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 "Planning & Community Development"
Hugo 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 SkaggsInternational 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 ElliottYou 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 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…
Michael P. Stringer, AICPThe SWIFT (Sedro-Woolley Innovation for Tomorrow) Center in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, is a portal from the past into the future, and a model for how underutilized spaces can be reborn as thriving community assets. The SWIFT Center, in…
Jim DarlingMFA 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…
Yen-Vy Van, LHGOregon 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…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGSince MFA’s founding as a small group of mostly engineers and scientists conducting environmental investigations and design work, we have grown not only in number of people but also in scope of services. We have also grown in our…
Charla SkaggsWenatchee 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…
Yen-Vy Van, LHGMany Oregonians are surprised to learn that Willamette Falls ranks just after Niagara Falls—it is the second-largest waterfall in the country by volume. MFA is happy to share the great news that just this month, final design was unveiled for…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APQ: 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…
Michael P. Stringer, AICPDuring the Joint Oregon and Washington Planning Conference on Thursday, October 27, the Planning Association of Washington and the Washington Chapter of the American Planning Association honored the Port of Skagit, the City of Sedro-Woolley,…
Michael P. Stringer, AICPMFA staff led sessions on brownfield development at the most recent Certified Commercial Investment Managers (CCIM) Conference, held on September 29 and 30, 2016, in Bend, OR. Jim Maul, Ted Wall, and Seth Otto prepared a dynamic, informative,…
Seth Otto, AICP, LEED APMFA 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, 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, PEA recent bill allowing the Washington Department of Enterprise Services to transfer the Northern State Hospital property to the Port of Skagit County was signed last week. This decision will allow Janicki Bioenergy to move forward with their…
Jim DarlingIn 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…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGOn 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 APOver 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…
Jim DarlingIt 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,…
Jim DarlingAs 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…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGAre 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…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGEvidence of the city and Port of Kalama’s successful collaboration on an underway project was publicly presented in the form of a 2014 Smart Communities Award. The Spencer Creek Business Park and a new, nearby multi-use recreational facility…
James J. Maul, RG, LHGPortland, 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, 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…
Jim Darling