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Calvin Sandlin, CESSWI, QSP

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Calvin Sandlin, CESSWI, QSP
Project Scientist

Calvin Sandlin, CESSWI, QSP

Project Scientist (831) 227-0560 Santa Cruz, CA csandlin@integral-corp.com

Mr. Calvin Sandlin has more than 25 years of professional experience performing a variety of stormwater, surface water quality, and sediment studies as well as geologic projects throughout Central and Northern California for federal, state, and local government agencies. He has directed water quality monitoring operations for NPDES compliance, surface and groundwater studies, pollutants of concern and trash monitoring, hazardous waste and wastewater sampling, dredge materials vibracore investigations, and urban sediment characterization. Clients have included private and government sectors, including the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), U.S. Air Force, San Francisco Bay Area municipalities, and a Native American tribe.

Mr. Sandlin’s expertise spans field operations management, hydrologic and geologic evaluations, monitoring site design and equipment installation, sewer inflow and infiltration studies, flow-weighted water quality composite sampling, stream gauging, GIS mapping, and quality assurance/quality control management. He has performed stormwater best management practice (BMP) effectiveness testing for bioretention swales, hydrodynamic separators, low-impact development facilities, sand/media filters, detention basins, and porous pavement.

Stormwater Management

Municipal Regional Stormwater Permit Compliance Monitoring Services, Alameda County, California For the Contra Costa Clean Water Program, served as field lead for the installation, maintenance, and operation of a stormwater sampling and monitoring station along Lower Marsh Creek. Performed pesticide and toxicity monitoring during wet and dry seasons in water and sediment matrices. Conducted receiving water trash monitoring per qualitative and quantitative protocols. Participated in candidate monitoring site selection by performing desktop site review, feasibility, and access requirements. Performed bioassessment monitoring investigations, water quality instrument deployments, and urban impact assessment along stream corridors, which included the use of California Rapid Assessment Method (CRAM) protocol to document areas of potential impact, such as trash and debris.
Municipal Regional Stormwater Permit Compliance Monitoring Services, Alameda County, California For the Alameda Countywide Clean Water Program, collected settled fines and sediment core samples from pretreatment storage tanks within the Ettie Street Pump Station forebay. Codesigned equipment specifications and performed procurement, installation, calibration, operation, and maintenance of San Leandro Creek and Ettie Street pump station monitoring sites. Deployed sonde water quality instruments as well as a water level logger and performed data downloading.
Clean Watersheds for a Clean Bay EPA Water Quality Improvement Grant Study, San Francisco Bay Area, California Performed the installation, calibration, and operation of temporary automated stormwater sampling systems at a number of BMP treatment devices. Provided expert field guidance and assistance to field crews.
Stormwater Characterization and BMP Effectiveness Monitoring for Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Compliance, Central and Northern California For this Caltrans program, performed site selection and analysis, design, construction, operation, and maintenance for remote, semiautomated stormwater monitoring stations. Coordinated with field sampling personnel and analytical laboratory managers. Provided input for site reconnaissance technical memoranda, BMP, and characterization site drainage area delineations. Authored site-specific health and safety plans and post-storm technical memoranda. Assisted with statewide end-of-season technical memoranda.
Emerging Contaminant Monitoring, Del Norte, Humboldt, Merced, Mendocino, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz Counties, California Served as field operations manager for this 3‑year Caltrans sampling program to characterize concentrations of emerging contaminants in roadway stormwater discharges into Caltrans fish passage projects. The effectiveness of Caltrans-approved and pilot BMP treatment control devices was also tested at a subset of locations.
Areas of Special Biological Significance Stormwater Outfall and Ocean Receiving Water Monitoring and Reporting, Central and Northern California For this Caltrans monitoring project, stormwater was collected as grab samples at noncoupled and coupled outfalls and ocean receiving water sites that are tributary to Areas of Special Biological Significance (ASBS) in Redwoods National Park, Saunders Reef, Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, Año Nuevo Point, and Carmel Bay for a comprehensive suite of physical, microbiological, and chemical analyses as well as three-species toxicity testing. Performed monitoring of the Caltrans sites in coordination with the respective central and northern California Regional Monitoring Group ocean outfall and receiving water sampling and with Southern California Coastal Water Research Project ocean reference water sampling. Performed site reconnaissance, event mobilization, sample collection, and sample handling. Specialized in the safe and successful collection of ocean receiving water samples. Also performed traffic control shoulder closures necessary for the safe collection of roadway storm drain inlet samples.
