John Nugent - Senior Environmental Scientist

Professional Summary

John Nugent has 25 years of experience in environmental sampling, research, and characterizations. He has conducted studies throughout the United States in both aquatic (marine and freshwater) and terrestrial ecosystems and on hazardous and non-hazardous waste sites. He holds degrees in multiple disciplines, which gives him a better understanding of complex environmental systems. His diverse specialties include multi-media sampling (soil, water, air, and biota), GPS/GIS/remote sensing applications, GIS modeling, fish and wildlife surveys, stream habitat surveys, sensitive species mapping, vegetation mapping, wetland delineation, and soil contamination and hydrogeological investigations.

John is providing GIS, ecological compliance, and river modeling support to the Public Safety and Resource Protection (PSRP) program at the Hanford Site. The PSRP program at Hanford is being directed for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Mission Support Alliance.

John has written or coauthored numerous technical reports and papers and presented results to clients and at professional society meetings.

Areas of Specialization

  • Twenty-five years experience conducting fieldwork involving multi-media sampling
  • All aspects of environmental research, including study design, development of protocols, data collection, analysis, and reporting
  • Project management and oversight
  • Excellent technical skills including GPS and GIS
  • Proficient in ESRI (ARCGIS, ArcView, ARC-INFO), ERDAS Imagine, and GRASS, Trimble GPS, Windows, Microsoft Office Applications
  • Ecological risk assessments and remedial investigations
  • Works well independently or in teams
  • Detail oriented
  • Track record for meeting deadlines for projects with challenging field conditions
  • Accustomed to working under harsh environmental conditions

Relevant Work Experience

2003 to present: Work on a wide range of projects supplying biological/geological and GIS/GPS services in support of ecological risk assessments and remedial investigations. Tasks consist of consultation on study design and setup, multi-media sampling (water, soil, sediment, insects, mollusks, fish, mammals, birds, and plants), field surveys (vegetation surveys, electro-fishing, sensitive species surveys, soil and sediment mapping and sampling), monitoring of wildlife exposure to contaminated waters and sediments, vegetation mapping, modeling (river flows and shorelines), mapmaking, and report preparation.

Other projects include wetland delineations, effectiveness monitoring of habitat restoration and land acquisition projects, and long term status and trend monitoring. Projects require stream characterizations, snorkel surveys, fish identification and enumeration (adult and juveniles), benthic macro-invertebrate sampling, carcass and redd surveys, and vegetation surveys.

Education/Training

  • M.S., Environmental Studies, University of Montana, 1995
  • B.S., Wildlife Biology, Minor in Botany and Zoology, University of Montana, 1994
  • B.S., Geology, University of Georgia, 1985
  • 40-hr Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response certified
  • CPR/First Aid training
  • NAUI Certified Scuba Diver
  • U.S. Department of the Interior Motorboat Operator Safety Training

Professional Affiliations

  • Washington Native Plant Society
  • Seattle Audubon Society
  • Thornton Creek Alliance