National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Assessments and Guidance As the Nation's preeminent environmental law, the main purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is to ensure that each Federal agency will have available, and will carefully consider, detailed information concerning environmental impacts for projects under its sponsorship, and to guarantee that relevant information will be made available for the general public to participate in the decisionmaking process. Versar has more then 30 years experience working with federal agencies developing environmental impact statements and environmental assessments required by the NEPA process. Versar specializes in NEPA projects that involve sensitive ecological resources and controversial issues. In addition to providing state-of-the-art ecological analyses, Versar's ESM staff often lend their scientific expertise to research and policy initiatives aimed at improving governmental guidance for improving environmental impact assessments. The most prominent of these activities is Versar's advisory role to the Council on Environmental Quality and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the areas of biodiversity considerations and cumulative effects analysis. Environmental Risk Assessments Versar is a leader in performing exposure and risk assessments to determine the possible effects of contaminants on human health and the environment, as well as the risk of introducing non-native species. Versar's ESM Division specializes in applying our natural resources expertise to ecological risk assessments at both the site and regional level. The following examples of risk assessment work Versar has performed include: Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) in support of a programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to evaluate alternative approaches to increasing oyster populations into the Chesapeake Bay Letterkenny Ecological Risk Assessment For the USATHAMA, Versar conducted an Ecological Risk Assessment of mercury contamination as part of the RI/FS for the Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Versar conducted field investigations for the assessment including collecting bi-monthly water and algae samples from Rocky Spring Lake, monthly fish samples from Rocky Spring Lake off-post locations for contaminant analyses, and fish and algae samples from an adjacent trout rearing facility for contaminant analyses. The results of the mercury monitoring study revealed that contamination levels within the lake and downstream habitats were low and similar to background levels for fish and surface water observed around the state of Pennsylvania and North America. Wallops Island Ecological Risk Assessment Versar conducted an ecological risk assessment at Wallops Flight Center to determine if contaminants found at four sites located in two different areas of the base migrated into sensitive ecological habitats and food chain pathways in the Chincoteague Island area. The primary objective of the ecological risk assessment was to (1) determine the spatial extent of the contaminant release in nearby soils, marsh sediments, and estuarine waters, (2) determine if exposure concentrations and estimated doses are above established toxicity levels, (3) evaluate whether contaminants have entered the terrestrial or aquatic food chain, and (4) estimate potential biomagnification to higher trophic levels. Ecological Risk Assessment of Stocking Grass Carp in the Potomac River Basin Versar used EPA's ecological risk assessment framework to evaluate the potential risk for damage of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the tidal portion of the Potomac River basin posed by escaped triploid-certified grass carp stocked in ponds and lakes to control aquatic vegetation. The assessment was conducted for U.S. EPA's Office of Environmental Processes and Effects Research and the Chesapeake Bay Program Exposure Models Library and Integrated Model Evaluation System Under contract to the USEPA Office of Health and Environmental Assessment (OHEA), Versar developed a library of exposure assessment models and the Integrated Model Evaluation System (IMES) for publication on CD-ROM (Compact Disc, Read Only Memory). This library consists of most of the public domain computer models that can be used for exposure assessments in air, surface water, soil, groundwater, and multiple media. The models typically include source code, executable code, sample input and output files, and sometimes documentation in electronic format. Versar organized the exposure models library (EML), collected the model datasets from various government agencies and developed a custom interface to provide access to the library. The EML CD-ROM disc also contains the IMES to provide information on selection, validation, and uncertainty analyses of various exposure assessment models. ecological assessment | watershed managment | power plant assessment | dredging/army corps | about versar | client showcase | publications | careers | site map | search | contact us | home © 2001 by Versar, Inc.