, and is Stratus Consulting’s designated representative as a Contributing Member of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

Joel Smith
Vice President

MPP, BA political science

Environmental policy analysis, global climate change, decision analysis

Joel B. Smith has been analyzing climate change impacts and adaptation issues for over 20 years. He was a coordinating lead author for the synthesis chapter on climate change impacts for the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a lead author for the U.S. National Assessment on climate change impacts, technical coordinator on vulnerability and adaptation for the U.S. Country Studies Program, and is coordinator of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change series on environment. He has provided technical advice, guidance, and training on assessing climate change impacts and adaptation to people around the world and for clients such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the State of California. Mr. Smith worked for the U.S. EPA from 1984 to 1992, where he was the deputy director of Climate Change Division. He is a coeditor of EPA’s Report to Congress: The Potential Effects of Global Climate Change on the United States, published in 1989; As Climate Changes: International Impacts and Implications, published by Cambridge University Press in 1995; Adaptation to Climate Change: Assessments and Issues, published by Springer-Verlag in 1996; and Climate Change, Adaptive Capacity, and Development, published in 2003 by Imperial College Press. He joined Hagler Bailly in 1992 and Stratus Consulting in 1998. He has published more than 20 articles and chapters on climate change impacts and adaptation in peer-reviewed journals and books. Besides working on climate change issues at EPA, he also was a special assistant to the assistant administrator for the Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation. Mr. Smith was a presidential management intern in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1982 to 1984. He has also worked in the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

David Chapman
Principal

MS natural resource economics, BA economics

Environmental and resource economics, survey research, OPA and CERCLA damage assessment

David Chapman is a natural resource economist with over 20 years of experience in natural resource damage assessment (NRDA), environmental valuation, and policy analysis. At Stratus Consulting, Mr. Chapman leads natural resource valuation and NRDA projects for both state and federal clients. He is currently leading resource valuation projects to determine the value of protecting coral reefs, right whales, and improved weather forecasts. Mr. Chapman has worked on the conceptual and empirical estimates of the value of water for the American Water Works Research Foundation. Before joining Stratus Consulting, he was a senior economist for the NOAA Damage Assessment Center in Silver Springs, Maryland, where he had been actively involved in both economic and natural science studies for many NRDAs and restoration planning activities undertaken by NOAA throughout the United States. Mr. Chapman provided management and direction on NRDA projects related to oil spills, mine sites, contaminated industrial waterways, and vessel groundings. He participated in the development of the habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) technique for scaling restoration, was intimately involved in the development and review of travel cost, conjoint, and contingent valuation studies and technique development. His other economics experience includes providing economic analysis related to industrial and commercial sector water conservation practices, estimating ecosystem values, measuring economic impacts of development activities, developing fair market valuations of fiber optic cable rights-of-way through National Marine Sanctuaries, estimating economic impacts of coastal oil and gas development, and participating in numerous recreational fishing use assessments. Mr. Chapman was a testifying expert in the American Trader oil spill case and has been a regularly invited speaker for agencies and at conferences on issues related to NRDA, natural resource economics, non-market and recreational use valuation, oil spill response, restoration scaling, and integration of restoration planning into the NRDA process, and has taught courses in non-market valuation, HEA, and cooperative NRDA assessments. He holds a BA in economics from the University of California at Irvine, and an MS in natural resource economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Nimmi Damodaran
Principal

PhD public policy, Bachelor of Commerce

Environmental policy analysis, benefit-cost analysis, decision analysis

Nimmi Damodaran has over 15 years of experience in quantitative and qualitative analysis focusing primarily on environmental and economic issues. Her current research interests are the phaseout of ozone depleting substances, the assessment of economically and technically feasible alternatives to ozone depleting substances, the estimation of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) emissions at the local and national levels, ensuring the quality of environmental information, and assisting in the development of processes that incorporate external costs into decision-making on drinking water infrastructure. Her methodological expertise covers economic, statistical, and decision analyses. Dr. Damodaran’s current clients include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the American Water Works Association Research Foundation. Before joining Stratus Consulting, Dr. Damodaran was a project manager at Princeton Energy Resources International, a senior energy and environmental analyst at DynCorp I&ET, and a lecturer at Cornell University where she taught economics and statistics. She has presented talks at international conferences on solid waste and methane emissions and published articles in journals such as Management Science, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, and Energy Systems and Policy.

