Digital Commons Network^™

Re: Comment Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft Final 2025 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Valley Sand & Gravel (Builders Firstsource) Borrow Submittal #1 (Dated June 27, 2025), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Insufficiently Reclaimed Sites Sampling: Bres No. 84 Site Evaluation Summary Report (Dated April 11, 2025), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Wildfire And Water Security: Post-Fire Erosion And Sedimentation Threaten Utah's Reservoirs, Quinn Olpin, Kendall Becker, Scott Hotaling, Aish Chandrasekaran, Patrick Belmont

All Current Publications

As an arid state with limited water, Utah relies heavily on reservoir storage to maintain its water supply throughout the year. This vital water storage, however, is increasingly at risk due to contemporary wildfires. Wildfires pose a risk to water storage because after vegetation burns, erosion typically increases. Eroded soil can be carried by rivers and deposited into reservoirs where it accumulates as sediment, reduces water storage capacity, clogs dam outlets, and degrades water quality. Identifying which watersheds are most vital to maintaining Utah’s water supply, are most threatened by wildfires, and are most prone to high levels of post-fire …

How Effective Are Engineered And Non-Engineered Riparian Forest Restoration Projects In Providing Salmonid-Quality Habitat In The San Francisco Bay Area?, Alexander Ivanov

Master's Theses

Streams and their riparian zones in the San Francisco Bay Area have been degraded, severely harming salmonid populations in the region. Ecological restoration is a common approach to return stream function. Such restoration projects vary widely in intensity, from low-impact vegetation removal/planting to highly engineered projects involving structures and grading. This research investigated the effectiveness of streams restored using engineered versus non-engineered solutions in supporting salmonid habitat viability in San Francisco Bay Area streams. Fourteen streams, seven from each of the two types of restoration, were sampled in the wet and dry season in 2024, three times each season. Data …

Re: June 2025 Berkeley Pit Migratory Waterfowl Protection Monthly Report, Mark Thompson, Loren Burmeister

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Comment Letter For Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft 2024 Groundwater Monitoring Data Summary Report (Dated May 30, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Comments On The Repository, Haul Route, And Pipeline Geotechnical Pre-Design Investigation Summary Report (Dated May 13, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Comment Letter For The Draft Final Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) 2022 Unreclaimed Sites Sampling: Ur-20 Site Evaluation Summary Report (Dated March 19, 2025), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Superfund Operation And Maintenance (O&M) Request For Maintenance – Kelley Stormwater Channels (Dated April 22, 2025), Josh Bryson

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Zambia's Poor Septic Waste Management: A Disaster In Waiting, Andrew Mwape

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

In the shadows of Zambia’s rapidly growing urban and peri-urban communities lies an invisible but mounting threat, the mismanagement of septic waste. While national dialogue often focuses on economic development, climate change, or energy, the sanitation crisis receives little public attention, yet it poses an equally severe risk to public health, environmental integrity, and sustainable urbanization. Zambia’s poor septic waste management, if left unaddressed, is a disaster in waiting.

Septic waste refers to the wastewater and solid waste that flows from toilets, sinks, and other domestic plumbing fixtures into on-site sanitation systems such as septic tanks or pit latrines. This …

Factors Influencing The Transition To Renewable Energy In Small- To Mid-Sized American Communities, Hanan Wehbi, Nathan Kemper

Environmental Dynamics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background The transition to renewable energy is essential for addressing climate change and fostering sustainable communities. This involves planning and determining where, when, and how to deploy renewable energy technologies. This requires supportive policies and regulations to accommodate renewable energy sources and manage impact, as well as engagement with local communities and stakeholders to secure their support and participation in the transition process. Methods This study evaluates the impact of governance at various levels-community, county, and state-on renewable energy adoption in 87 small- to mid-sized U.S. communities with populations below 100,000. Using a multi-faceted analytical approach, this research reviews comprehensive …

Life Cycle Assessment Of New Jersey Offshore Wind, Meghann Smith, Nawal Shoaib, Pankaj Lal

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As offshore wind gains momentum within US (United States) renewable energy goals, New Jersey's ambitious targets for offshore wind development represent a significant opportunity to reduce emissions and transition towards cleaner energy sources. This study presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) of a planned offshore wind farm off of New Jersey's coast, emphasizing the implications of a domestic supply chain. Key findings suggest that the offshore wind farm is projected to produce 0.013 kg CO2 kWh−1 of electricity generated, reflecting a 98 % decrease in carbon emissions compared to natural-gas-derived electricity. Further, when compared to carbon emissions from other renewable …

