News
EPA is Focusing on Smaller Ammonia Refrigeration Systems in the Pacific Northwest
EPA Region 10 is starting a “Compliance Assurance and Enforcement Initiative” aimed at facilities in the Pacific Northwest with less than 10,000 pounds of ammonia. If you know it’s important to comply with the General Duty Clause, this…
Bill Beadie, CIHMeet Anna Poliski, Project Engineer
Where are you from and where do you live now? I grew up in Salem, a city in South Jersey, and I went to college in Syracuse, New York. After college, I lived in Buffalo, New York, before moving to New Zealand. I lived there for a few years…
Leslie RileyMeet Andrew Rogers, Meteorologist
Where are you from and where do you live now? I was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. After graduating college, I spent three years in Colorado before moving to Portland, where I’ve lived since 2016. What do you do at…
Leslie RileyIt’s Official: There Are New RMP Rules
PSM/RMP for the Uninitiated: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforce similar requirements for facilities that have more than the threshold quantity of listed…
Bill Beadie, CIHResults for "Environmental"
Where are you from and where do you live now? I grew up in Salem, a city in South Jersey, and I went to college in Syracuse, New York. After college, I lived in Buffalo, New York, before moving to New Zealand. I lived there for a few years…
Leslie RileyOur project team continues to work with Oregon State University-Cascades to turn a former brownfield site into a community asset. The client recently created a video showcasing the transformation. Brooke Harmon, PE, MFA project engineer, is…
Stacy J. Frost, PECongratulations to the City of Palouse on receiving the 2023 Small Community & Impact Phoenix Award! The Phoenix Awards are prestigious national accolades that are given to both individuals and projects that highlight the best practices…
Matt HoffmanMFA Receives Highwire’s 2022 Gold Safety Award Highwire, a cloud-based mobile platform that empowers clients to make smarter risk management decisions, has announced the recipients of its prestigious safety awards. Maul Foster & Alongi has…
Caitlin BryanThis blog was co-authored by former MFA Senior Planner Sarah Sieloff. What Is Environmental Justice in Planning? National Community Planning Month is an opportune time to consider how pollution doesn’t impact all people equally. The…
Carly SchaeferU.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…
Courtney Savoie, RG, LHG, PGThis post was originally written by Sarah Sieloff, former MFA Senior Planner. 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…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APWhere are you from and where do you live now? I am originally from the coast of Maine, and I currently live in Portland, Oregon. I like to say I moved from one Portland to another, and I love them both. What do you do at MFA? I’m an…
Michael J. Pickering, RG, LGThere’s a new modeling requirement in Oregon not found in the Oregon Administrative Rules or permitting guidance? Yes! On September 1, 2021, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued an internal management directive…
Chad DarbyThis post was originally written by Tessa Shabram, former MFA Staff Engineer. At MFA, our core purpose is strengthening communities. For many of our projects, strengthening communities involves cleaning up contaminated sites and developing…
Carly SchaeferWhere are you from and where do you live now? I have been in the Pacific Northwest since 2012, and I live in Washington. I previously hailed from the Rockies (New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming) and spent much of my childhood in…
Alan R. Hughes, RG, LG, PGMFA is proud to announce the promotion of Merideth D’Andrea to principal geologist, recognizing her outstanding commitment to delivering excellence to MFA’s clients and colleagues. For 20 years, Ms. D’Andrea has provided geologic…
Kathy J. Lombardi, PEWhere are you from and where do you live now? I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. I made a five-year stop in Moscow, Idaho, for university and then migrated west and have called Portland home for the past 13 years. What do…
Phil Wiescher, PhDIn September 2020, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) released two new Internal Management Directives (IMDs) that will strongly influence risk assessment and site characterization activities at cleanup sites under DEQ…
Phil Wiescher, PhDIt’s nearing the end of September, 2020. I have been working from home for more than six months—still feeling unsettled in the new normal of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rolling out of bed and immediately beginning my workday had its perks at…