David Cacela
Managing Scientist

MA statistics, MS fishery science, BS wildlife and fishery biology

Applied statistics, statistical modeling techniques, fisheries science, experimental design

David Cacela is a statistician with expertise in applied statistics and computing. He has over 12 years of experience as a consulting statistician, providing statistical analysis of data in various fields including ecology, sociology, and economics. His specific training includes linear modeling, multivariate analysis, experimental design, statistical computing, and geographic information systems. Mr. Cacela was qualified as an expert witness by a Colorado State Water Court and has provided expert testimony regarding statistical interpretation of scientific data. He has six years of experience teaching university-level courses on investigative biology, introductory statistics, and computing. Mr. Cacela has four years of laboratory and field experience in aquatic ecology and fisheries science, including a study of the population dynamics of a major sport fishery in Oneida Lake, New York. He served NMFS as a fisheries observer aboard foreign vessels operating in the Bering Sea, and while employed by USFWS, he assisted with laboratory and field work for a study on the impact of agricultural runoff on fish populations in the San Joaquin River in California. Mr. Cacela’s practical experience in regulatory frameworks includes data analysis and experimental designs for numerous NRDAs relating to the ecological effects of hazardous substance releases, and contributions to various studies involving ecotoxicology and environmental risk assessment. He has presented research at professional conferences and has coauthored articles published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Aquatic Toxicology, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science, Environmental Management, and two book chapters on ecological risk assessment. Mr. Cacela holds an MA in statistics from the University of California, Berkeley, an MS in fishery science from Cornell University, and a BS in wildlife and fisheries biology from the University of California, Davis.

Laurie Chestnut
Managing Economist

MA economics, BA economics

Resource and environmental economics, benefit estimation techniques, applied econometrics

Lauraine G. Chestnut specializes in environmental and natural resource economics, risk assessment and survey research, focusing on the economic valuation of human health, visibility, and other welfare effects of environmental pollutants. She has designed contingent valuation surveys concerning visibility at national parks and environmental risks to human health. She has reviewed the economics literature concerning the value of reducing risks to human health, and has conducted an epidemiological study concerning the effects of ambient air quality on respiratory health. She has synthesized the epidemiological literature concerning the human health effects of air pollutants and applied this information in numerous risk assessments. Ms. Chestnut has published three books as well as several articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Land Economics, Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Archives of Environmental Health, and Journal of Forensic Economics. Ms. Chestnut was recently appointed to a two-year term on EPA’s Science Advisory Board’s Advisory Council on Clean Air Compliance Analysis. She was also elected to the Board of Directors of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. She has an MA in economics from the University of Colorado and a BA in economics (Phi Beta Kappa) from Earlham College.

John Cromwell
Managing Economist

Master of Policy Science, BS biology, BS economics

Environmental economics, water utility competitiveness, reliability, benefit-cost analysis, resource planning, risk management

John E. Cromwell III, a managing economist in our Washington, DC office, has 30 years of experience specializing in the water utility sector. He has analyzed costs and benefits of regulations governing water quality, infrastructure rehabilitation and replacement, water resources development, water pricing practices, and utility financial planning. He has been centrally involved in national policy issues affecting the water industry as an advisor to Congress, federal agencies, state regulators, and industry associations. Mr. Cromwell has directed extensive analyses of the impacts of regulations. He has appeared before the California Public Utilities Commission as an independent expert witness, testifying on SDWA compliance. Mr. Cromwell is a leading national expert on issues of water sector infrastructure and related risks, service reliability values, renewal needs, and costs. He has directed national-level benefit-cost analyses and has directed and participated in a number of research projects sponsored by AWWA, AwwaRF, WERF, and WRF.

Leland Deck
Managing Economist

PhD economics, MA economics, BS geology

Benefit-cost analysis and risk assessment of air pollution policies, design and implementation of effective economic incentive programs for controlling air pollution

Leland Deck is an internationally recognized expert in benefit-cost analysis and risk assessment of air pollution policies. His expertise includes quantifying the benefits of improvements to air quality in medical, physical and economic terms, and designing and implementing effective economic incentive programs for controlling air pollution. He has conducted detailed economic benefits analyses for a wide variety of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air regulations and has assisted the agency in developing technical guidance on air pollution economic incentive programs. In addition to his work with the EPA, Dr. Deck has prepared air pollution analyses for a wide range of organizations including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the California Air Resources Board, the Federal Highway Administration, the Southern Appalachian Mountain Initiative, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Clean Air Task Force, the Environmental Integrity Project, and the national environmental ministries of Canada, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Before joining Stratus Consulting, Dr. Deck was a vice president and Fellow with Abt Associates and a senior economist with the EPA.

