• Summit County Open Space Plan and Comprehensive Plan

    Logan Simpson prepared the first update of the Summit County Open Space & Trails Master Plan since 1996. The previous Plan focused on land acquisition for a newly conceived program; the new Plan guides the acquisition, trail development, maintenance, and resource management into the next decade to proactively address challenges and adapt to change. It provides policy guidance on open space, trails, and other outdoor recreation topics across jurisdictional boundaries. This Plan works with the Countywide and Basin Master Plans to reflect the community’s vision for open space and trails throughout the County. It is focused on non-developed, nature-based recreation and provides guidance to federal, state, and local agencies that collaborate with Summit County, with each able to set its own policy on lands under their respective jurisdiction. The planning process integrated partners, land managers, resource interests, and recreation stakeholders to address acquisition, stewardship, and visitor priorities. Multi-lingual in-person and online public input was a driving force in the development of this Plan.

  • Navigating Farmington’s Future Comprehensive Plan

    Logan Simpson completed an update to the City of Farmington, New Mexico’s 2002 Comprehensive Plan to reflect the City’s transformation from an economy traditionally reliant on oil, gas, and coal extraction, to one that is much more diverse. Policies within the draft plan highlight an economic future that strengthens key assets such as: outdoor recreation opportunities; a burgeoning film industry; and access to regional healthcare and higher-level education; increased tourism; and becoming an active lifestyle destination for its influx of retirees. The Plan provides recommendations to assist Farmington’s governing bodies in decision-making, moving policy and development forward in a productive way conducive to transforming Farmington into a healthy, sustainable economy. The Plan is reflective of public outreach efforts by integrating what residents and business owners love and the issues they identify. Based on public input, the update includes new elements such as planning for healthy and socially sustainable communities, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and environmental quality.

  • Buckeye Wildlife Corridors, Best Practices Guide

    Logan Simpson developed the first-of-its-kind Wildlife Corridors Best Practices Guide, a set of best management practices and tools for development that considers harmony with wildlife corridors and the natural environment within the City of Buckeye’s growth area. While much of land surrounding the City remains undeveloped and provides essential habitat for wildlife, Buckeye is evolving rapidly, and the population increase warrants thoughtful planning. With the goal of maintaining and enhancing existing biodiversity while ensuring community prosperity, a case study-based approach was taken to organize this Guide around three strands – environmental, growth, and quality of life. The Guide’s is to advocate for wildlife connectivity throughout the City and encourage collaboration between all groups involved in developing Buckeye. Groups and individuals with local expertise helped inform the planning process, including landowners/developers, utilities, local/state agencies, and conservation advocacy groups.

  • Frisco Bay Marina Master Plan

    Logan Simpson developed the vision and master plan for the Frisco Bay Marina on Lake Dillon. The plan, which was approved in July 2018, is a community-supported guide for the Town to implement components of the design as funding allows. Short- and long-term goals and implementable actions include making the park an extension of Main Street and addressing connectivity and access concerns around the waterfront. The marina’s capacity will be expanded to accommodate all types of boating, and recommendations were made to both activate and support year-round uses. In addition, actions were outlined to enhance and restore the ecology at the shoreline and overall site.

  • Lake Powell Pipeline Biological Resource Survey

    Logan Simpson completed biological resources technical studies for the proposed 225-mile Lake Powell Pipeline. The project included the construction and operation of a buried water pipeline, water intake facility at Lake Powell, surface water storage reservoirs, hydro-electric generation facilities, and transmission lines. The pipeline corridor included federal, state, private, and tribal lands extending from Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona to Cedar City, Utah. Logan Simpson: completed 386 miles of field surveys documenting 16 special-status plant species occurrences of over 350,000 plants; mapped the distribution of 17 species of noxious/invasive weeds; recorded 306 plant taxa; and documented 3,443 polygons representing 556 vegetation associations on 25,000 acres. As alignments shifted, we assessed which rare plants potentially occur and adjusted survey schedules to match phenology of the target plants in target areas to aid in surveys and positive identification. A geospatial database of the vegetation survey results was developed to provide the basis for impact analysis of rare plants, determine mitigation actions, and develop an invasive/noxious species management plan.