Carly SchaeferWhere are you from and where do you live now? I’m originally from New England. After graduating high school, I traded fluffernutters and maple syrup for chicken fried steak and moved to Austin, Texas, for college—hook ‘em horns! From…
Merideth D'Andrea, RG, LG, PGThis post was originally written by Michael Tarbert, former MFA Staff Engineer. Maul Foster & Alongi uses data and science to serve communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. We solve challenging and complex problems in service to…
Carly SchaeferAs I drive through the Silver Valley in Shoshone County, Idaho, I see a tight-knit community rebuilding. Store fronts once empty and abandoned have come to life, filled with shops and restaurants. I see new infrastructure where festival…
Carly SchaeferOver the last few weeks, Oregon and Washington industries have had to implement significant changes to their operations to protect their employees and the public, and comply with shelter-in-place orders and social distancing guidelines related…
Ada H. Banasik, PEWe don’t have to tell our industrial clients twice—regulatory compliance is an important topic. An efficient compliance program helps businesses reduce risk, meet regulatory requirements, and ultimately, run a successful business. In…
Carly SchaeferIf you haven’t heard the buzz and you’re thinking to yourself, “Wait, what’s PFAS?” here’s a recent MFA blog that will introduce you to the topic and get you up to speed. Now that you’ve read the basics, we’re jumping into a…
Courtney Savoie, RG, LHG, PGIt’s hard to believe we’ve entered the year 2020. Although we still can’t teleport or fly our cars to work, there’s no doubt that advancement is all around us (hello, face-scanning phones!). It’s Maul Foster & Alongi’s practice to stay…
Alistaire Clary, PEAre you an industrial stormwater permit holder? Your permit renews on January 1, and Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) updates reflecting the new permit are due January 30. We know these changes can be confusing, so we have…
Ada H. Banasik, PEThis 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, LHG, RGThis 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, RGFor 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…
Alan R. Hughes, RG, LG, PGThe 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…
Joshua Elliott, PETiger 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…
Carly SchaeferMFA’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, PEYou 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…
Courtney Savoie, RG, LHG, PGWhere 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, PEI 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 APAs 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, PEJoin Grant Herbert, Senior Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analyst/Developer, and Erik Strandhagen, Senior GIS Analyst and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Certified Remote Pilot, for presentations on the benefits, challenges, and…
Grant Herbert, GISPMFA is honored to have been part of a team that was recently awarded the 2018 Governor’s Smart Communities Award in the Smart Projects category for the Skagit County Community Justice Center Brownfield Redevelopment project. To assist the…
Carly SchaeferIn our daily lives we are constantly exposed to ever-changing mixtures of chemicals, and existing tools for figuring out how these chemical mixtures affect our health are not necessarily comprehensive. This is largely because they do not…
Phil Wiescher, PhDLike many small, rural communities, Cathlamet, Washington, is transitioning from dependence upon commercial fishing and timber jobs to new methods of economic development, in part relying on a healthy tourism industry to keep the town’s…
Carly SchaeferThe reauthorization of the Federal Brownfields program is starting to wind through Congress and was recently passed by the US House of Representatives. The current proposal (HR 3017) being reviewed by the Senate, which is always subject…
Carly SchaeferOregon State University-Cascades and Deschutes County have reached an important milestone in their negotiations for the sale of an inactive construction and demolition debris landfill to OSU. On October 30, 2017, Deschutes County…
Ted Wall, PEWhen you think of job creation and economics, look no further than the Lower Grand Employment Area (LGEA). The City of Vancouver, Washington recognized the potential for the LGEA to help preserve jobs in the city’s core and drive regional…
Stacy J. Frost, PELooking for the most recent information about the Oregon 1200-Z Stormwater Discharge Permit? Read our blog post about modifications to the permit in October, 2018. After issuing two draft permits and reviewing two rounds of public…