Eric English

MA public administration, MA economics, BA classics

Environmental and resource economics, survey research, habitat and resource equivalency methods

Mr. Eric English joins our Boulder, CO office as a Managing Economist. Mr. English is a natural resource economist with specific expertise in resource valuation and natural resource damage assessment (NRDA). Mr. English has conducted numerous economic valuation studies involving damages associated with oil spills and chemical releases, services provided by habitat restoration to both humans and the natural environment, value derived from the recreational use of natural resources, and the fair market value of commercial use of marine resources. For the past eight years, Mr. English has worked as an economist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Office of Response and Restoration. In that role, he assessed natural resource damages due to pollution incidents in marine environments using mail and intercept surveys, discrete-choice models of recreational use, benefit-transfer methods and habitat equivalency analysis; presented analytical findings to state, federal and tribal trustees, industry representatives and at professional conferences; organized and directed technical research efforts; negotiated natural resource damage settlements with responsible parties; developed and published new economic valuation models; and served as U.S. delegate to the International Maritime Organization to draft damage assessment guidance for member nations. Prior to joining NOAA, Mr. English worked as an economist with KPMG, a consulting firm located in New York City. Mr. English is currently completing a book on habitat and resource equivalency methods for the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and has published his economic research in technical reports and peer-reviewed articles.

Mr. English holds a BA in classics from Williams College, an MA in Public Administration from Cornell University, and an MA in economics from Cornell University. Mr. English is currently working towards completing his PhD in economics from Cornell University.

James Holmes
Senior Scientist

MS earth sciences BA environmental biology

Hydrology, hydrogeology, hydrochemistry, contaminant fate and transport, hard rock mining effects on water quality, site restoration, natural resource damage assessment

Jamie Holmes, managing scientist, is a hydrologist with several years of experience in natural resource damage assessment (NRDA), contaminant fate and transport, acid mine drainage, and water quality modeling. He has extensive field experience in flow measurement and water quality sampling. His NRDA experience includes pre-assessment screens, assessment plans, preliminary evaluations of injuries and damages, injury quantifications, habitat equivalency analyses (HEA), and resource equivalency analyses (REA). In the past 16 years, Mr. Holmes has worked on the assessment and restoration of many sites, including mine sites in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Vermont; organochlorine manufacture and disposal sites in Colorado and Michigan; and oil refineries in Illinois and New Jersey. Mr. Holmes holds an MS in earth sciences from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and a BA in environmental biology from Middlebury College in Vermont.

Russ Jones
Managing Analyst

MA physical geography, BA geography, BA philosophy (geology minor)

Geographic information systems, remote sensing, cartography

Russell W. Jones is a specialist in geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing (RS), and cartography. He has over 13 years of experience as a GIS/RS consultant, providing extensive mapping, analysis, and modeling support in the ecology, sociology, economics, climate change, and energy fields. Mr. Jones has worked on a wide variety of projects including several studies modeling impacts to the environment from global climate change, sea level rise, and human responses to sea level rise; modeling stream flow across mine-impacted watersheds; integrating GIS with economic and environmental valuation models; providing extensive GIS/RS support for NRDAs and environmental risk assessments relating to the release of hazardous substances; quantifying point, mobile, and land use-induced sources of air pollutants for incorporation into regional air quality models; and preparing exhibits for litigation. He has also worked on several large-scale, multidisciplinary projects and was one of the key GIS analysts on the Congressionally mandated Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP), which examined the ecological state of the Sierra Nevada range in California. Mr. Jones has published his work in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of the American Water Resources Association and Waterbirds.

Diana Lane
Managing Scientist

PhD ecology, MS rangeland ecosystem science, BA biology

Terrestrial ecology, nutrient cycling, restoration planning

Diana Lane is a restoration ecologist who specializes in the relationship between soil chemical and physical attributes, nutrient cycling, and plant productivity and community structure. She is experienced in using habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) to quantify injury and scale restoration at a variety of damage assessment sites. She also is experienced in managing and directing all aspects of the restoration planning process. Her work on restoration planning projects includes identifying, screening, selecting, and designing ecological restoration alternatives. Her published research has looked at the functional consequences of restoration on soil nutrients and soil heterogeneity at sites that have been restored from two to 25 years.