Post-Wildfire Erosion And Sedimentation: An Escalating Threat For Utah Fisheries, Colton James, Kendall Becker, Scott Hotaling, Aish Chandrasekaran, Alex Fiedler, Timothy E. Walsworth, Patrick Belmont

All Current Publications

Wildfires are a natural part of the western U.S. landscape and provide numerous benefits, including enhanced nutrient cycling and habitat rejuvenation. Utah’s fish populations evolved with wildfire as a common disturbance. However, the increasing size and severity of wildfires, combined with Utah’s heavily engineered and fragmented stream networks, pose a contemporary risk to fish populations. This fact sheet reviews wildfire impacts on erosion and Utah's watersheds and fisheries. It outlines measures we can take to prevent post-wildfire fish die-offs.

A Rapid Method For Identifying Plant Oxidative Stress And Implications For Riparian Vegetation Management, Mizanur Rahman, Takashi Asaeda, Kiyotaka Fukahori, Md Harun Rashid, Hideo Kawashima, Junichi Akimoto, Refah Tabassoom Anta

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Native and invasive plants of the riverain region undergo a range of environmental stresses that result in excess reactive oxygen species (ROS). Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a relatively stable and quickly quantifiable way among different ROS. The herbaceous species including Artemisia princeps, Sicyos angulatus, and Solidago altissima were selected. The H2O2 and photosynthetic pigment of leaves were measured, soil samples were analyzed to quantify macronutrients such as total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and soil moisture, and photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) was also recorded at different observed sites of Arakawa Tarouemon, Japan. The H2O2 concentration of S. altissima significantly …

Re: Comment Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) 2022 Draft Final Insufficiently Reclaimed Sites Sampling Bres No. 30 – Atlantic 1 Site Evaluation Summary Report (Dated February 24, 2025), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Spatiotemporal Responses To A Rural Highway By Four Mammal Species, Caitlin K. Brett, Anna Rose Mehner, John H. Young Jr., Sarah E. Lehnen, Richard J. Kline

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Roads can negatively impact the wildlife communities they transect. Road mortalities from wildlife-vehicle collisions are one direct effect, but roads may also indirectly affect wildlife behavior, movement, or local distribution. Quantifying the spatial extent of these road-effects is important for understanding how roads indirectly affect species of concern, identifying potential sources of disturbance, and for estimating the effectiveness of road mitigation structures. Farm-to-Market Road (FM)106, which transects part of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Cameron County, Texas, has been identified as a potential source of wildlife road mortalities, particularly for one of the two remaining breeding populations of …

The People's Rivers: Early Environmental Regulation And The Oregon State Sanitary Authority, Avery Morgan Fischer

Dissertations and Theses

The environmental movement in Oregon can trace its origins to the turn of the twentieth century, where citizen activism and initiative led to the creation of an early environmental regulatory agency, the Oregon State Sanitary Authority. This creation established that the State of Oregon had a duty to preserve, not just the navigability or usability of rivers and waterways, but the quality and purity of its water. The Oregon State Sanitary Authority played an active role in maintaining and protecting the environment as a mandate of the people, and throughout its thirty-year existence battling industrial polluters, reluctant municipalities, and disinterested …

Hyperspectral Band Selection Via Heterogeneous Graph Convolutional Self-Representation Network, Junde Chen, Wenzhao Li, Surendra Maharjan, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Hyperspectral image (HSI) band selection (BS) plays a crucial role in HSI dimensionality reduction, aiming to identify a representative subset of bands with minimal redundancy. However, conventional BS approaches primarily operate in the Euclidean domain, often overlooking the structural characteristics of pixels and spectral bands, such as spatial continuity and spectral dependencies. In addition, they handle each HSI as an integrated unit to harness implicit spatial information, disregarding spatial distribution variations across different homogeneous regions. To fully leverage structural information, this study introduces a novel BS method, termed the dual heterogeneous graph convolutional network with enhanced self-representation (ESR-HGCN), for HSI …

Re: Comment Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) 2022 Draft Final Insufficiently Reclaimed Sites Sampling: Bres No. 32 Site Evaluation Summary Report (Dated December 11, 2024), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Comment Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) 2022 Draft Final Insufficiently Reclaimed Sites Sampling: Bres No. 38 – Sister Dump Site Evaluation Summary Report (December 31, 2024), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Analyzing Environmental Health: Air Pollution And Human Health Using Geospatial Data Science, Yanhong Huang

