Ground Water Workshop Ground Water Models in the Courtroom

CONFERENCE INFORMATION

Sponsored by
American Ground Water Trust, Concord, NH

Monday, May 17, 2004

Omni Hotel Los Angeles Hotel at California Plaza
251 South Olive Street, Los Angeles, California

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

This one-day workshop program, for attorneys, scientists, engineers, regulators and water managers covers the subject of the ever-increasing sophistication of computer models of aquifer dynamics and contaminant transport. With reference to recent court decisions, the program will review the growing acceptance of model predictions in legal cases involving sub-surface water. This program has been approved for California State Bar MCLE credit.

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Attorneys: Find out about the state-of- the-art capabilities of computer simulation of aquifer dynamics and contaminant movement and hear from consultants and attorneys about the use of ground water models in recent court cases.

Scientists & Engineers: Find out how the computer simulations and predictions from modeling assist with court cases involving ground water and water resource issues. What is accepted – what isn’t? What level of modeling sophistication is appropriate for the courtroom?

Regulators, Utilities, Water Owners and Major users: Find out how ground water models may help characterize ground water resource management and water resource protection issues. What hydrologic and chemical data sets are needed for effective (and acceptable) modeling?

AMERICAN GROUND WATER TRUST

The Trust is a national, not-for-profit education organization that partners with national, state and local organizations throughout North America. The Trust’s mission is to promote awareness about water resources issues and to provide citizens, communities and decision makers with accurate, scientific and unbiased ground water information. The Trust was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Concord, New Hampshire.

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDIT

• The Office of Section Education & Meeting Services is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. This program has been approved for California State Bar MCLE credit.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE AND SPEAKERS

Presenter Background

Terry Foreman, Senior Hydrogeologist & Vice President CH2M Hill, Thousand Oaks, CA
Terry Foreman's technical expertise is in the management and development of groundwater resources, including water supply development, conjunctive use of surface waters, groundwater, and recycled water, remediation of contaminated groundwater, and regulatory support. Mr. Foreman has served as project manager for the Las Posas Basin ASR project, the largest ASR project in California, the West Basin Water Recycling Program Injection Barrier Project, which involves injection of highly treated wastewater into the 9-mile long West Coast Basin Seawater Intrusion Barrier, the Dominguez Gap Seawater Intrusion Barrier Extension project. Mr. Foreman has authored over 30 technical papers and presentations.

Anthony Brown, CEO and Principal Hydrologist, Komex, Westminster, CA
Anthony Brown has provided expert services to several prominent environmental law firms, the State of California Attorney General’s Office, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, Los Angeles City Attorneys Office, and the City of Santa Monica Attorneys Office. He has conducted and managed a variety of hazardous waste site investigations, including sites with multiple responsible parties, complex hydrogeology and fate and transport, fractured rock, multiple contaminants, and co-mingled plumes. This work has included Phase I Environmental Site Assessments, detailed Phase II characterization studies, groundwater flow and solute transport modeling, Preliminary Endangerment Assessments, Human Health Risk Assessments, and remedial system feasibility evaluations, design and implementation.

Randy Hanson, Research Hydrologist, U.S. Geological Survey, San Diego, CA
Randy Hanson’s is a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey for 23 years modeling international and large regional aquifer systems in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. His technical expertise is in the characterization and simulation of regional ground-water/surface-water flow systems that incorporates regional flow modeling, geohydrologic framework analysis, wellbore hydraulics and geochemistry, hydroclimatology, and borehole geophysics. Current studies include the Salinas and Pajaro Valleys of Monterey Bay, the Santa Clara Valley, the Ventura area and Los Angeles Basin of Southern California, the Central Valley, Global Climate Models linkage to regional flow models, Southwestern U.S. climate analysis, 3-dimensional wellbore flow with depth-dependent water quality, and addition of new simulation features to the USGS model MODFLOW-2000.

Brendan Harley, Senior Vice President CDM, Cambridge, MA
Dr. Harley has been a pioneer in the application of numerical modeling tools to hydrologic processes during the past 35 years. He has served as project manager for the development of major groundwater models in such diverse areas as Long Island, New York; Southern California; and the West Bank and Gaza Coastal Aquifer, Palestine; among many others. He has also been an expert witness in several litigation cases involving groundwater modeling. In such cases, he generally has been involved in applying groundwater models to assess the source location, timing and type of contaminant released, and assigning relative responsibility when multiple potential responsible parties are involved.

Steven Hoch, Hatch & Parent (Attorneys), Los Angeles, CA
Steven Hoch has 30 years of legal experience, most of which has entailed taking the leading position in major and complex environmental matters and civil actions. He has considerable recent experience with perchlorate contamination both in the litigation and regulatory context. His expertise extends to both federal and state environmental laws and regulations, mainly centering on hazardous wastes, soil and groundwater issues.

Victor Sher, Sher Leff LLP (Attorneys), San Francisco, CA
Vic Sher is a founding principal of Sher Leff LLP. The firm specializes in representing public water suppliers and other public agencies in lawsuits against the manufacturers of chemicals that pollute drinking water. Mr. Sher is lead outside counsel for the State of New Hampshire in its MtBE litigation, and has successfully litigated many cases involving toxic chemicals for water agencies in California and elsewhere. His prior experience includes 11 years with the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, including four as its President.

CONFERENCE LOCATION

Monday, May 17, 2004

Omni Hotel Los Angeles Hotel at California Plaza
251 South Olive Street, Los Angeles, California

Parking:
Workshop participants who valet - park at the Omni Hotel or who self - park at the California Plaza next door to the hotel will receive a complimentary parking validation. This parking is available on a first-come, first served basis for “day of event” parking only. Validation is NOT available for any other parking facility.

ACCOMMODATIONS

Sleeping Room Reservations: Call: 1-800-THE-OMNI

Click here to Register Offline by fax, phone or mail and view the registration form you can print from your web browser.

CONTACT THE TRUST

Please contact the American Ground Water Trust if you have any questions concerning the conference.
Address:
16 Centre Street
Concord, New Hampshire 03301, USA

Telephone: (603) 228-5444
Facsimile: (603) 228-6557
E-mail: The Trust