Ann Maest
Managing Scientist

PhD geochemistry and water resources, MA geochemistry and sedimentology, BA geology

Fate and transport of contaminants in natural waters, surface water and groundwater geochemistry, hazardous and solid waste disposal

Ann S. Maest is an aqueous geochemist with expertise in the fate and transport of natural and anthropogenic contaminants in groundwaters, surface waters, and sediments. The results of Dr. Maest’s research have been published in books and in peer-reviewed journals, including Applied Geochemistry, Chemical Geology, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and Environmental Science and Technology. Formerly, Dr. Maest was an independent environmental consultant specializing in water quality impacts of hard rock mining, transport of toxics in groundwater and surface waters, and drinking water quality. As a senior scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, Dr. Maest was responsible for designing technical and policy approaches to minimizing releases of toxic substances from mining and manufacturing facilities. She was a research geochemist in the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Research Program where she conducted research on metal-organic interactions, metal and metalloid speciation, and redox geochemistry at a variety of surface water and groundwater sites around the country.

Joanna Pratt
Managing Policy Analyst

MA city and regional planning, BA anthropology

Environmental information; public policy analysis; web site usability assessments; market, economic, and regulatory impact analysis; cost-benefit analysis; and program evaluation, survey development, management

Joanna Pratt has over 12 years of experience in environmental information policy and management, regulatory impact analysis, environmental planning, survey development, benefit-cost analysis, program evaluation, and market analysis of the chemical industry. She currently provides support to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Information to develop and assess approaches for providing public access to environmental information. This includes conducting in-depth assessments of the usability of environmental web sites based on expert review, and local and regional level focus group analysis. Before joining Stratus Consulting, Ms. Pratt held positions at PERI Environmental Associates, A.T. Kearney Inc., and Centaur Associates, all in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. She managed and conducted projects relating to environmental information management, toxic substances, occupational health standards, energy conservation, and economic development for a variety of federal agencies, including the EPA, the Department of Energy, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Economic Development Administration.

Liz Strange
Managing Scientist

PhD, MS ecology, BA biology

Marine and freshwater ecology, human impacts on aquatic ecosystems, ecological modeling, ecological risk assessment

Elizabeth M. Strange is an aquatic ecologist with over 15 years of experience in the assessment of environmental impacts to aquatic resources. She has developed and characterized ecological endpoints to assess natural resource injuries, evaluate the benefits of proposed regulations, compare restoration options, and predict the potential effects of climate change and other global stressors on aquatic ecosystem services. Her work has included analysis and modeling of fisheries, water quality, and other environmental data for regulatory and policy analysis, environmental impact analysis, and applied research. Dr. Strange works closely with natural resource economists to develop methods for integrating environmental assessments and economic benefits estimation. Before joining Stratus Consulting, Dr. Strange worked for several years as a staff research associate for marine resource specialists with the California Sea Grant Extension Program. She has published results of her research in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including Environmental Management, Ecological Economics, Fisheries, Environmental Biology of Fishes, and Marine Fisheries Review.

Connie Travers
Managing Scientist

MS applied hydrogeology, BS geology

Hydrogeology, groundwater contaminant fate and transport, hydrological modeling

Constance Travers is a hydrogeologist with 17 years of experience in hydrogeology, water resources, and environmental chemistry. She has extensive experience in the development, testing, and application of numerical models used in predicting the mobility of water and inorganic and organic contaminants in the subsurface, as well as in surface water. Ms. Travers has developed vadose zone, surface water, and groundwater models ranging in complexity from conceptual hydrologic models to 3-dimensional numerical models of regional flow systems. Her expertise in groundwater flow, contaminant chemistry, and transport and fate processes has been used extensively by litigation teams involved in environmental lawsuits. At sites throughout the United States, Ms. Travers has worked on subsurface fate and transport issues to support site characterization, remedial investigations, and feasibility studies. She has assessed the mobility of free-phase petroleum and dissolved petrochemical constituents at sites in Washington, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Colorado, Texas, and Nevada. At sites in Oregon and Florida, she has evaluated the migration and fate of pesticides in soils and groundwater as part of the assessment and selection of remedial alternatives. Ms. Travers has directed multidisciplinary teams to assess the water quality impacts of mining operations, including assessment of the water quality and ecological risks associated with the lakes that form in dewatered open pits, the effects of tailings impoundments and waste rock storage facilities on receiving waters, and the impact of mine dewatering on groundwater and surface water resources. She has managed hydrologic field investigations including sampling of surface water, sediments, and groundwater; monitoring well installation; cone-penetrometer; and Geoprobe work.

