About – Environmental Restoration Group, LLC

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Debbie Sharpton, Principal

A real estate professional for over 38 years, Debbie has purchased and facilitated 100’s of parcels for conservation and mitigation programs in the Santa Monica Mountains. The services available to clients range from consultations to transactional representation on transfer of fee title ownership, transfer development credits, conservation easements, onsite and offsite mitigation to address your environmental needs.

Debbie brings over 23 years of experience as a team leader for planning and implementing multiple projects for habitat & stream restoration, trail-building, and sustainable development. Debbie worked for Mountains Restoration Trust (MRT) for 18 years as an Acquisitions Specialist & Project Manager, her last position as Executive Director from 2008-2018. Debbie left MRT to broaden the impact of her conservation work to benefit multiple resource agencies and landowners in the region . Accomplishments include:

Headwaters Corner Environmental Education Center Project, an environmental education center on 12 acres containing 2 structures, including 1890 historic homestead, and representative examples of 5 ecobiomes. Role as the Initial Concept Designer prior to starting at MRT, then became lead Project Manager. Time: 2001-2018, Funding: $3.5 million.
Dry Canyon Creek Restoration, a 1.60 acres of wetland and riparian restoration along .25 miles of blue-line stream including streambank and floodplain restoration, in-stream barrier removals and replaced with free span bridges. Role as conceptual design lead and project management at MRT. Time: 2004-2007, Funding: $750,000
New Millennium Trail, an eleven-mile trail in Calabasas. Role as Construction Supervisor at MRT. Time: 2005-2006 Funding: $750,000
Lois Ewen Overlook, a park visitor interpretive station in conjunction with the County of Los Angeles. Role as Project Manager at MRT. Time: 2007-2008, Funding: $150,000
Monte Nido Fire Safety Project, a fuel load reduction and fire ecology/fire safe structures education program for the Monte Nido community. Role as Concept Designer and Project Management, Oversight at MRT. Time: 2012-2018, Funding: $100,000
Headwaters to Groundwater: San Fernando Basin Groundwater Recharge Study, a research project of stream data collection and analysis of undeveloped sections of western San Fernando Valley area, and opportunities for increasing local groundwater recharge to reduce reliance on imported water. Role as Initial Concept Designer and Program Implementation Management at MRT, 2004-2008, Funding of $500,000
Floodplain Management Plan Steering Committee, member as environmental seat on the Los Angeles County effort to update the floodplain management plan, 2015-2018
Integrated Regional Water Management Plan Steering Committees, member on the regional disadvantaged community committee and the North Santa Monica Bay subregion committee, 2011-2018
Wildlife Linkages Working Group, Member of group working on acquisitions to protect wildlife corridor, 2017-2018
US Army Corps of Engineers, California Department of Fish and Wildlife and Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board mitigation programs. Established In-lieu fee program at MRT to offset temporary and permanent impacts to wetland and non-wetland waters of the U.S.
CA Red-legged Frog Recovery, established while at MRT a community-based program to remove crayfish from Malibu Creek. 2006-2018, Funding $1 million.

Ed Pushich, Principal

An avid outdoorsman and environmentalist, Ed has supported habitat restoration projects since 1990 as either a volunteer field crew member and/or donor. Ed provides site supervision, equipment specialist and herbicide applicator services for habitat restoration projects. Ed’s experiences include

Mark Abramson, Principal

Mark’s expertise in stream and habitat restoration is deeply rooted in 20 years of restoration projects and a masters degree in Landscape Architecture emphasizing regional scale environmental land planning and design with the integration of humans into the processes of natural ecosystems. Mark has spent over twenty years in watershed scale planning, project management, riparian and wetland habitat restoration and biological monitoring with local nonprofit entities, such as Heal the Bay, Santa Monica Baykeeper, and most recently The Bay Foundation. Mark operated his own landscaping business designing and installing environmentally sensitive landscapes and irrigation systems. Mark provides services ranging from grant writing, conceptual-to-finish project management, and biological monitoring. A list of projects follows:

Over 20 years experience in planning, managing and monitoring of native riparian and upland plant community restoration and in-stream barrier demolition and construction of free span bridges.
- Liberty Canyon Wildlife Passage – project manager for phase one underpass improvements, $2 million budget
- Arroyo Sequit Steelhead Passage – planning and construction manager for in-stream barrier replacements and native vegetation restoration, $3.5 million budget
- UCLA Stone Canyon Creek – planning and construction management for riparian restoration project, volunteer
- Malibu Lagoon Restoration and Enhancement Plan – project manager charged with implementing the Lagoon Restoration project, protection of sensitive ecological resources during construction, water quality monitoring during construction and biological, habitat, and water quality success monitoring post construction. MLREP reconfigured the western channels of the Malibu Lagoon to improve tidal inundation and scour during open-lagoon conditions, to enhance circulation during closed-lagoon conditions. The goals were to increase wetland habitat, improve dissolved oxygen levels, reduce eutrophication impacts, increase species richness and diversity of benthic macro invertebrates, crustaceans, bi-valves and fish. As the manager for the Malibu Lagoon Restoration and Enhancement Plan, I facilitated all communication between State Parks, Coastal Conservancy, the project design and engineering consultants, the Resource Conservation Districts of the Santa Monica Mountains and the biological, habitat and water quality monitoring consultants. Responsible for all permitting, on-site monitoring before, during, and after construction and supervision and training of construction personnel to protect biological, habitat and water quality resources during construction. $7 million budget
- Culver City Rain Water Harvesting – design and installation of 10 private residence rain gardens, $200,000 budget
- Ballona Creek Low Impact Rain Garden Project – project and grant manager for project that captures a minimum of 1 inch of runoff from a 24-hour rain event from 11.1 acres of commercial industrial property and 11.4 acres of residential properties along the flood control right- of-way of Ballona Creek in Culver City. The project created green space and native riparian and upland habitat along a degraded and blighted section of Ballona Creek, $2.2 million budget
Expertise in regulatory permitting and grant fund sourcing for habitat restoration projects
Certified with 15+ years of California Stream Bioassessment Protocols and Storm Water Ambient Monitoring Program protocols