Ada H. Banasik, PEWenatchee visitors will have a new and stylish place to stay, and the City will have a new revenue source via sales and lodging taxes, as a former brownfield transforms into a new hotel. The August 4th groundbreaking for construction of a new…
Carly SchaeferMaul Foster & Alongi, Inc. (MFA) wishes to congratulate Skagit County on the recent completion of its new community justice center, which was developed on a former truck stop fueling station brownfield. The need for a new jail facility to…
Carly SchaeferQ: What do City of Hoquiam, City of Aberdeen, City of Sedro-Woolley, Port of Skagit, and Skagit County all have in common? A: They recently were named 2017 Governor’s Smart Communities Award Winners – and they are all MFA…
Jamie FisherThanks to the American Planning Association (APA) and author Katharine Logan, LEED AP, we are proud that our work in Spokane’s 500-acre Hillyard industrial district is one of three examples featured in the February 2017 Planning magazine…
Carly SchaeferAs part of its quarterly “regional snapshot” series, Metro has published a reader-friendly look at brownfields and their impact on economic growth and development in the Portland metropolitan region. While the region continues to see…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APLeading brownfield experts Michael Stringer and Jim Darling were recently featured as guest writers in the Seattle DJC. Communities across Washington State are increasingly looking at vacant and shuttered former industrial sites as…
Steven P. Taylor, PEHats off to Zidell Marine Corporation for over 50 years of success in the barge-building industry and everything they have given to the Portland community and economy. They announced this week that they will be exiting the barge-building…
Carly SchaeferThe Vancouver Business Journal published an article on brownfields in Clark County. MFA is proud to be the leading brownfield consulting business in the Pacific Northwest. In the article we expand on the concept of the 4th Generation of…
Alistaire Clary, PEEcology has made some big changes in their Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP). In an effort to balance staff shortages with increasing workloads, Ecology has raised the bar for entry into the VCP and is implementing new policies to streamline…
Alan R. Hughes, RG, LG, PGJames Peale, RG, LHG, Principal Hydrogeologist at MFA, authored the recent article, Lead in Drinking Water: Steps to take as a Business Owner, published in the Vancouver Business Journal July 8, 2016. Click the link below to read his full…
Alistaire Clary, PEHere are updates from my recent meetings with Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) staff to discuss the status of Ecology’s Voluntary Cleanup Program. New Checklists and Templates for Voluntary Cleanup Program…
Alan R. Hughes, RG, LG, PGSeveral MFA projects, including Columbia Memorial Hospital/Astoria Landfill Sports Complex, Lake River Dioxin Cleanup, and Zidell Remediation are highlighted in an article by Katharine Logan published in the May/June 2016 issue of USGBC+,…
Carly SchaeferMFA is excited to announce the Astoria Athletic Complex project is the recipient of the 2016 Oregon Brownfields Outstanding Project Award! The award will be presented at the 11th Annual Oregon Brownfields Conference May 16th, 2016. This award…
Carly SchaeferMFA’s planning efforts on the St. Helens Waterfront Redevelopment project are making the news. Working with our partners from Walker Macy, MFA led a group of St. Helens residents, Waterfront Advisory Committee members, and city council…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APThe Governor’s proposed Supplemental Capital Budget includes $25 million for cleanup funds to partially cover the recent shortfall in Remedial Action Grants. The source of the funds will be State issued bonds. The $25 million represents 29…
Carly SchaeferPlan Adopted for Redevelopment of Historic Northern State Hospital The Sedro-Woolley City Council has unanimously adopted the Subarea Plan for the Center for Innovation. This is the capstone of two years of planning for redevelopment of the…
Carly SchaeferThe Wahkiakum County Eagle newspaper recently published an article highlighting MFA’s work. After testing sediment the question has arisen, what to do with the material, read about the possible creative solutions MFA has collaborated with…
Steven P. Taylor, PECharacterizing and cleaning up contamination in the aquatic environment can present significant logistical challenges. A sampling of MFA’s recent high adventure aquatic experiences includes: …
