Grand Junction Office Expands to Offer More Services to Local Community and Beyond
By Lorne Prescott, Grand Junction Office Leader AP
Olsson has continued to work with natural gas providers but has broadened its services to other industries. With Wyatt Popp, a professional civil engineer, moving to the Grand Junction office this month, Olsson is expanding to offer more civil engineering services to municipal and county clients and to explore land development opportunities.
The 18-member Grand Junction office has a broad range of expertise and experience.
For example, when an oil and gas client gained the rights to drill for natural gas in a state wildlife area, numerous questions and concerns arose from the local community. Residents wanted to know how this would affect existing wildlife in the area, and the surface owner (the Colorado Division of Wildlife) was concerned about potential impacts to deer, elk, and turkey populations, as well as the impacts to the hunting that had occurred in the area for years. Nearby landowners also were concerned about how this activity would affect their water quality.
Olsson staff members handled the stakeholder process, permitting, environmental compliance, and stormwater planning to such a high-quality degree that the permitting process set the standard for all future work on the site, the animal population remained stable, users of the area continued their annual hunting trips, and water quality was not adversely affected.
Olsson staff members were crucial to finding the common ground between our national energy needs and local concerns about environmental impact.
Tim Coakley has been a resident of Grand Junction since 1971. As the leader of the Stormwater Management group at Olsson, he oversees a practice that works closely with various industries to ensure proper stormwater management permitting and planning.
While this stormwater work originated and remains strong within the oil and gas industry, the Stormwater Management group can also work with residential, commercial, and industrial projects. Recently, the group completed a project with a sand and gravel company in Gunnison and a solar photovoltaic project in Grand Junction.
Olsson also has a strong water and soils sampling program based here in our Grand Junction office.
In the arena of civil engineering services, Olsson has been busy with the "E" Road reconstruction project in the Clifton area of Mesa County. Olsson is preparing the roadway plan and profile sheets; roadway cross-sections; storm drain plans; utility relocation plans; and signal, signage, and striping plans for the intersection at 32 Road. With the addition of Wyatt to our office, Olsson has greater capabilities to provide civil engineering support on grading and drainage plans, access road improvements, and stormwater management projects.
In addition, Wyatt is meeting with municipalities and counties in the region to offer services for infrastructure improvement projects. In anticipation of his move here, Wyatt has spent the last few months coming to the west slope to meet with people in Mesa County and Garfield County, as well as the cities of Grand Junction, Rifle, Gypsum, and Fruita.
Wyatt's presence also expands Olsson's local capabilities for land development services, and he has been meeting with local architects and design-build contractors.
Olsson's Grand Junction office has its roots in the oil and gas industry and continues to provide a full range of services to those clients. The office has been steadily expanding to other industries and service lines and is committed to providing our west slope community with a full range of services around environmental compliance and permitting, stormwater management, and civil engineering services.
If you're in the area, come on by and visit us at 826 2 ½ Road in Grand Junction or call us at 970.263.7800.
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You can reach Lorne Prescott with Olsson's Grand Junction office at lprescott@oaconsulting.com.
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