Qualifications
&
Experience
Ecotone
Corporation
80304-3514
(303)
444-4358
Corporate Details
Ecotone
Corporation
Incorporated
as C-Corporation in
303-444-4358
email -
EcotoneCo@aol.com
FEIN - 84-1431087
State Unemployment Account - 458598007
Workers Compensation Account - 4005071
DUNS - 79-971-3136
One
full time employee.
Associate and team with
other companies and consultants.
Hire temporary assistants
as needed.
Ecotone Corporation is a
small business that was incorporated in September 1997 by Mr. Patrick Murphy.
Mr. Murphy started the Ecotone Corporation after twenty years of environmental
consulting.
The requirements for an
Emerging Small Business (ESB) designation, by the Colorado Department of
Transportation (CDOT), were completed March 12, 1998.
Ecotone Corporation has
prepared wetland delineations following US Army Corps of Engineer guidelines,
made recommendations for minimization and mitigation of development impacts, and
conducted rare plant surveys associated with construction activities associated
with highways and pipelines, as well as other permitting
activities.
Since September 1997,
Ecotone has been involved with wetland delineation and mitigation planning for
Idaho Department of Transportation, and for CDOT between
Ecotone was a member of the
International Erosion Control Association. He has prepared the Subject
Keyword/Author Index for all of their annual proceedings, as well as updated
their 1998 & 1999 compilations of topics on Best Management Practices
(BMP's), steep slope stabilization, channel and streambank stabilization, and
the use of check dams to stabilize gullies.
Prior to September 1997,
Mr. Murphy directed the fieldwork and assisted with the report preparation for
wetland delineations on CDOT projects on
PATRICK H. MURPHY
Plant
Ecologist
Mr.
Murphy has served as task leader and field supervisor for numerous vegetation
and wetland studies. These
projects have involving wetland delineation and permitting, reclamation and
wetland mitigation design and implementation, weed mapping, vegetation community
mapping, floristic sampling, threatened and endangered species surveys, forest
mensuration, productivity and cover sampling, data analysis (e.g.,
classification and ordination procedures), and final report preparation. Mr. Murphy has also participated in
numerous environmental assessments, regulatory reviews, vegetation baseline
studies, mining reclamation projects, and soil surveys beginning in 1977. He has been responsible for study
design, data analysis, and report preparation for lignite, coal, uranium, hard
rock, and other non-mining development projects. In addition, Mr. Murphy has participated
in field activities on several U.S. EPA REM II and superfund sites and
previously received the required 40-hour Health and Safety training, the annual
8-hour HAZWOPER refresher, and the MSHA 24-hour refresher.
These experiences have exposed him to a wide range of floristic
communities, environmental conditions, and regulatory requirements.
He can efficiently design and execute vegetation studies, which fulfill a
project's specific theoretical, practical, legal and financial
constraints.
Mr. Murphy's project experience includes
threatened and endangered plant species searches, involving the investigation
of a wide range of ecosystems in
Mr.
Murphy has prepared wetland delineations since 1985 in conjunction with U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers (
Mr.
Murphy helped design the reclamation plan for a highway project through a
narrow canyon in
Mr.
Murphy has been familiar with the national and state regulatory requirements
pertaining to development projects in
Mr.
Murphy has conducted baseline vegetation studies in
Mr.
Murphy has used GPS and hand-mapping methodologies for projects associated with
Mr.
Murphy has managed large databases for land use evaluation projects, bioassay
sampling programs, and vegetation studies. He has designed programs to facilitate
data entry, quality control, data analysis, and final report table output. The need for legally defensible and
trackable data in some of the high profile studies has been incorporated into
all levels of his data management system. Mr. Murphy has designed programs
that run on the PDA (handheld computer), Android devices, and the desktop
computer, and facilitate the collection of vegetation baseline data as well as
wetland delineation data.
Mr.
Murphy has worked on hazardous waste sites in
Conducted
an aerial photographic survey of properties throughout the United States in an
effort to identify possible toxic waste spill sites for a large petroleum
corporation.