Erik Bakkom, PE“Forensics” is a term that may evoke images of an awkward detective linking the dots between crime scene evidence and laboratory DNA results to solve a crime. Environmental forensics applies the same general principle of criminal forensics…
Phil Wiescher, PhDIncremental Sampling Methodology is becoming a go-to approach – for responsible parties and regulators alike – for efficient and robust contaminant characterization. While the method is fairly established for soil characterization, the use of…
Phil Wiescher, PhDAt the 2015 National Brownfield conference that was held in Chicago in September, the Astoria Municipal Landfill closure and sports complex redevelopment project was awarded the Phoenix Award for USEPA Region 10. MFA is honored to have led the…
Stacy J. Frost, PEThe Oregon Brownfield Coalition is the 2015 recipient of the Brownfield Leadership Award for Innovation & Resiliency, in the category of Statewide Brownfield Innovation. The award is presented by NALGEP (National Association of Local…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APMany Oregon businesses were caught off-guard when the state lowered the effluent benchmark levels significantly in the 2012 update of the 1200-Z industrial stormwater permit. The resulting benchmark levels are so low that most industries…
Ada H. Banasik, PEMFA Senior Planner Seth Otto was recently featured in the Oregon Daily Journal of Commerce for the work he has done in support of new brownfield legislation in Oregon. Seth was a member of the coalition backing House Bill 2734, which allows…
Ted Wall, PEUpon returning from Beijing, where I attended the 2015 International Symposium on Urban Stormwater Management and Landscape Hydrology and met with numerous experts in the stormwater, landscape architecture, and brownfields arenas, I have come…
Ted Wall, PEThe success of a bank stabilization project hinges on the ability to explore a variety of potential solutions and identify the most effective option for any given site. MFA has seen success with many different types of projects, all with their…
Kathy J. Lombardi, PEStatistics abound as to the current and projected pace of urbanization in the world’s most populous country, the People’s Republic of China. With a total population of over 1.35 billion people, a projection issued in March 2014 by the…
Ted Wall, PEIt was a hot August day when I first saw the building—fenced off and surrounded by brown, crunchy grass, it was a five-story building with boarded-up windows and broken glass. When I finally got to enter the building, I suited up in Tyvek™…
Carly SchaeferIn the world of economic development, nothing can add value to a large-scale project like a strong, mutually beneficial partnership between public and private interests. At the P3C Public-Private Partnership Conference & Expo 2015 in…
Carly SchaeferOn March 9, 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) announced the recipients of its 2015 Area-Wide Planning (AWP) Grant. The AWP grant program assists communities that are responding to local brownfield challenges, including multiple…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APFollow the link below to read an article by Erik Bakkom that was published in Land & Water Magazine explaining aspects of the Willamette Riverbank Restoration: Riverbank Restoration Success – From Brown to…
Carly SchaeferThe Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) recently implemented a program to assign construction stormwater general permit (CSWGP) coverage to sites that have known contamination and that may discharge potentially contaminated…
Joshua Elliott, PEUnder the partnership of the City of Yakima and the Washington State Department of Ecology, Maul Foster & Alongi, Inc. is cleaning up a long-term community eyesore. The former Tiger Oil retail gasoline station located at the corner of Nob…
Carly SchaeferThe benefits of precision dredging are numerous; I’ve seen them firsthand: streamlined regulatory approval, greater risk reduction, and increased water quality. MFA wrapped up a large-scale dredging project in February 2015 in Lake River,…
Carly SchaeferOver 100 years ago, the State of Washington took a bold step in opening the Northern State Hospital, a state-of-the-art residential mental health facility in Sedro-Woolley. The campus, designed by the world-renowned Olmsted Brothers landscape…
Carly SchaeferIt isn’t often that one has the opportunity to work on a project with unprecedented local community benefits as well as a game-changing global reach. The adaptive re-use of the historic Northern State Hospital campus in Sedro Woolley,…
