Utility Projects

Pacific Gas & Electric Company – Contracted to serve as their expert on the Butte Fire, 17 of the wine country fires in 2017, the Camp Fire, the Zogg Fire, the Blue Fire, Fly Fire, and the Dixie Fire since 2016.

 

Southern California Edison Company – Contracted to serve as their expert on the Round Fire, Way Fire, Woolsey Fire, Sayre Fire, and Rey Fires since 2013. 

 

Black Hills Energy – South Dakota – Contracted to serve as one of their experts on the Legion Lake fire in 2019.

 

Other Wildfires – Contracted by Avista Corporation, Vigilante Electric, Northwest Energy, Clearwater Power, Inland Power, Benton PUD, PacifiCorp, Lane County Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, Klickitat PUD, Oregon Trails Electric, Bluebonnet Electric Coop, San Miguel Power, Sangre de Cristo Electric,  Okanagan PUD, Columbia Rural Electric, and others on dozens of fires where trees were alleged to have fallen into powerlines starting the wildfire.

 

Utility Vegetation Management Program Inventory and Assessments – Goal was to help modernize their vegetation management practices and secure adequate funding to reduce tree caused outages and improve safety on their systems.  Utilities included:   Northwestern Energy (Trn & Dist), Pacificorp (Oregon Trn & Dist), Seattle City Light (Trn), Avista Corporation (Trn & Dist), Chelan PUD, Benton PUD, Eugene Water & Electric Board, Benton REA, Kootenai Electric, Clallam PUD, Springfield MUD, Douglas County Electric, Blachly-Lane Electric, Umatilla Electric Coop, and others.

 

PacifiCorp Oregon Initiative - Retained to serve as the interim Manager of PacifiCorp's vegetation management program in Oregon (Sept. 2013-Dec. 31, 2016), a $23 million/year program.  Goal was to improve production and reduce costs of program while digging out of a 2,000 mile deficit.  The cost per mile was reduced by 33% and the cost per tree pruned by 29%, along with improving the attitude and efficiency of the workforce, the tree removal rate, and overall management of the program.  The Oregon Initiative mileage goals were successfully completed.  The 2,000 mile deficit was made up and exceeded by 185 miles by the target date.

 

California Public Utility Commission - WFCI served as a sub consultant to Jacobs Consultancy on this project to audit the Pacific Gas and Electric Company $152 million/year vegetation management program. This was a 3 year project on which WFCI worked with ArborGlobal LLC and BioCompliance LLC to perform the comprehensive audit of the entire vegetation management program.

Avista Utilities - Prepared herbicide guidelines and provided training to contract and in-house personnel. Provided contract forester to assist in transmission vegetation management program and assessments to facilitate NERC-FERC reporting.

Montana Electric Cooperation Association – Conducted training on a variety of utility IVM subjects.

Urban Forestry

City of Lacey – Have served as their contract urban forester since 1991.    Prepared their Urban Forest Mgt. Plan, conducted a street tree inventory, prepared hundreds of tree protection plans, routinely performed tree risk assessment on parks and street trees, and their overall forestry specialist.

 

Tree and Plant Appraisals – Conducted hundreds of tree and plant appraisals and provided expert testimony for at least 53 matters using landscape and timber appraisal methodology.

 

Private and Public Development Projects – Prepared over 3,400 tree protection plans for residential, commercial, or industrial projects. 

City of Tumwater - Street tree assessment and comprehensive street tree plan for the City of Tumwater.

City of Seattle - Completed an assessment of all trees in Occidental Park in the City of Seattle.

Port Orchard and Kitsap County - Prepared parks forest management plans for all parks in the City of Pt. Orchard, along with 5 surrounding Kitsap County parks.

Private and Public Development Projects – Prepared over 3500 tree protection plans for residential, commercial, or industrial projects.

City of Ellensburg - Conducted a hazard tree analysis for all street and parks trees in the City of Ellensburg, and prepared management plans for all parks.

Washington State Parks - Hazard tree assessment in numerous parks for the Washington State park system.

Mt. Rainier National Park - Completed assessments for tree protection during construction and repair of historic buildings in Mt. Rainier National Park.

Forestry

Puget Sound Energy - Inventory and management plans for the White River and Electron forest lands. Ongoing management assistance with slide issues on the Electron flume.

Jess Thomsen, Inc. - Inventory, timber harvest permit preparation, sale layout, and management of their 2,300 acre forest land holdings.

Merill and Ring – Provided timber-side layout and management assistance for numerous timber sales.

Rainier Timber – Prepared and managed timber sales.

Numerous timber appraisals and feasibility studies for forest land purchase for a variety of clients.

Timber marketing assistance for dozens of small landowner clients.

Forest management plans for dozens of new forest landowners