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Kaylene
Ritter

Principal Associate

Kaylene Ritter, PhD, is an environmental chemist with 20 years of experience in environmental science and research. She has worked at Superfund and other contaminated sites across the country, including mine-impacted sites contaminated with metals and radionuclides, industrial sites contaminated with dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other organo-chlorine compounds, and oil spill sites contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). At these sites she assesses contaminant pathways, fate, and impacts to biota, surface water, sediments, and groundwater. Her areas of expertise encompass Natural Resource Damage Assessment and (NRDA), including injury assessment, damages determination and restoration planning; Tribal Risk Assessment (TRA), including incorporating traditional lifeways into risk assessment; and climate change impacts and adaptation planning.  She has experience providing technical support on litigation, cooperative, and settlement cases, working for federal, state and tribal government agencies.

Expertise

  • Contaminant fate, transport and environmental impacts
  • Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration
  • Tribal Risk Assessment
  • Climate change impacts and adaptation

Key Projects

  • Mines sites – Tar Creek – Tris-State Mining District, OK; Midnite Uranium Mine, WA; Chino Copper Mine, NM; Taconite Mine, WI; Helena smelter site, MT
  • Oil Spills – Deepwater Horizon 2010 oil spill, Yellowstone River 2011 & 2015 oil spills, Kalamazoo River Enbridge 2010 oil spill
  • Industrial sites – Dow Midland Michigan dioxin site; Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM; Hanford nuclear site, WA; Onondaga lake, NY; Ottawa River, OH
  • Climate change impacts/adaptation planning – Bad River Band, WI; Pueblo de San Ildefonso, NM; Tar Creek Tribes, OK

Selected Publications

  • Ritter, K., J. Peers, and B. Cleary. 2018. Streamlining Risk Assessment and Human Health Risk Assessment. Tribal Lands Environmental Forum. August 16, 2018.
  • Ritter, K., A. Ebbets, and B. Cleary. 2017. Tar Creek Natural Resource Damage Assessment. Law Seminars International Tribal NRDA Conference. December 4, 2017.
  • Ritter, K. and B. Cleary. 2017 (invited). The Tar Creek Natural Resource Damage Assessment Case Study. 3rd National Tribal Natural Resource Damage Assessment Conference. May 22, 2017. Tulsa, OK.
  • Ritter, K. 2017. Climate Change Adaptation at the Tar Creek Superfund Site.  National Adaptation Forum, May 10, 2017. St Paul, MN.
  • Bacanskas, L., A. Karimjee and K. Ritter. 2009. Toward practical application of the vulnerability evaluation framework for geological sequestration of carbon dioxide. Energy Procedia 1(1): 2565-2572.
  • Ritter, K., G.R. Aiken, J.F. Ranville, B.P. Jackson, and D.L. Macalady. 2006. Evidence for the aquatic binding of arsenate by natural organic matter-suspended Fe(III). Environmental Science and Technology 40(17):5380–5387.
  • Macalady, D.L., K. Ritter, A. Redman, and M. Skold. 2004. Comparative characteristics of natural organic matter in the Fortymile River, Alaska. In Selected Geochemical and Biogeochemical Studies of the Fortymile River Watershed, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper, L.P. Gough (ed.). 1685.

 

Kaylene Ritter