Aerial maps helped a farm manager understand impacts and patterns of seasonal flooding. Founded in the 1850s, Plas Newydd Farm in Ridgefield, Washington, has been managed as a year-round dairy farm and cattle ranch, as well as for…

Lincoln County found that its 20-acre property used for the Lincoln County Fair was underutilized and not producing sufficient revenues to cover the year-round costs of owning and maintaining the site. To identify potential expanded…

Whatcom County Public Works Department is responsible for maintaining the stormwater system in the Birch Bay Watershed and Aquatic Resources Management District. To fund this stormwater system, a fee is levied against properties within the…

With the recent departure of several long-time staff combined with an inefficient asset management system based on institutional knowledge and paper records, SPUD managers needed a new way to track their water and sewer assets. Snoqualmie…

When it comes to topographic mapping, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are an efficient and inexpensive alternative to total station surveys or aerial surveys using aircraft. The high cost of total station surveys or aerial surveys using…

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) aided a county in efficient and accurate landfill management.    As municipal solid waste is unloaded into landfill cells, the waste compacts and settles, reducing the landfill’s surface elevation….

Aerial imagery enriched the Port of Ridgefield’s ability to tell a detailed story about the renaissance of their waterfront. From the mid-1960s to the early 1990s, Pacific Wood Treating Co (PWT) pressure-treated wood products with toxic…

A 3D terrain model of a rock quarry created using unmanned aerial systems (UAS) saved the quarry’s owner time and money. When Potlach, a public diversified forest products and real estate company, needed to know the remaining capacity of…

The WSDOT Toll Division plays a vital role in the community and regional economy by creating toll facilities that fund regional transportation improvements. To help guide facility and division needs, WSDOT hired MFA to provide ongoing…

The City of Vancouver engaged MFA to implement an area-wide planning project to work with property owners, businesses, and neighbors to identify and prioritize needed improvements to address deteriorating and substandard streets, localized…

In support of the ambitious Willamette Falls Legacy Project, MFA has been working with METRO since 2016 to assess the former Blue Heron redevelopment site with tasks including hazardous building materials surveys, soil sampling, scheduling for…

The MFA economics team developed a forecast of electric vehicle adoption with and without the incentives provided by the Newhall Ranch planned community. In an effort to mitigate the environmental impacts to the development of the community,…

MFA economists are analyzing the economic impacts associated with the designation of critical habitat for the Main Hawaiian Islands insular false killer whales’ (Pseudorca crassidens) distinct population segment. The assessment covers a…

MFA is providing economic impact analysis for the recycling industry in Salt Lake County, Utah. The results will help the County understand the economic strength and impact of the existing recycling industry. The recommendations MFA is…

MFA economics staff have been providing support to the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Little Colorado River Basin adjudication for many years. MFA is currently assisting the Federal team by developing a…

From pre-application meeting to permits in hand took less than one year for this complex remedial action. MFA anticipated requirements from a litany of agencies, including those associated with water quality, ecological habitat, and endangered…

This 1,800-foot-long failing bulkhead was transformed to provide wildlife habitat, prevent erosion, and restore culturally-significant plants to an area historically used by Native American tribes.  MFA’s careful design, extensive grading…

Chemical Fingerprint: This is an example of a principal component analysis showing that site sediments (grey dots) have a chemical signature that is highly similar to industrial point sources (green dots) and are less similar to upstream…

MFA deployed high-resolution thermal sensing instrumentation to understand surface water and groundwater interactions along a 1.5-mile stream segment. The data gathered identified areas in which surface water was discharging…

MFA characterized sediment and pore water, and evaluated chemical concentrations; bioassay results; and ambient, background conditions to assess risk to human health and the environment and identify the optimal remedy. MFA led the…

Communicating concepts such as contaminated groundwater flow into and under a river can be challenging with traditional plan view figures. During the RI/FS for a combined chlorinated solvent/former manufactured gas plant site, MFA…

