News
Planning for Environmental Justice
This blog was co-authored by Project Environmental Scientist Haley McDaniel. What Is Environmental Justice in Planning? National Community Planning Month is an opportune time to consider how pollution doesn’t impact all people…
Sarah SieloffEPA Proposes Designating PFAS as Hazardous Substances under CERCLA
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on August 26, 2022, that it is proposing to designate two of the most common and most studied PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) compounds as hazardous substances under the…
Erik NaylorShould You Be Pursuing an EPA Brownfields Grant? Now is the Time to Decide
Why first-movers may see advantages this year It’s the most wonderful time of the year, sort of. EPA recently released updates related to this year’s competition for grants in its Brownfields Program. The 2022 call for grant applications…
Sarah SieloffMeet Amanda Bixby, GIT, Staff Geologist
Where are you from and where do you live now? I grew up in Wenatchee, Washington. In 2014, I moved to Bellingham, Washington, to attend Western Washington University and have lived here ever since. What do you do at MFA? As an…
Audrey HackettResults for "2019"
Get to know the four new professionals who have joined MFA! We are always interested in potential candidates who want to join the talented individuals that make up our team. For current job openings, please visit our online application…
Jennifer King, PE, SPHRThis post was originally written by Heather Good, former MFA Senior Hydrogeologist. Updates to Vapor Intrusion Investigations and Short-Term TCE Toxicity On October 1, 2019, the Washington State Department of Ecology released…
Amanda Bixby, GITThis post was originally written by Heather Good, former MFA Senior Hydrogeologist. Thanks to years of hard work and diligence, Bellingham Public Schools (BPS) has had a lot to celebrate recently. In August 2017 BPS celebrated the grand…
Carolyn R. Wise, LHG, RGOccasionally, I look around and realize that things have changed. It’s usually a small thing here and little thing there, and then I realize that the world has evolved into a different place. Recently, I realized that the world of ammonia…
Bill Beadie, CIHWhere are you from and where do you live now? I was born and raised in Northeast Portland and am a proud Grant High School graduate (go Generals!). And while I have moved around quite a bit, I currently reside in NE, where my roots…
Alistaire Clary, PEHugo House is a Seattle-based nonprofit, with the mission of being “a place to read words, hear words, and make your own words better.” This literary house provides a home to everyone who loves books or has a drive to write. One of Hugo…
Charla SkaggsWhere are you from and where do you live now? I consider myself to be from both Chicago and California, and now happily call North Idaho (and the Kellogg, Idaho office!) my home. What do you do at MFA? I support the Coeur d’Alene…
Alan R. Hughes, RG, LG, PGGet to know the 12 new professionals who have joined MFA! We are always interested in potential candidates to join the talented individuals who make up our team. For current job openings, please visit our online application…
Jennifer King, PE, SPHRFor many of MFA’s geologists, environmental scientists, and chemists, summer means long days of fieldwork at the Bunker Hill Superfund Site (BHSS), conducting several different concurrent environmental investigations. The BHSS includes areas…
Erik NaylorWhere are you from and where do you live now? I grew up in West Linn, Oregon, and I now live in Lake Oswego, Oregon. What do you do at MFA? My technical background focuses on contaminant fate and transport in groundwater and sediment…
Alistaire Clary, PEInternational Bridges, Tunnels and Turnpikes Association Summit Recently, Charla Skaggs and I attended the IBTTA Communication and Change Management Summit in Seattle. This conference is especially relevant to the work of MFA’s…
Kate ElliottCongratulations to Ada Banasik, PE and Erik Bakkom, PE, who have been named principal in recognition of their outstanding commitment to delivering excellence for MFA’s clients. Ada Banasik, PE, has a wealth of expertise in stormwater and…
Alistaire Clary, PEThe MFA team is wrapping up environmental remediation oversight for what will soon be Fritz Hedges Waterway Park, a new green space along Portage Bay on Lake Union in Seattle’s University District. The park is expected to be open to the…
Josh Elliott, PEWhere are you from and where do you live now? I was born in Vancouver and raised in central Clark County. I spent most of my childhood fishing, camping, boating, riding horses, and skinning my knees. After six years living in the Carolinas…
Charla SkaggsEach spring, the fifth graders at Kalama Elementary head to Cispus Learning Center in Randle, Washington, for a day of learning in the great outdoors. I spent a beautiful May day at the learning center with these students, teaching them about…
