Kleinschmidt Associates services

Many of our clients experience frustration on a daily basis due to the complicated, bureaucratic nature of government regulations. Trying to sort through regulatory agency jurisdictions and their requirements, regardless of the project size or complexity, is often characterized as a daunting task. We have been helping companies like yours navigate the regulatory process for over four decades and this is definitely an area where experience matters! Our experience has helped companies save millions of dollars from valuable operating and construction time.

To confirm that a construction project is built according to the design specifications and to mitigate future liability, most owners require construction monitoring or inspection services to be performed by an owner’s engineer – someone whose primary responsibility is to consider the owner’s interests. Many dam owners do not have internal resources they can turn to for this service, so Kleinschmidt works with its clients to determine the right level of review or monitoring for each project.

Kleinschmidt’s engineers can analyze the available hydrologic and hydraulic data to derive the mean daily flow distribution. It is critical to get a clear understanding of the expected flow regime and work closely with the owner to understand what flow will be available for generation, based on a wide range of factors, including site hydrology, environmental constraints and water rights. This data will be used to size the potential generating equipment and estimate the annual generation for a facility.

Hydroelectric operators can face new environmental concerns at existing stations such as providing minimum flows to protect the fish and wildlife habitat, aquatic life, water quality, recreation, aesthetics, navigation or transportation.  Oftentimes, the existing turbines are unable to operate during low-flow periods, or cannot direct flow releases where they are required by environmental or regulatory permits. Our team conducts minimum flow unit feasibility studies and provides conceptual and final design for the addition of minimum flow turbines.

Aquatic ecosystems, including fish, fish habitat, and water is a valuable environmental resource. Aquatic biota need to be recognized for their social and economic values and also as a barometer on the state of our environment. Declining aquatic ecosystem health results in lost opportunities for society to derive benefits from the fisheries resource and our team is proud to be involved in the process of protecting and enhancing fisheries and aquatic life throughout the U.S. and Canada.