Karen Carney

PhD geological and environmental science, BS biology

Terrestrial ecology, global climate change analysis, conservation biology, wildlife ecology

Dr. Carney is a terrestrial ecologist with expertise in global climate change analysis. Her research over the past decade has included using long-term experiments to examine how ecosystems respond to changes in the earth’s atmosphere. For example, as a postdoctoral fellow with the Smithsonian Institution, she performed experiments demonstrating for the first time that elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide causes soils to lose carbon over time by enhancing microbial degradation of soil carbon. Dr. Carney has also performed research to evaluate how land use and plant diversity in the tropics affects the amount of carbon stored by ecosystems, a factor that is critical to predicting and mitigating the contributions of land use to climate change. Dr. Carney’s expertise in terrestrial ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife ecology includes research into the influence of tourism on the reproductive success of seabirds, field research documenting the effects of climate change on breeding penguins and other seabirds across the Antarctic Peninsula, developing a geographical information system-based assessment of the conservation status and priority ranking of North American ecosystems, and field research into the conservation, behavior, and reproductive success of passerines and seabirds in coastal California and the wet tropical forests of Costa Rica. In addition to her academic research, Dr. Carney has been involved in policy analysis related to climate change issues through a AAAS Diplomacy Fellowship at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). At USAID, Dr. Carney was involved in projects related to biodiversity and forestry conservation in developing countries and provided technical consultation with USAID programs around the world. Dr. Carney worked with the USAID Climate Change Team on slowing deforestation in developing countries, developed strategic documents for USAID related to biodiversity and forestry issues, participated in review panels for biodiversity and climate change proposals, and served as a USAID reviewer of reports prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Dr. Carney has published the results of her scholarly research in such peer-reviewed outlets as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ecosystems, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Ecology Letters, Colonial Waterbirds, Ecography, and Microbial Ecology.

Jim Henderson
Senior Economist

MS agricultural and resource economics, BA economics

Water resource management, emission control modeling, environmental economics, water conservation analysis

James Henderson is a natural resource economist with experience in emissions control modeling and water resource management. He constructs models that combine economic and environmental aspects of environmental policy and regulation. Mr. Henderson is managing the development of a model of control of carbon dioxide emissions from the global airline industry, and has constructed a model of emission control and permit trading in response to potential future multipollutant regulation in the electric utility sector. He has managed research teams investigating greenhouse gas mitigation opportunities in forestry and agriculture for EPA, and has conducted research into transaction costs related to carbon sequestration projects. Mr. Henderson is developing a financial planning module for development of a decision support system for water supply planning. This module will allow water utilities to evaluate the long-range financial impacts of alternative water supply planning scenarios. Mr. Henderson has assessed benefits of regulation to reduce impingement and entrainment of aquatic organisms in cooling water intake structures for power plants under section 316b of the Clean Water Act. He also has conducted research into water demand modeling, water customer response to changes in water quality, and water management under drought conditions.

Brian Lazar

MS environmental/water resource engineering, BS environmental science

Hydrology, hydrogeology, snowpack modeling, climate change impact assessment, glaciology, contaminant fate and transport

Brian Lazar specializes in the characterization and mechanics of integrated and multi-phase hydrologic systems. His work is concentrated in the areas of surface and groundwater hydrology, snowpack modeling, glaciology, and contaminant fate and transport. He has extensive field experience collecting and analyzing snowpack and glacier data, and has developed, tested, and applied snowpack and hydrologic models for use in assessing potential impacts of climate change at sites in Colorado, Utah, Vermont, and Oregon. His glaciology work includes characterizing integrated ice-snow-water hydrologic systems in Alaska, and climate change impact assessments for sites in Asia. Mr. Lazar provides scientific litigation support, and has several years experience assessing the migration and fate of free-phase petroleum and the dissolved chemical constituents. The results of his research have been presented at the American Geophysical Union Hydrology Days, the International Snow Science Workshop, the Western Snow Conference, and in conference proceedings and peer-reviewed journals including Geophysical Research Letters and Cold Regions Science and Technology. Mr. Lazar holds a MS in Environmental/Water Research Engineering and a BS in Environmental Science, both from the University of Colorado.

