When water from a mine site travels through groundwater before reaching a river, stream, or other surface water, it can be difficult to know which permitting requirements apply. In this video, Brown and Caldwell's Mining Market Sector Leader, Meggy Gidula, talks with Senior Technical Manager, Dan Stanaway, about a site's potential for Functional Equivalent of Direct Discharge and how groundwater modeling can help teams trace where the water goes and understand whether it may be regulated like a direct discharge. They also discuss why bringing the right technical, permitting, legal, environmental, and operations team together early can help find an approach that fits the site, make more informed decisions, and avoid permitting delays and compliance surprises.
Watch the full conversation to explore practical considerations for evaluating groundwater pathways, bringing technical and legal perspectives together, and making clearer, more defensible permitting decisions.