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Marna Parslow

Marna Parslow
Senior Science Advisor, Technical Director - Data Management and Analysis

Marna Parslow

Senior Science Advisor, Technical Director - Data Management and Analysis

Ms. Marna Parslow has more than 25 years of diverse environmental consulting experience ranging from modeling (groundwater, contaminant transport, and pit-lake development and geochemical mixing) to application development, and data management, analysis, and visualization.  Ms. Parslow has developed the architecture of centralized data solutions for a variety of stakeholders, project domains and industries. Her data-driven solutions have included streamlined workflows for site characterization and remediation, risk assessment, permitting, emergency response, and modeling support to include pre- and postprocessing of input and output files as well as managing model chain documentation for...

Ms. Marna Parslow has more than 25 years of diverse environmental consulting experience ranging from modeling (groundwater, contaminant transport, and pit-lake development and geochemical mixing) to application development, and data management, analysis, and visualization.  Ms. Parslow has developed the architecture of centralized data solutions for a variety of stakeholders, project domains and industries. Her data-driven solutions have included streamlined workflows for site characterization and remediation, risk assessment, permitting, emergency response, and modeling support to include pre- and postprocessing of input and output files as well as managing model chain documentation for model scenario comparisons.  These solutions have focused on centralized interactive data management, accessibility, and visualization in dashboards and viewers throughout the data workflows. Ms. Parslow is passionate about data and the user experience, and she utilizes keen architectural and design skills to create effective, reliable data-driven systems leading to faster, better decision-making.

Ms. Parslow’s experience includes client, project, and team management; data modeling and architecture; data visualization and dashboards; software development; database design, development, and maintenance; water resources engineering; and Agile software development methodologies. She brings a unique skill set from these experiences and has an ability to communicate with diverse stakeholder teams of clients, managers, scientists, engineers, software development teams, and data management groups.

Her expertise includes strategic planning, team building across disciplines, team management, integration of data with extract, transform, load (ETL), relational database design, database programming, software design and development, data pipelining, high-level design of all phases of data management architecture, data modeling, scope of work development, requirements gathering, functional specification development, testing, and user training.  She is versed in SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Visual Studio, Java Script, Agile methodology, T-SQL, PSQL, Python, and Microsoft Office Suite.

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Data Fusion and Visualization Approaches to Achieving a Common Operating Picture During Offshore Wind Construction and Operation Works