Geography ETDs

Air pollution from industrial emissions and wildfire smoke poses growing threats to public health. This dissertation employs geospatial data science to examine these challenges through three interrelated studies. The first study investigates the relationship between maternal residential exposure to industrial pollutants and low birth weight, identifying five chemicals as significant risk factors. The second study assesses the impact of industrial air pollution on lung and bronchus cancer survival, finding that exposure to 1,1,1-trichloroethane and cobalt is associated with reduced survival. The third study explores disparities in wildfire smoke PM_2.5 exposure and its association with asthma exacerbations. Results show disparities …

Integrating Belowground Recovery Into Tropical Forest Restoration Design And Monitoring, Lauren Toro, Leland K. Werden, Shalom D. Addo-Danso, Kelly M. Andersen, Sarah Batterman, Matilde M. Bragadini, Pooja Choksi, Rebecca J. Cole, Liza S. Comita, Daniela Cusack, Daisy H. Dent, Lee H. Dietterich, Joshua B. Fisher, Katrin Fleischer, Lucia Fuchslueger, Nohemi Huanca-Nunez, Janey R. Lienau, Lindsay A. Mcculloch, Ember M. Morrissey, Jennifer S. Powers, Mareli Sánchez-Juliá, Oscar Valverde-Barrantes, Anita Weissflog, Michelle Y. Wong

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

There is growing recognition that tropical forest restoration is key for sequestering carbon and enhancing ecosystem resilience. Soils, roots, and soil biota are central to ecosystem function and services, but belowground recovery is largely overlooked in restoration monitoring frameworks. Here, we outline current understanding of the links between above- and belowground recovery in tropical forests by examining how belowground properties before and after intervention influence recovery; by evaluating whether aboveground recovery can serve as a proxy for belowground dynamics; and by proposing a blueprint for monitoring dynamic soil physical (bulk density, aggregate stability), chemical (organic matter or carbon, pH), and …

One Year Of Analysis Of Pfas Contamination In Surface Waters Of The West Plains Region Of Spokane County, Jerusha R. Hampson

2025 Symposium

The West Plains has been significantly impacted by PFAS contamination due to the decades-long use of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) for firefighting training at both Fairchild Air Force Base (FAFB) and the Spokane International Airport (SIA). Groundwater contamination is significant, but less work had been done to understand contamination in surface waters. We now have over a year of data with most locations were sampled seasonally. Though FAFB and SIA are likely sources for some of the contamination, other, smaller sources exist. Surface waters are important to study as they form the boundaries of the West Plains and often function …

Occurrence Of Pesticides In Oregon Coastal Waters And Effects On The Intertidal Sea Anemone, Anthopleura Elegantissima, Gabriella Mae Bleil

Dissertations and Theses

Pesticides are used globally for a wide range of applications including agricultural, forestry, roadsides, freshwater systems, and personal use. While pesticides have ensured efficient crop production, they are frequently transported away from application sites and are ubiquitous in terrestrial and aquatic environments. Pesticides are often detected in watersheds and rivers globally, which can have unintentional toxic effects on non-target organisms by interfering with cellular processes, behavior, feeding, reproduction, and disrupting endocrine processes. The aggregating anemone, Anthopleura elegantissima, is an important species along the North American Pacific coast due to its symbiotic relationships that contribute to high productivity, and its …

Re: Comment Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft Final Unreclaimed (Ur) Sites Ur-13 Site Evaluation Summary Report (Sesr) (November 1, 2024), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Approval Letter For The Response To Comment Letter And The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft 2024 Butte Reclamation Evaluation System (Bres) Corrective Action Plans For Reclaimed Sites (Both Dated June 6, 2025), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Comment Letter For 2024 Annual Operations And Maintenance Report Butte Reclamation Evaluation System (Bres) Annual Summary Report For Work Completed In Quadrant 4 (Dated May 1, 2025), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Approval Of The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Butte Reclamation Evaluation System (Bres) Revised Draft 2024 Field Evaluation Summary And Technical Recommendations Report (Dated June 4, 2025), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Increasing The Economic And Social Viability Of Carbon Capture Using Biomass Slurry Fracture Injection, Zachary G. Laird

LSU Master's Theses

The climate is changing. This is a fact not a statement, not a theory, and not a falsehood, this is a fact. At the current projections the world’s average temperature is expected to rise by at least 2°C from pre-industrial averages by 2050 (Emissions Pathways to 2100 - Climate Action Tracker, 2024). This temperature rise will be catastrophic for a vast number of communities. What is driving this changing climate? Humans. In particular the carbon emissions caused by human activities. As humans we consume large amounts of meat, causing the need for cattle to increase, generating large amounts …

Re: Comment Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) 2024 Draft Final Backfill And Cover Material Quality Assurance Project Plan (Dated September 27, 2024), Molly Roby

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.