San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge Bioretention Pilot Project Stormwater Quality Monitoring and Reporting, Oakland, California The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a set of waste discharge requirements to address postconstruction stormwater runoff impacts associated with the proposed San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge East Span Seismic Safety Project. Provided programmatic and technical support to ensure successful implementation of the pilot project by successfully installing and operating more than a dozen automated monitoring and sampling stations to test the efficacy of six BMP bioretention basins to attenuate influent stormwater of a wide variety of physical, chemical, and biological constituents. Managed the confined space entry field operations for the installation and maintenance of sampling and flow monitoring equipment within the bioretention basins. Performed remote camera operations within the basin underdrain system to investigate the integrity of the basin drainage and conducted hydro-jetting of the basin underdrain system to restore the basins to optimal operating efficiency. Provided ongoing technical support to field crews during event monitoring.
Combined Sewer System Monitoring, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California Participated with San Francisco Public Utilities Commission staff and their contractors to implement sampling studies that are required under the NPDES stormwater permit for their combined sewer system. Assisted in design and completed installation of automated sampling stations that collect samples from discharge structures when rainfall-induced overflow occurs.
Open- and Gap-Graded Asphalt Pavements Water Quality Project, Caltrans District 1, 4, and 5, California A pilot study was designed to evaluate stormwater runoff quality from open-graded and gap-graded pavements to that of conventional (dense-graded) pavements. The project included nine paired statewide sites. For the paired sites, the test stations consisted of a freeway or highway segment with a relatively new porous pavement overlay. The test station was paired with a control station consisting of a nearby section of the same road that was paved with conventional dense-graded pavement. Served as the senior field crew leader responsible for construction, installation, operation, maintenance, and demobilization of remote monitoring stations. Operated semiautomated monitoring equipment and collected flow-weighted composites stormwater samples. Performed stormwater sampling, staff training, and field documentation.
Phase II Storm Drain System Inventory, Santa Cruz County, California Under its NPDES Phase II permit, Caltrans was required to report the locations of all points of storm water runoff from its freeways, off-ramps, maintenance facilities, and other properties statewide. The Phase II Storm Drain System Inventory (SDSI) project was a large, GIS-based field data collection effort performed to meet these reporting requirements. The objective of the SDSI project was to identify and describe point source stormwater features and their attributes as completely and accurately as possible. Supported Caltrans as a subcontractor by performing field investigations. Identified and described discharge points, outfalls, inlets, BMPs, and their respective terminal discharge areas (TDA) along Caltrans right of way. Used the Caltrans SDSI Data Collection Tool, Arc Map, and a Microsoft® Access database application to enter, store, and manage the data collected as well as to view aerial images and existing survey data. Used a GPS unit with a computer system to navigate and record the location of each inlet, outfall, BMP, discharge point and TDA. Used GIS and GPS software to digitally integrate the attributes of each stormwater feature or location visited into aerial maps.
Stormwater Quality Monitoring and Reporting Services, Caltrans Districts 1, 4, and 5, California Provided site selection and performed the design, installation, operation, maintenance, and demobilization of remote monitoring stations. Constructed, installed, and operated remote water level loggers and operated stream discharge velocity measurement equipment. Performed stormwater sampling, staff training, and field documentation.
Ornamental Roadside Vegetated Treatment Sites Stormwater Quality Study, San Mateo and Napa Counties, California The Caltrans Ornamental Roadside Vegetated Treatment Sites (ORVTS) pilot study comprised two types of study sites: the expanded roadside vegetated treatment sites (ERVTS) and the groundcover roadside vegetated treatment sites. The purpose of the ORVTS study at the ERVTS sites was to evaluate the ability of groundcover vegetation species to provide treatment of highway runoff and to compare treatment potential to existing grass and vegetation within the Caltrans rights-of-way. Performed the maintenance and operation of six automated, flow-weighted stormwater monitoring and sampling stations. Oversaw remote instrument communication for data acquisition and programming control. Conducted storm event monitoring, which included composite and grab sampling, field documentation, and the preparation and transfer of samples to analytical laboratories. Performed equipment demobilization.
Long-Term Discharge Characterization Monitoring, Central and Northern California The Caltrans Long-Term Discharge Characterization (LTDC) study follows the 2000 statewide study and continues Caltrans’ effort to take a multifaceted approach to ensure the scientific validity, comparability, and representativeness of stormwater data collected under variable conditions in diverse regions by multiple organizations. Data collected under the LTDC study will add to results of the statewide study and allow for a more robust analysis of stormwater runoff for the following purposes: supporting research and development needs, providing inputs for load assessment and modeling efforts, providing useful information for watershed planning, and supporting scientifically sound statistical data quantification. Conducted the installation, maintenance, operation, and demobilization of remote automated storm water quality composite sampling equipment. Also performed storm event monitoring and created field documentation.