Publication

July 01 2024

Data Hub Development for Complex Environmental Litigation Support

Case Study

November 19 2024

Environmental Decision-Making

Hamilton County Water Study, Hamilton County, Indiana Designed and developed a database-driven data management system to integrate historical data with live sensor data to visualize and interact within an online dashboard. Stakeholders include the county, utilities, mining company, domestic well users whose wells have a sensor installed, and the public. The dashboard is an entry point to investigate water usage across the region by various stakeholders. This involved redesigning the data model and developing database application programming interfaces (APIs) for the front-end web application. The database design provides the dynamic ability to create a front-end application by storing user interface components and their database sources within the application schema tables. The database API generates both the front-end application and the application data as JavaScript Object Notation structures through stored procedures.
Hunters Point Shipyard (HPS)—Turnkey Web Portal Managed and participated in the design and development of an enterprise-wide turnkey web portal application that provided the HPS stakeholders (regulatory agencies, contractors, and public) access to project documents and data from a secure role-based project website. The HPS Web consists of five main systems integrated to provide users a complete project, document, and data management solution. The five main systems included 1) website (portal/front end), 2) document/project management and collaboration tools, 3) database query and reporting tools, 4) geographic information system (GIS), and, 5) database. This project required design and development of ETL procedures and architecture design of the entire system. Required enterprise integration and used the following technologies:  Visual Studio .NET, SQL Server, T‑SQL, and Crystal Reports.
EPA START Contract (Anthrax Response at Capitol), Washington, DC Managed a team of database and GIS professionals for the Anthrax Emergency Response on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC. Employed rapid development techniques to design and implement a system to track and analyze thousands of samples that were taken in a very short period of time. GIS staff used these results to spatially analyze the data. Developed a user-friendly tool for making sampling and cleanup decisions at the site. Technologies included Visual Basic, ArcGIS, SQL Server, T-SQL, Access, and Crystal reports.
EPA START Contract (Katrina Emergency Response), Biloxi, Mississippi Managed a team of database and GIS professionals for the Katrina Emergency Response in Biloxi, Mississippi. Designed and implemented a system to assess, inventory, and track the cleanup of hundreds of thousands of household and business hazardous wastes released as a result of the category 5 hurricane making landfall along the coast of Biloxi.  GIS staff used these results to spatially analyze the data. Developed a user-friendly tool for prioritizing cleanup decisions at the site. Technologies included Visual Basic, ArcGIS, SQL Server, T-SQL, Access, and Crystal reports.
Environmental Data Management, Active Disaster Response Site Centralized Data Hub, United States Created a centralized database and data exchange dashboard to assimilate and keep current data collected from six onsite contractors in addition to available local, state, and other third-party data.  Addressing the client’s complex data management needs, ensuring critical data were readily available for supporting multiple aggressive litigation schedules and congressional hearings. Delivering quality and comprehensive work allowing for better insights and facilitating better decision-making.  
Navajo Nation Water Purification Project (DOE Grant—Navajo Technical University, New Mexico Tech, and the Navajo Nation) Played instrumental role in the design and development of an environmental database to house and interact with the project data being collected onsite. This project supports workforce development by building upon an established student mentoring program and exposing these students to the realm of environmental data management for addressing social needs, such as water availability. It also encourages students in marginalized communities to envision future career path opportunities while investing in their education, serving their community, and engaging with practical environmental issues.

PFAS/Emerging Contaminants

Data Management System, PFAS and Hydrogeologic Data, Sacramento County, California Designed and developed a data management system to manage hydrogeologic and water quality data for the North American and South American subbasins in California. The system provides a consistent framework to interact with and discover large amounts of historical data. The data housed in the system include site, well, water levels, pumping, geologic, and water quality data. All data stored in the database are prioritized according to reliability and given quality validation codes. There is also a framework to view charts portraying time series. The system is designed so it can serve as a portal for stakeholders in the region.