B.A.‑
M.A.‑
Vegetation Ecology,
Thesis -
Post M.A.
Studies,
Lifetime
Membership Award – Colorado Native Plant Society
Odasz-Albrigtsen, A.M.,
Třmmervik, H., Murphy P.H.
2000. Decreased
photosynthetic efficiency in plant species exposed to multiple airborne
pollutants along the Russian-Norwegian border. Canadian Journal of Botany
78:1021-1033.
PROFESSIONAL
HISTORY
September 1997 to
2013. Scientist / Plant Ecologist / President - Ecotone Corporation,
Boulder, Colorado. President of an incorporated small business.
Recent projects include;
vegetation monitoring sampling of prairie dog towns, rare plant survey for Phacelia formosula near Walden
Colorado, wetland delineation for gas pipeline between Fort Collins and Longmont
Colorado, wetland delineation near Corsicana Texas, vegetation mapping and
sampling for Colorado State Parks and Boulder County Open Space, rare plant
surveys in north central Colorado that included Penstemon penlandii,
wetland delineation for a proposed pipeline from Lafayette to Fort Collins,
Colorado, vegetation mapping and sampling for a proposed solution mining
project in northeastern Colorado, wetland delineation in southwestern Kansas,
northeastern South Dakota, grassland data analysis using classification (TwinSpan) and ordination (CANOCO) methods.
Additional projects in recent years include; rare plant surveys (Botrychium spp.) near Minturn
Environmental Scientist / Plant
Ecologist
- Worked as an employee of OtterTail
Environmental for 10 months as a wetland scientist on a proposed copper mine in
Southeast Alaska. Work included
wetland mapping and field verification of wetland mapping units using COE
guidelines.
1991
to August 1997. Environmental
Scientist / Plant Ecologist - ESCO Associates, Boulder, Colorado. Prepared
reclamation monitoring report for BHP Pinto Valley, assessing results of EMPACT
treatments and soil loss estimates using RUSLE.
Used point-intercept transects and frequency plots to monitor permanent
transects for the City of
1988 to
1991. Environmental
Scientist / Plant Ecologist - ESCO Associates, Boulder, Colorado. Conducted productivity and cover sampling for reclamation
evaluation at a western Colorado coal mine.
Designed data entry and data report program for point-intercept cover
data. Conducted an aerial photographic survey of properties throughout
the United States in an effort to identify possible toxic waste spill
sites. Tasks included the
transfer of legal descriptions of properties to USGS topographic maps and aerial
photographs, and the creation of a database that would both inventory the
photographs and allow retrieval of the photographs associated with each
property. The identification of
spill sites was accomplished by the evaluation of atypical vegetation patterns
as well as obvious visible spills.
Environmental Scientist / Plant
Ecologist / Air Quality Monitoring - EBASCO,
1987 to
1988. Environmental
Scientist / Regulatory Specialist - Camp Dresser & McKee Inc., Denver,
Colorado. Assisted
with an EPA survey of state administered mining waste regulations. Specific responsibilities included a
preliminary survey of
Database
Management ‑ ESCO Associates Inc., Boulder, Colorado.
Supervised the final stages of a 125,000-acre land
classification project, which included acreage delineations, data entry,
database management, and quality assurance procedures.
1985 to
1987. Vegetation /
Reclamation Specialist ‑ Camp Dresser & McKee Inc., Denver, Colorado.
Designed and executed reclamation activities at an open pit gold mine in
southwestern
Environmental
Scientist ‑ Camp Dresser & McKee Inc., Denver, Colorado. Assisted
with the installation of surface water monitoring stations, and measurement of
groundwater and surface water characteristics at a proposed coal mine in
southwestern Utah. Assisted with the ground water
and surface water sampling on U.S. EPA REM II sites. Training included
hazardous site entry and safety procedures, groundwater and surface water
sampling, and EPA sample documentation.