Dave Mills
Senior Analyst

MA economics, BA economics

Environmental and resource economics, policy analysis, epidemiology, natural resource restoration

David Mills is an environmental economist with expertise in quantifying and valuing human health and welfare impacts. He has reviewed and synthesized available epidemiological and economic valuations of air pollution-related health impacts, and has contributed to the development of cumulative uncertainty models for the United States and Canada that are used to conduct benefits analyses of air pollution control scenarios. Mr. Mills has also developed cost of illness estimates for health conditions such as asthma and childhood cancer and completed national assessments of the burden of various health conditions in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. He has extensive experience in developing, scaling, and costing restoration projects to compensate for injuries to natural resources. In this work, Mr. Mills has extensively used the habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) and resource equivalency analysis (REA) methods for natural resource injury quantification and restoration scaling, and was a co-developer of the habitat-based restoration cost (HRC) method.

Jennifer Peers
Senior Scientist

MA geography, BA environmental studies

Natural resource damage assessment, injury assessment, mining impacts, tribal resources, ecological risk

Jennifer Peers is involved in conducting natural resource damage assessments and pathway evaluations, performing data research and analysis, providing scientific litigation support, and coordinating field research. Ms. Peers' work is concentrated in the areas of mining impacts, aquatic and terrestrial contamination, aquatic toxicity, ecological risk, and injury assessment. She has extensive experience working on injury assessments for tribal clients, including the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of Duck Valley, and the Yerington Paiute Tribe. She has published the results of her research in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Geochemistry and Health.

Heidi Ries
Senior Policy Analyst

MA public affairs, BA political science

Environmental policy, greenhouse gas mitigation, electric utility financial analysis

Heidi Ries manages multiple projects, specializing in valuation of electric generation assets, quantitative energy market analysis, climate change mitigation in the electric utility and aviation sectors, environmental benefits of renewables and energy efficiency, and the impact of environmental regulations on the electric utility sector. Ms. Ries has conducted energy, environmental, and quantitative analyses, with a particular focus on electric utilities, environmental policy analysis, and financial analysis using a detailed electric sector planning model. She focused on the green power market, looking at its interaction with a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), and IPM analyses of various RPS levels. She also completed analyses assessing cogeneration potential at varying tax credit levels and associated carbon reduction benefits, resulting in a tax credit proposal for cogeneration projects in the Climate Change Technology Initiative. She coauthored a best-selling report on the first six direct access pilots in the United States for Edison Electric Institute. At Northern States Power (NSP), Ms. Ries performed daily peak forecasting and was responsible for developing and implementing strategies, procedures, communications, and models for summer peak modeling, and later winter peak monitoring. She also successfully represented NSP in a regulatory process, defending the company’s long-range forecast.

John Whitcomb
Senior Economist

PhD geography and environmental engineering, BA economics and geography

Economics, planning, management, conservation of water

John Whitcomb is an economist/statistician specializing in water demand analysis. He has worked with over 100 water agencies on projects related to water and sewer pricing, impact evaluation, resource planning, and regulatory support. Dr. Whitcomb has specific expertise and experience in water price elasticity. He recently completed a major empirical study of residential water price elasticities in the southwestern United States. That study included 10 participating water agencies located in Arizona, California, and Nevada. Dr. Whitcomb’s work in the Southwest was based on earlier price elasticity projects in Florida. The results of the Florida and Southwest U.S. projects were incorporated into a proprietary software program called WATERATE. This tool assists water agency staff in incorporating detailed price elasticity results into real-world applications.

Rich Bishop
Senior Consultant

PhD agricultural economics, MS, economics, BS, business administration

Habitat equivalency analysis, natural resource damage assessment, valuation of non-market commodities, renewable resource management, welfare theory and benefit-cost analysis, sustainability, economics of endangered species policy