MFA developed a design that integrated the demands of dynamic river flow, areas of hard and soft riverbed, bank stability, site operations, habitat improvements, and remedy requirements into a multi-component sediment and bank cap. MFA…

MFA’s innovative design incorporated “precision dredging,” an approach that limits suspension of contamination; “fish-friendly” gravel to stabilize the bank; and shoreline habitat restoration. These environmentally sensitive…

MFA used incremental sampling methodology to effectively characterize concentrations over a large area while minimizing cost. Site-specific sediment core samplers were fabricated to achieve retrieval of consistent volumes of sample…

When the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality lowered the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater permit benchmarks, Hampton Affiliates (Hampton) and many industrial facilities in Oregon had to modify their…

From its opening in 1935 to its closure in 1991, the Leichner Landfill was the primary solid waste facility for Clark County and the City of Vancouver. In 2011, the county became the sole owner of the landfill, with an additional agreement in…

An employee of a confidential client was diagnosed with cancer and suggested that it may have been caused by his exposure to chemicals at work. To make matters even more complicated, the industrial process involved more than 70 chemicals of…

Malarkey Roofing needed to measure silica levels in the work environment to understand the implications of a recently-proposed OSHA silica rule. MFA reviewed a silica sampling plan being used by an industry trade group, which ensured the data…

MFA was selected as the consulting firm representing Josephine County for construction oversight, data management, and quality assurance during the demolition of the 60,000 square foot, 5-story Dimmick Tower of the former Josephine County…

MFA worked with EnerG2 to develop a process safety management (PSM) and risk management plan (RMP) for their ammonia refrigeration process at an Albany facility. MFA’s extensive experience with ammonia refrigeration processes and close…

MFA worked with Ajinomoto to develop a process safety management (PSM) and risk management plan (RMP) for their ammonia refrigeration process at a Portland facility. MFA’s extensive experience with ammonia refrigeration processes and close…

The City of Spokane is attempting to redevelop the University District. Investments by Washington State University, Eastern Washington, Gonzaga University and other higher education institutions create an opportunity to transfer academic…

To remediate their 30-acre waterfront Superfund site in Portland, Oregon, which had been the location of a ship building and dismantling facility, Zidell Marine Corporation (Zidell) needed to consider how best to address the site’s issues….

In-water contaminants from years of barge-building activities had left the Zidell Marine Corporation (Zidell) with a major barrier to development on their Willamette River property. Zidell hired Maul Foster & Alongi, Inc. (MFA) to perform…

When the 20-acre municipal solid waste landfill stopped receiving waste years earlier than expected, Thurston County needed to quickly make decisions and move forward with closing the facility. The County partnered with MFA to design the…

The City of St Helens is actively pursuing purchase of individual properties to create a larger, unparalleled property in the heart of downtown. Two formerly active wood product facilities owned by Boise White Paper and Boise Cascade totaling…

With a site characterized by challenges including multiple legacy impacts, pending multiparty litigation, and a location within a Superfund site, the client’s challenges were varied, complex, and multi-tiered. To support claims for cost…

Because of the complexity of the legacy impacts affecting sediments at the site of a silicon wafer production facility in Portland, Oregon, the client, who operates the facility, had major contamination issues to contend with. Unaware of…

Rapid population growth in Ridgefield, Washington, was putting pressure on the Ridgefield School District (District), whose existing facilities were not adequate to support the recent influx of new students. Four bond measures to approve the…

The 40 acre Pacific Wood Treating site forms the City of Ridgefield’s waterfront. After 30 years of operations, Pacific Wood Treating abruptly declared bankruptcy and abandoned the site leaving extensive soil, groundwater, and sediment…

The Port of Kalama (Port) desired to redevelop an existing industrial site for administration office use. The redevelopment required civil engineering design and shoreline development permitting, including use of a SEPA checklist. MFA…