1984 to
1985. Vegetation
Specialist ‑ Camp Dresser & McKee Inc., Austin, Texas and Denver,
Colorado. Designed and executed wetland delineation studies in
conjunction with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for lignite mines in east
Reclamation
Specialist ‑ Mountain West Environments Inc., Steamboat Springs,
Colorado. Conducted field tests of reclamation seed, fertilizer and mulch
treatments for the National Park Service in Canyonlands National Park,
Utah. Additional projects included a reforestation project in the
1982 to
1984. Student - Colorado
State University. Completed course work in Forest
Biometry, Grass Systematics, and Reclamation.
Vegetation
Specialist ‑ Camp Dresser & McKee Inc., Denver,
Colorado.
Conducted a baseline vegetation survey for a proposed
lignite mine in central Texas.
1980 to
1982. Vegetation
Specialist ‑ Camp Dresser & McKee Inc., Denver, Colorado. Responsible for study design, fieldwork, data analysis, and report
preparation on a variety of studies. Projects included: forest inventory
and baseline vegetation survey for a proposed coal mine in eastern Texas;
baseline vegetation survey for a proposed coal mine in southcentral Wyoming;
vegetation survey and multidisciplinary transportation corridor siting study in
eastern Montana; baseline vegetation survey for a hard rock mine in the Absaroka
Mountains of southwestern Montana.
Reclamation
Specialist ‑ Mountain West Environments Inc., Steamboat Springs,
Colorado.
Responsible for implementation of the reclamation plan for
steep slopes on the Exxon oil shale properties. The severity of the
slopes and access difficulties required specialized procedures and the use of a
helicopter to deliver materials. Responsible for the safety
of a crew of 10 workers and the coordination and quality assurance of all phases
of this award winning project.
Graduate
Student - University of Colorado.
Completed requirements for M.A. degree. Thesis
entitled "Forest Ecology of the Lost Creek Area in the Southern Front Range,
Colorado". Data analysis included classification and ordination
procedures.
1978 to
1980. Graduate Student ‑
University of Colorado. Graduate program in vegetation ecology leading to
a Master of Arts degree. Teaching Assistant ‑
Vegetation
Specialist ‑ Western Resource Development Corp., Boulder,
Colorado.
Laboratory analysis of vegetation collected for productivity studies, using dry
weight values.
Vegetation
Specialist ‑ Climax Environmental Survey, Terrestrial Plant Ecology, Climax
Molybdenum Division, AMAX Inc., Climax, Colorado.
Field assistant for environmental survey of terrestrial
plant ecology at a high elevation molybdenum mine site in Colorado.
Responsible for species collection and identification, vegetative cover
sampling, forest stand structure analysis, and report preparation.
Vegetation
Specialist ‑ Camp Dresser & McKee Inc., Denver,
Colorado.
Assisted with a vegetation survey for the Dave Johnston coal
mine in Glenrock, Wyoming. Data were collected using line transect,
point‑centered quarter and plot clipping techniques. Assisted with a soil survey of a proposed in
situ uranium mine at Crown Point, New Mexico.
Field
Assistant ‑ Main Elk Project, Colorado River Water Conservation District, John
W. Marr, Boulder, Colorado.
Responsible for species collection and identification and
vegetation sampling for a proposed reservoir near Rifle, Colorado. Juniper/Cross
Mountain Project ‑ Assisted with the preliminary survey and species collection
in northwestern Colorado.
Instructor
‑ Keystone Environmental Education Program, Keystone,
Colorado.
Instructed a course on mountain ecology and safety to grades
4‑12 and college students. Taught cross‑country
skiing and winter camping skills to some of the
groups.
1977 to
1978. Field Assistant ‑
VTN Colorado Inc., Denver, Colorado. Duties included: vegetation
identification, mapping, range exclosure construction, collection of cover,
density and frequency data via the line transect method, and productivity values
via the clip and dry method. These studies were conducted in
1976 to 1977. Instructor ‑ Colorado Outdoor Education Center, Florissant, Colorado. Instructed sixth graders in a variety of environmental and recreational activities.