Water Quality Monitoring

Willits Bypass Project, Water Quality Assessment, Outlet Creek Watershed, Willits, California As mandated by the Clean Water Act Section 401 permit, approved by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Caltrans implemented a multiyear baseline monitoring study to characterize the water quality and stream flow rates within the watershed of Outlet Creek in Little Lake Valley. Selected, installed, calibrated, and maintained water quality instruments for continual measurements of depth, temperature (water and air), conductivity, pH, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen. Collected monthly and storm event grab samples at all 20 monitoring locations. Performed high-flow stream gauging by towing an acoustic Doppler current profiler across the surface of the water at each monitoring location over a range of stream flows. These data were used to develop stage-to-flow relationships for the development of time-series discharge data sets. Provided field logistics, including site selection, design, installation, and operation of monitoring sites’ equipment. Also performed storm event grab sample collection as part of baseline monitoring.
Construction Environmental Engineering Support Services San Francisco, California Served as a field scientist for the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge implosion water quality monitoring and subtidal sediment sampling. Coordinated and performed van Veen sediment sampling of the bay floor before and after pier implosions to test whether demolition activities measurably affected sediment quality. Participated in the water quality monitoring of the bay to measure effects on turbidity and conductivity in the water column from implosions.
Maintenance Station Wash Racks Discharge Study, Central and Northern California The purpose of this Caltrans study was to characterize unrecycled wastewater generated during the vehicle washing process at each study location to verify it could be safely discharged into leach fields. Samples were collected from the effluent of the recycled reprocessing units (RPUs) at selected study locations to evaluate RPU performance. Performed all aspects of the sampling program at five maintenance yards. At each facility, samples were collected from three locations: pretreatment effluent, source water, and RPU effluent. Relevant project responsibilities included coordination of sampling activities with respective Caltrans maintenance facility staff; reconfiguration of wash rack piping at certain maintenance stations using site-specific diagrams to allow for the monitoring of wash water without influence of the RPUs; the collection of primary constituents; coordination with analytical laboratories and preparation of samples for delivery; and generation of extensive field documentation, including monitoring vehicle and equipment washing discharges and general observations of weather conditions, site conditions, and concerns.
Wastewater, Stormwater, Groundwater and Hazardous Waste Sampling, Analysis, Monitoring and Reporting, Beale Air Force Base (AFB), Yuba County, California Beale AFB owns and operates a wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal system and provides sewerage service to domestic and industrial users. The base holds two California Regional Water Quality Control Board waste discharge requirements (WDRs) for all land-based discharge from the wastewater treatment plant and the groundwater treatment plant. Work requires wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) sampling and reporting, groundwater monitoring and reporting, stormwater sampling, and hazardous waste sampling and analysis in accordance with the WDRs. As senior field scientist, performed WWTP sampling, which includes configuration of automated samplers and grab sampling; military family housing sampling; hazardous waste sampling; stormwater sampling; quarterly groundwater monitoring, which includes groundwater elevation measurements, well purging, and water quality measurements; field sampling documentation; and sample handling and submittal to analytical laboratories.

Dredged Material Management

Dredge Material Sediment Sampling, Characterization, Reporting, and Disposal Consultation Services, Central and Northern California For the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco District, performed vibracore sediment sampling and report preparation to support the maintenance dredging of federal channels in Oakland’s inner and outer harbors, Pinole Shoal, Redwood City Harbor, Suisun Bay, Crescent City Harbor, and New York Slough. Coordinated sampling activities and worked with equipment vendors and analytical laboratories to ensure successful project completion. Also assisted in the preparation of suitability determination reports to the Dredged Materials Management Office.

NRDA For Oil Spills

Pipeline P00547 Incident, Huntington Beach, California Served as field scientist for the 2021 Huntington Beach oil spill response. Work included monitoring for both the natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) effort and the assessment of potential contaminants in recreational and commercial fish species for the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. Served as field crew for sandy beach surveys, fin fish and bivalve collection, and recreational use surveys.

Emergency Response

Fire Debris and Tree Removal Assessment and Management Services Project, CZU Complex Fire, Santa Cruz Mountains, California The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery was tasked by the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to manage structural debris and hazard tree removal projects following the 2020 California fires. Performed sampling of potentially hazardous surficial sediment on properties following debris removal and scaping of surface sediment. Collected composite samples per project protocols, followed strict QA/QC procedures, and handled samples using proper chain of custody.
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