Meaghan Pollock, LG, RGTiger Oil was a Texas-based company with locations across the United States, including several in Yakima, Washington. This string of gas stations and accompanying mini marts ceased operations in the town in the early 2000s. One of the former…
Carolyn R. Wise, LHG, RGCompliance at industrial facilities is important 365 days a year, and each season comes with its own compliance challenges. As we head into the summer season, here are our top tips to ensure your facility remains compliant. Stormwater…
Ashlyn SalzmanMFA’s participation in this year’s Bike More Challenge was a great success! The Bike More Challenge—a program started by the nonprofit organization The Street Trust to encourage people to ride bikes—inspires fun and friendly…
Alex BraschWhere are you from and where do you live now? I grew up in Iowa along the Mississippi River. I remember that there were a lot of cornfields, but I don’t like corn! So perhaps that wasn’t the ideal setting for me. My family moved to the…
Tyler VickWhere are you from and where do you live now? I’m from Osburn, ID, which is part of a larger community known as the Silver Valley, and I’m thankful to still live there today. My husband and I now own a home in the same neighborhood…
Kathy J. Lombardi, PEMFA’s award-winning remediation work for the Zidell Yards property on the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon is featured in a new film by local filmmaker, David Bee. Beginning its operation in the early 1900s, the Zidell Yards property is…
Erik Bakkom, PEGet to know the nine new professionals who have joined the MFA team! Are you interested in working with us? For current job openings, please see our online application…
Jennifer King, PE, SPHRYou may have heard of “PFAS” in a documentary or in the news recently. You also may have heard that, in the U.S., PFAS chemicals are in drinking water and in people’s blood. And you would be right to say—what!? How can this be? This…
Erik NaylorWhere are you from and where do you live now? I grew up in Indiana. It was very flat and I like the mountains so I decided to head west for college in Eugene and then Utah. I worked in the Portland MFA office for eight years and moved to…
Alistaire Clary, PEWhere are you from and where do you live now? I hail from Detroit—Birmingham to be exact. If you ever want to engage in a long conversation about Detroit history, I’m your man. I now live in West Seattle with my wife, Sarah, and two…
Sidney CountsIt’s National Engineers Week! We are recognizing the great work MFA engineers do and celebrating the engineering profession with a profile of an outstanding MFA engineer every day this week. To learn more about MFA’s engineering work,…
Jennifer King, PE, SPHRIt’s National Engineers Week! We are recognizing the great work MFA engineers do and celebrating the engineering profession with a profile of an outstanding MFA engineer every day this week. To learn more about MFA’s engineering work,…
Jennifer King, PE, SPHRIt’s National Engineers Week! We are recognizing the great work MFA engineers do and celebrating the engineering profession with a profile of an outstanding MFA engineer every day this week. To learn more about MFA’s engineering work,…
Jennifer King, PE, SPHRIt’s National Engineers Week! We are recognizing the great work MFA engineers do and celebrating the engineering profession with a profile of an outstanding MFA engineer every day this week. To learn more about MFA’s engineering work,…
Jennifer King, PE, SPHRDid you feel that magic in the air this morning? That special feeling that comes only one week a year in late February? The magic of National Engineers Week aka EWeek? It couldn’t have only been me that felt it…right? Either way, read on…
Jennifer King, PE, SPHRI provided testimony last week to the Oregon House Revenue Committee on the proposed Brownfield Remediation Tax Credit. This was the first public hearing on the bill in front of the Legislature. The bill has been carefully crafted over several…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APThis past fall, MFA said goodbye to our offices in the Al Angelo Building on East Mill Plain Boulevard and moved into our new headquarters, a building we purchased that is just one block north of where the first MFA office was established in…
Alistaire Clary, PEToday’s the day, Seattle-area residents. This evening, the Alaskan Way Viaduct will permanently close, resulting in a temporary shutdown of SR 99 through downtown Seattle. The aging and seismically vulnerable viaduct will be replaced with…
Kate ElliottAs the new year begins, we asked four of our colleagues at MFA to share their thoughts on the future of the environmental and engineering industry and the important issues our clients are facing. Here are their predictions for 2019—we hope…
Alistaire Clary, PE