Modeling

Plume Viewer Data Layer for Hanford Composite Analysis, U.S. Department of Energy, Hanford, Washington The Hanford Composite Analysis Plume Viewer is a web interface for visualizing spatiotemporal concentration and dose series timelines and plumes. Designed and developed a normalized PostgreSQL database for efficient loading and storage of qualified environmental and radionuclide data. Developed partitioned tables and database queries to efficiently retrieve and pass data to the web application, providing time savings benefits to the front-end developers by abstracting the data layer.
Recharge Evolution Tool (RET) for Hanford Composite Analysis/Cumulative Impact Evaluation, Hanford, Washington Participated in redesigning the RET as a spatiotemporal database software to estimate recharge rates at the Hanford site, which has changing surface conditions and dispositions over time and space. The new modular design utilized the same input and output formats while improving performance by 98 percent. Data integrity and quality control are streamlined and allow for additional output formats increasing the effectiveness of quality control checks necessary to qualify a run. Design allows for data sources to be prioritized by the user, which is then enforced by the database engine. These time savings allow the subject matter experts and scientists to gain a better understanding of the site and focus their efforts on creating higher value products for the client. Became official best practices for the client and is now standard procedure.
Geochemical Pit Lake Modeling Application Managed and mentored the development of a database-driven engine to process and support complex geochemical modeling of pit lake development for mining sites. Functionality includes integrating data from geochemical humidity cell results, curve fitting parameters, oxidation, and groundwater flow modeling results to dynamically prepare input files and run the U.S. Geological Survey’s PHREEQC geochemical model. Visualization tools were also developed to streamline data analysis. Project required database design, enterprise integration, data architecture and data modeling, development of ETL packages and scripts. Python was used to automate translation of groundwater model grid data to the PHREEQC model grids for analysis. Technologies included PostgreSQL, Visual Studio .NET, PHREEQC, Python, and PSQL.
Mining Company, Bisbee, Arizona Assisted in the development and management of a basin-wide groundwater flow and transport model for a tailing facility in southern Arizona where years of artificial recharge below a surface water impoundment resulted in a groundwater mound. Used MODFLOW to simulate flow through alluvium and faulted bedrock layers. MT3D was used to simulate the transport of sulfate through the aquifer. The model setup and results were presented to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and were accepted on first submittal.
Water Quality Modeling for Mining Site, Nevada Responsible for modeling water quality for a mine site in Nevada where a pit lake received water from two distinct sources, each with unique geochemistry. The model approach employed an iterative technique, combining a surface water model (CEQUAL-2) with a chemical speciation model (MINTEQ) to predict pit lake chemistry. Designed and developed programs that automated the links between these two models.
Mining Company, Mule Gulch, Arizona Performed geochemical modeling to estimate the water quality of stormwater runoff affected by mining. The results were used as technical support for a best available demonstrated control technology report submitted to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. The geochemical model EQ3/6 was used to mix waters consisting of process solution, mine-contaminated runoff, and clean runoff. Used three pond contaminant scenarios to predict the range of conditions that may be encountered and included normal conditions, emergency conditions, and extreme emergency conditions.

Planning and Permitting

Permitting Knowledgebase, New Mexico Designed and developed a data management system to manage requirements related to a license or permit of a site over time. Requirements can be associated to one or more features of a site and are assigned specific action items to verify compliance. System created the ability to assign and track action items identified to verify and manage quality control of the requirements and conditions. Developed the data quality objectives and a statistical framework using risk and data reliability to determine sample size needed for quality control and to verify requirements. Ultimately supports verification and documentation of license/permit requirements’ conformity. Utilizes custom developed database tools that allow flexible data filtering and viewing.

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment Tool, Denver, Colorado Developed an application that compiles different data sets, including environmental media contaminant concentrations, chemical-specific factors, fate and transport modeling results, and pathway-specific parameters. The model provides a consistent process for evaluating and documenting risk assessments based on EPA’s CERCLA guidance. The application allows users to upload risk data and perform numerous risk calculations based on exposure routes, pathways, and receptors. These calculations and summaries are included in the risk report documents as either tables or appendices. These complex reports are dynamically created and allow users to edit the headers and footers.
Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, Hanford, Washington Developed a database application for checking calculations from EPA’s human health risk assessment protocol for hazardous waste combustion facilities. The database calculated human health and ecological risk for more than 400 chemicals 20 different human and ecological receptors and risk pathways. The database is used to check risk calculations for the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant.

Data Management

Data Management System, PFAS and Hydrogeologic Data, Sacramento County, California Designed and developed a data management system to manage hydrogeologic and water quality data for the North American and South American subbasins in California. The system provides a consistent framework to interact with and discover large amounts of historical data. The data housed in the system include site, well, water levels, pumping, geologic, and water quality data. All data stored in the database are prioritized according to reliability and given quality validation codes. There is also a framework to view charts portraying time series. The system is designed so it can serve as a portal for stakeholders in the region.
Data Management System, Mound Basin and Ventura Counties, California Designed and developed a data management system to manage water level and water quality data for county municipalities in California. The system provides a consistent framework to import data from source files into the production environment via a staging area. The data housed in the system includes the actual site, well, water levels from manual measurements as well as transducer data, pumping, and water quality data. All data stored in the database are given quality validation codes and users have the ability to add qualifying codes. There is also a framework to view charts portraying time series data as well as the ability to export data formatted for import specifications into the state water warehouse system.
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