After the extent of contamination resulting from a tank release was understood at one of PetroCard’s petroleum cardlock facilities in South Kent, Washington, the company wanted to act fast. They decided to address the contamination…

After a piece of property in downtown Ridgefield, Washington was quitclaimed to the Union Ridge Investment Company (URIC), the Washington State Department of Ecology notified the group of investors that they would be required to investigate…

The City of Palouse is a small community in southeastern Washington. They have become a model for rural town capitalizing on the historic charm of their Main Street. After achieving great success in rebuilding downtown streets and sidewalks,…

The client, the operator of a metal-shredding facility on the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington, was in the process of a major site reconfiguration to accommodate a new freight access rail project when they were issued a new, individual…

The City of Ridgefield, Washington, had an ambitious vision for an outdoor welcome center to overlook the nearby 5,218-acre Ridgefield National Wildlife Area. Hoping to create a centralized park space that could function as a community…

The farmers at High Desert Organix, one of the largest carrot seed producers in the world, saw an opportunity in their operations’ by-products. The company decided to combine their solid vegetable waste with cow waste—an abundant resource…

On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, leading to oil releasing from the ruptured well for 87 days. As the resultant natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) progressed into…

Since the 1890s, the Mount Angel Abbey campus layout could best be described as disjointed. Home to the Benedictine monks, the owners of 800 acres of land in the Willamette Valley—including some of the last remaining original Willamette…

When Green Gables Design and Restoration, the owner of a private office development in the northwest industrial district of Portland, Oregon needed assistance with stormwater design issues, they sought out support from MFA. The site posed a…

A former landfill site in Cowlitz County needed to be closed per state and local health jurisdictions’ requirements. Landfill closure requires thorough knowledge of the Department of Ecology closure requirements. The team at MFA provided…

The Coeur d’Alene Trust has been tasked with managing cleanup actions in the Upper Basin of the Coeur d’Alene River for the Bunker Hill Mining and Metallurgical Complex Superfund Site. Developing a prioritization strategy for cleanup…

The Coeur d’Alene Trust’s data management goals are to promote secure, consistent, and efficient management of data throughout the extended timeframe of activities undertaken in the Upper and Lower basins of the Coeur d’Alene River in…

Maul Foster & Alongi’s landscape architects worked closely with the owners of a growing medical practice and a team of local architects to design a sustainable modern landscape that provided a tranquil natural setting for medical staff,…

Abandonment of a legacy property owned by Oregon’s Josephine County (County) had led to an unfortunate case of urban blight in the center of a historic neighborhood. Operated as a hospital since 1919, the property became empty after the…

A former service station built in 1930 but unused since the 1980s and listed on the Oregon DEQ’s Environmental Cleanup Site database was causing problems for the City of Portland. The site had become a popular location for illegal dumping,…

Northern State Hospital is an exceptional property, originally designed by the renowned Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm. Nearly 30 of the Spanish colonial revivalist style buildings, as well as the 200+ acre landscape itself, have…

AmeriTies operates a creosote-railroad-tie-treating facility in The Dalles, Oregon. Production of the ties involves treating them with creosote under heat and pressure. After treatment they are allowed to drip dry while resting on a concrete…

Green Diamond Resources (Green Diamond) wanted to acquire 600,000 acres of timberland in Southern Oregon. This is an area roughly the size of half of Rhode Island; the timberland is spread across 25 discontinuous parcels, which are as far as…

Farmer’s Cooperative Creamery (FCC) was in a bind when the City of McMinnville claimed that the creamery was the source of issues at the city wastewater treatment plant. The city threatened to withhold FCC’s permit to discharge. This would…

The owner of a former pesticide formulation facility desired to transition the site into a viable industrial property. Through negotiations with the seller, buyer, off-site property owners, and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality,…

Astoria’s new sports complex exemplifies the many benefits of multiple public and private parties coming together in the redevelopment of a brownfield to benefit their community. In addition to capping and closing an inactive municipal…