Richard Bishop, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and senior consultant to Stratus Consulting. He joined the Wisconsin faculty in 1973 after completing a PhD and doing postdoctoral research in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California-Berkeley. His current duties include research and teaching in natural resource and environmental economics, with emphasis on renewable resource management, welfare theory and benefit-cost analysis, valuation of nonmarket commodities, and sustainability. Dr. Bishop has devoted considerable effort to the economics of endangered species policy during his career. This began with postdoctoral research at the University of California-Berkeley focusing on efforts to save the California condor. Many consider this study to be one of the seminal works on the safe minimum standard of conservation (SMS); Dr. Bishop has conducted a number of similar nonmarket studies more recently. The SMS is closely linked to valuation. He has also conducted over a dozen studies on the economics of fisheries management. Dr. Bishop also has an abundance of experience in studying the values of a wide range of environmental resources, including biodiversity in northern Wisconsin, the impact of chronic wasting disease in the Wisconsin deer herd, recreational fishing and hunting, commercial fish catches, surface water quality, wind generated electricity, groundwater quality, wilderness, whitewater boating, scenic beauty, lake recreation, environmental resources of the Grand Canyon, air quality, and wetlands.

Tom Dahl
Senior advisor

MS Civil Engineering, BS Civil Engineering

Environmental engineering, CERCLA Response Actions, National Contingency Plan, environmental site assessment and remediation planning

Tom Dahl provides technical support for complex environmental cases, particularly natural resource damages and CERCLA response actions. These services include case strategy development, consent decree negotiations, technical/litigation report reviews, environmental monitoring strategies/interpretation, expert/fact witness testimony, and data interpretation. Prior to launching Dahl Environmental Associates, Mr. Dahl worked for the U.S. EPA’s National Enforcement Investigations Center (NEIC).There he was a technical advisor responsible for assignments which deal with complex, multi-faceted pollution investigations of national significance dealing with organic, inorganic, and metals contamination. Before leaving the U.S. EPA, Mr. Dahl received the U.S. EPA Bronze Medal for Commendable Service — for exceptional leadership, teamwork, and creativity in representing the United States in the J.B. Stringfellow litigation and settlement negotiations valued at approximately $150 million.

Kate LeJeune

PhD biogeochemistry and ecosystem ecology, MS, BA environmental sciences

Terrestrial ecology, environmental toxicology, effects of metals on vegetation

Katherine D. LeJeune is an ecosystem ecologist with expertise in the assessment of human impacts to surface water, soil, and vegetation communities. Her work focuses on the effects of chemical contaminants on surface water, soil nutrient cycling, vegetation composition and structure, and wildlife habitat, and methods for restoring disturbed soils, surface water, and ecosystem functions. She has investigated the effects of hard rock mining on surface water, soils, and vegetation at sites throughout the United States, as well as in South America. In South America, Dr. LeJeune has worked with community-based organizations to develop field sampling and data analysis programs to assess the effects of active mining operations on surface water quality and quantity. Her research also includes investigation of the effects of invasive plant species on soil nutrient cycling and native plant communities, and biological, physical, and biogeochemical methods for controlling invasive plant species. In addition, she has assessed the effects of global change – including climate and atmospheric chemistry change – on vegetation communities at local and regional scales, using modeling and field experimental approaches.

Dr. LeJeune’s experience includes management of natural resource damage assessments (NRDAs) for federal, state, and tribal natural resource trustees. Her NRDA experience includes both full injury and damage assessment approaches, and resource and habitat equivalency approaches. She provides expert technical assistance and direction, case strategy and management services, and litigation strategy support to trustees. For numerous NRDAs, Dr. LeJeune has designed and conducted field and laboratory studies to identify and quantify injury, and identified, evaluated, and scaled ecological restoration projects to compensate for losses of natural resources. She has worked on cooperative NRDAs, assisting trustees with settlement strategy and negotiations with responsible parties, and she has prepared expert reports and testified in federal court on the effects of mine wastes on soils and ecosystem functions and services.

Her work has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Ecotoxicology, Conservation Biology, Oecologia, and Environmental Entomology.

Dr. LeJeune is currently working part time after the birth of her son.

Ed Morey
Senior Advisor

PhD economics, MA economics, BA economics and psychology

Environmental and resource economics, recreation demand models, econometrics

Edward Morey, a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, assists in the design and technical review of damage assessment tasks. He has over 16 years of experience in environmental economics and has worked on a number of NRDAs. He was a principal investigator on the recreation damage assessment for the Clark Fork River NRDA, is a lead expert for ongoing damage assessment work at the Coeur d’Alene assessment in Idaho, and is providing technical review on damage assessments in Michigan and Florida. Dr. Morey has contributed significantly to the theoretical and empirical methodology on the valuation of environmental amenities and has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, where he has served as coeditor, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and American Economic Review.