Carly SchaeferThrough its environmental brownfield redevelopment expertise, MFA continues to play a key role in supporting economic development in rural communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. A recent example is MFA’s support of the Port of Moses…
Carly SchaeferAs mixed-used redevelopment forges ahead on the Zidell Yards property, NorthWest Ecosystem Services Ecologist Paul Fishman took a moment to reflect on the project’s myriad undertakings in the nine years since cleanup efforts got underway in…
Carly SchaeferDuring the last quarter of 2014, MFA assisted 16 industrial facilities in Northwest Oregon with the selection and conceptual design of stormwater-treatment measures required for compliance with the Tier II corrective action requirements…
Ada H. Banasik, PEAre we in the right jungle? -Stephen R. Covey | As civil and environmental engineers, we must accept that recognition for a job well done will often take the form of indifference. We do our best work when no one does a double take. When…
Carly SchaeferMaul Foster & Alongi, Inc. (MFA) has hired Tom Mullen, a Senior Hydrogeologist with almost 30 years of experience in environmental consulting and project management, to serve the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene region. This strategic hire…
g-mfaWith the real estate market strengthening, there is increased interest in urban redevelopment. Many of these infill projects must address challenges from historical contamination. MFA will be participating in several upcoming conferences to…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APPortland, OR –Following analysis and meetings with stakeholders, Metro staff, and council, Maul Foster & Alongi, Inc. (MFA) recently submitted its report to Metro Regional Council describing its analysis of the potential economic and…
Ted Wall, PEMFA will facilitate workshops on Integrated Planning for Cleanup and Redevelopment of Brownfield Properties at the Oregon Brownfield Conference in Portland and the Brownfields and Land Revitalization Conference in Spokane. These interactive…
Neil Alongi, PEScientists and engineers from Maul Foster & Alongi, Inc. have been invited to present findings from their work on remediation sites at the Battelle Remediation of Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compounds conference in Monterey, California…
Erik Bakkom, PEThe Washington State legislature is considering a brownfield package of legislative actions (known as MTCA 3.0) to improve the ability to undertake and complete brownfield cleanup and redevelopment projects. The package contains a number of…
g-mfaMFA has been selected as part of a team of consultants, including Redevelopment Economics, to support Smart Growth America in hosting workshops with governors and high-level state officials to develop policies to support brownfield…
g-mfaOn Thursday September 22, MFA is hosting a workshop designed to provide the latest information on key stages of brownfield redevelopment. This workshop will begin with a buffet breakfast at 7:30, followed by a presentation at 8:00 on…
Ted Wall, PEPortland, Oregon. July 8 – With federal and state permits in hand, Zidell is moving their cleanup activities into the Willamette River in the South Waterfront neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. The issuance of the Clean Water Act (CWA)…
Erik Bakkom, PEAt the May Brownfields & Land Revitalization 2011 Conference in Spokane, Washington, Maul Foster & Alongi, Inc. (MFA) will be conducting an interactive workshop on the potential adaptive reuse of a contaminated site. Based on a real…
g-mfaPortland, OR—As noted in the Oregon Business Journal, the regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA-Fisheries) has cleared the way for a significant cleanup and…
Erik Bakkom, PESeveral MFA staff are presenting at conferences in February. Neil Alongi will be presenting at the Advanced Washington Stormwater Conference, February 7th at the Washington Convention Center in Seattle, Washington. His practical years of…
g-mfaThe proposed greenhouse gas (GHG) rule-making package developed by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) was adopted by unanimous decision of the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission on October 23, 2008. The rule-making…
g-mfaThe potential regulation of GHG may be generating concern within your organization and could have real implications for your business. Maul Foster & Alongi, Inc. can help you develop a strategic approach to managing GHG regulations. As…
Steven P. Taylor, PEThe 2010 Oregon Brownfields Conference and Awards Luncheon will be an unparalleled learning and networking opportunity for brownfields practitioners, both novice and experienced. This two-day Conference is designed to provide attendees with…
Ada H. Banasik, PE