News
EPA 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 HackettMFA Celebrates National Intern Day 2022
MFA interns provide new ideas, creative solutions, and fresh perspectives to our work. While supporting our teams, MFA interns are encouraged to explore opportunities that interest them and build the foundational skills every developing…
Carly SchaeferResults for "Planning & Community Development"
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 SieloffMFA is proud to announce the promotion of Seth Otto, AICP, LEED AP, to principal. Seth is a principal planner with a passion for community development, urban revitalization, and environmental conservation. His work focuses on land use…
Kathy J. Lombardi, PERedeveloping Expo Idaho Fairs offer excitement and fun for kids from 1 to 92. Fairgrounds, however, require large amounts of land, and it can be challenging to keep that land and those assets active and contributing to the public benefit…
Sarah SieloffThe Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) recently published a new model remedy that provides guidance for cleanup of historical orchards in central and eastern Washington. While the new requirements may seem daunting, once you are…
Ben JohnsonHappiness is an easy commute, but finding affordable housing near employment centers or near high-capacity transit is becoming more difficult every year. Many factors contribute to the record pace of increasing housing prices, especially…
Matt HoffmanEphrata is an eastern Washington town of fewer than 9,000 people. Born at the turn of the twentieth century, Ephrata, like many nearby communities, was first a hub for workers who were supporting the federal government’s rural…
Abbi RussellRemember when we used to sit at the same table? In 2019, the MFA Communications and Planning teams gathered stakeholders around a table in the Interbay neighborhood of Seattle as part of a thorough public input process. Our MFA planners and…
Taylor HodgesWhere are you from and where do you live now? I spent my youth in southern California, but I have lived in the beautiful Pacific Northwest for 20 years now, and I call Portland my home. What do you do at MFA? From conceptual site…
Kristi Boon, PEWhat’s a HAP? In 2019, the Washington State Legislature passed legislation encouraging all cities planning under the Growth Management Act to adopt actions to increase residential capacity, especially in areas with supportive transportation…
Matt HoffmanOctober is National Community Planning Month and this year’s theme, Planning is Essential to Recovery, highlights how planning and planners can lead communities to equitable, resilient, and long-lasting recovery from the effects of the…
Ashlyn SalzmanWhere are you from and where do you live now? I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and raised in Ames, Iowa. When I was growing up, my family would spend a few weeks every summer driving big loops around the U.S. to camp in and explore our…
Charla SkaggsHugo 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…
Victoria O'DanielThe 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…
Leora WernerMFA 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…
Leora WernerOregon 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, PESince 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…
Victoria O'DanielMany 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…
Jamie FisherDuring 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,…
Kaitlyn BrunoMFA 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…
Katie StrommeIn 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…
Katie StrommeOn 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…
Katie StrommeIt 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,…
Katie StrommeAs 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…
Katie StrommeAre 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…
Katie StrommeEvidence 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…
Katie StrommePortland, 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…
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