News
Environmental Compliance During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Over 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, PETools for Adapting to a Virtual Reality
With Governor Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order enacted this week and other states doing the same, working from home for the majority of us is no longer a choice—it’s the law. Like many of you, MFA staff have been working from…
Charla SkaggsMeet Brian Eagle, Senior Environmental Scientist
Where are you from and where do you live now? I’m a full-time Oregonian. I was born in Klamath Falls, raised in Forest Grove, and currently live in Oregon City. What do you do at MFA? I am an environmental scientist by…
Merideth D'Andrea, RG, LG, PGCoronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak: Practical Protections for the Workplace and Community
Coronavirus (COVID-19) is no joke. The swift spread of this virus and the surrounding news updates have many—if not all—of our Pacific Northwest-based staff thinking about how to stay safe while best practices for addressing the virus are…
Kate ElliottResults for "Health & Safety"
Over 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, PECoronavirus (COVID-19) is no joke. The swift spread of this virus and the surrounding news updates have many—if not all—of our Pacific Northwest-based staff thinking about how to stay safe while best practices for addressing the virus are…
Kate ElliottOccasionally, 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, CIHFor 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 NaylorCompliance 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…
Amy PecciaYou 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 NaylorPSM/RMP for the Uninitiated: The Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) both enforce similar requirements for facilities that have more than the threshold quantity of listed…
Bill Beadie, CIHIn 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, PhDAsk ten people about process safety management (PSM), and chances are at least seven of them will tell you about mountains of paperwork designed primarily to keep auditors happy. They might say, “I spend so much time doing paperwork that I…
Bill Beadie, CIHClearly EPA is reading my blog, because only nine days after I posted a summary of lingering questions about proposed PSM/RMP changes (link), EPA has responded with a final version of the updated rule (link) and a summary of frequently asked…
Bill Beadie, CIHPSM/RMP for the uninitiated: The Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) both enforce similar requirements for facilities that have more than the threshold quantity of…
Bill Beadie, CIHJames 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, 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™…
Kyle Roslund, LGThe current issue of EPA’s Chemical Emergency Prevention and Planning newsletter features Bill Beadie’s article on mechanical integrity programs in the section titled “Best Practices from the Field.” The article describes a…
Bill Beadie, CIH