Alta Environmental is constantly thriving to promote youth engagement and diversity initiatives throughout Southern California. Alta most recently was a sponsor for the first scholarships and awards gala for the Arab American Association of Engineers and Architects-California Chapter (AAAEA-CA), which took place Thursday, June 6 at The Prado in Balboa Park. Alta’s Director of Business Development, Dr. Ghina Yamout, currently serves as the California chapter president for the association. The event featured outstanding panelists lead by Alta President Lisa Kay; Lisa is the chair of Public Policy Committee for the San Diego County Regional Chamber of Commerce and a member of the board. The panel covered transportation infrastructure outlook for San Diego County with Hasan Ikhrata, Executive Director of SANDAG, Dennis Probst, Vice President of Development for the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority; and Cid Tesoro, Vice President of Infrastructure for the San Diego Unified Port District. The event was topped with the award of two scholarships to highly achieving candidates attending San Diego four-year engineering programs, totaling over 80 scholarships over AAAEA-CA’s ten years. AAAEA is a professional association that provides a forum for idea exchange and collaboration across the transects of the engineering, architecture, and information technology professionals, by providing career and educational enhancement programs, technical exchange forums, internship and scholarship opportunities, and community service.

By Karl Jerome Bacho, from Healthcare Facilities Today on hazardous waste management practices

​Due to the wide variety of hazardous chemicals and materials stored and handled at healthcare facilities, hazardous waste accumulation has grown year to year. Regulating agencies, such as California EPA’s Certified Unified Program Agencies (CUPA), have recently shifted focus towards hazardous waste management during their annual inspection.

As a result, there has been an increase in violations given to healthcare facilities for unknowingly being out of compliance. Therefore, it is important for all healthcare personnel who handle hazardous chemicals or materials to be made aware of these improper practices and be trained accordingly. A few common examples are provided below:

For the third year in a row, Alta Environmental was selected to Zweig Group's Best Firm to Work For in the U.S. and Canada for Environmental Consulting firms. The award honors outstanding workplaces at AEC firms. Our firm has been recognized for our ability to inspire teams to perform at the highest levels. We are proud to have an environment where people feel valued, can make a difference and can clearly see where their contribution fits into the overall mission and success of the firm.

Alta Environmental President Lisa Kay was recently appointed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator to serve as one of a handful of experts to the Environmental Finance Advisory Board (EFAB) of the Water Infrastructure and Resiliency Finance Center. This Board provides ideas and advice to the EPA Administrator and program offices on ways to lower the costs of and increase investments in environmental and public health protection.  This includes ideas and advice on removing financial and programmatic barriers that raise costs; increasing public and private contribution in environmental facilities and services; and building state and local financial ability to meet environmental laws.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla., June 05, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NV5 Global, Inc. (the “Company” or “NV5”) (Nasdaq: NVEE), a provider of professional and technical engineering and consulting solutions, announced today that it has acquired Alta Environmental, L.P. (“Alta”), a consulting firm specializing in air quality, environmental building sciences, water resources, site assessment and remediation as well as environmental health and safety compliance services. Alta employs 41 environmental engineers and professionals and is based in Long Beach, California. Alta’s impressive client portfolio includes large retail chains, major manufacturers, airports, small and large municipalities, leaders in the aerospace industry and higher education. The acquisition was an all-cash transaction and will be immediately accretive to NV5’s earnings.

In late April, 2019, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), as well as other districts across the state, released the Assembly Bill (AB) 617 Community Air Monitoring Plans (CAMP). The plans represent the next step in AB617 implementation, which is intended to reduce air pollution at the community level.

Each CAMP outlines how air monitoring will be performed throughout the community. Monitoring will be performed at existing stations, including existing air district-operated fixed monitoring stations, existing monitoring stations at industrial facilities within the community, mobile monitoring performed by vehicles equipped with portable monitors, and additional monitoring trailers to be set up at fixed locations based on the results of the mobile monitoring.

An example of the monitoring map for the Boyle Heights community is provided below.

David Renfrew, Vice President and Director of Water Resources, will be a panelist at the upcoming City of San Marcos Stormwater/Water Quality Adaptive Management Drivers Workshop. It will cover pending stormwater regulatory updates, recent key stormwater court decisions, cases on the horizon and pending/proposed regulations. The workshop is designed for attorneys, consultants, developers and business/property owners. Presented by the City of San Marcos, the workshop will take place at the City’s Community Services Main Hall on Wednesday, May 29 from 8 AM to 12 PM. For more information, please see the attached flyer.
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To RSVP, please contact Ddowden@san-marcos.net by Monday, May 20, 2019

​Bridgette earned her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from the University of San Diego in 2018. She came on board as a Water Resources Specialist at Alta Environmental exactly one year ago. She currently works on water quality monitoring and reporting programs such as National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit compliance and Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) discharge programs.

The Water Resources team from Alta Environmental came out on Saturday, April 27, 2019 to help I Love a Clean San Diego with their 17th annual Creek to Bay cleanup. Our small but mighty team scoured Tamarack State Beach for two hours from the Agua Hedionda Lagoon inlet to the warm water jetty in front on the power station in Carlsbad, CA (approximately 1,500 feet).  
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By Yasaman Azar Houshang
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In the upcoming months, hazardous waste generators in California should be anticipating changes to applicable regulations as the Generator Improvement Rule (GIR) is eventually adopted. Generator Improvement Rule refers to the updated federal hazardous waste regulations that were finalized and adopted by US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2017. Since then, California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC)—the authorized state agency—has been working on adopting and implementing GIR. The GIR has been developed with the goal of providing more flexibility to the hazardous waste generators while enhancing the process of hazardous waste management to better protect the environment. The mandatory and optional provisions of GIR being considered by DTSC, were most recently presented at the 2019 California CUPA conference.