  • Browns Canyon National Monument Resource Management Plan and EIS

    Logan Simpson led preparation of the first-ever resource management plan (RMP) for the newly-created Browns Canyon National Monument in Colorado. This 21,604-acre monument is located along the upper Arkansas River and contains scenic and diverse natural resources. The monument is jointly managed by BLM and USFS and includes one of the most heavily utilized commercial boating areas in the nation. The RMP focuses on protection of resources, continued public use and enjoyment, and continuation of historic uses, such as livestock grazing.

    Logan Simpson also prepared the associated EIS for the BLM and USFS. The EIS was completed in just 434 days from the Notice of Intent to the publication of the Record of Decision in July 2020—more than a year ahead of the contracted schedule.  Logan Simpson’s planners employed multiple strategies to help keep the project moving, such as crosswalking the agencies’ vocabularies and processes. This small but important step helped improve the Interdisciplinary Team’s respect and understanding for each agency’s guidelines and reduced schedule delays and do-overs.

  • Community Wildfire Protection Plans

     The wildland urban interface (WUI) is the area where homes are built near or among lands prone to wildland fire. These areas have become more popular for homeowners for their privacy, natural beauty, recreational opportunities and affordable living. As a result, rural fire districts are more often having to fight fire and protect homes and property within these WUI areas. Logan Simpson developed the first two CWPPs in Arizona for the at-risk communities of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest that complied with Title I of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (HFRA). We facilitated the collaboration among Federal, state, and local partners as well as Native American tribes to developed these two CWPPs and established priorities to reduce the risks to communities and surrounding lands. Subsequent to these first two CWPPs, Logan Simpson developed 20 CWPPs, analyzed over 31 million acres, and gathered input from over 300 communities across multiple states.

  • Four Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) Facilitation

    The Four Forest Restoration Initiative is a collaborative effort more than 20 years in the making. 4FRI is the flagship of the Forest Service’s national Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program which sought to achieve the collaborative, science-based ecosystem restoration on unhealthy forest landscapes.  This project is considered one of the most massive restoration projects in the nation. Stakeholder collaboration and consensus was central, as the values of restoration are complex. Stakeholders were a broad cross-section of more than 100 organizations, including federal, state, and local government, timber industry, preservation, and environmental interest groups, and citizens. The collaborative had often been divided deeply on specific issues and struggled to achieve consensus. Within four years, the collaborative turned over five different facilitators before turning to Logan Simpson. From 2012 to 2015, Logan Simpson guided the group through several complex challenges. Where possible, we brought electronic polling and modern collaborative planning tools into the 4FRI mix. The group’s success with Logan Simpson included revised decision rules (unanimously adopted); revision of the behavior-related ground rules of the Charter; revisioning/strategic planning each year; consensus comments on a draft EIS for the first analysis area; and successful collaborative leadership leading to broad-based support for the final EIS, which has moved to implementation without litigation. Logan Simpson managed and facilitated the collaborative with steering committee calls, facilitated meetings, problem-solving and conflict resolution.

  • Rawhide Solar Facility Permitting

    Logan Simpson worked with Platte River Power Authority to prepare a 1041 permit application for construction of a 30-MW solar generating facility at the site of the Rawhide Power Plant north of Fort Collins, Colorado.  The project included a survey of the site’s biological and cultural resources and other related investigations. Following hearings by the Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners, the project was unanimously approved.

  • LiDAR Cultural Resources and Environmental Support

    Rocky Mountain Power uses Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data collected from helicopter flights to measure minimum ground clearance, structural loads, wire sag, and wire tension along their existing electric transmission line network. Lines that pose a safety hazard are then repaired. Many of the lines pre-date environmental and cultural resources regulations such as NEPA, ESA, or NHPA. Logan Simpson helped Rocky Mountain Power navigate relevant regulations while ensuring that construction schedules were not impacted by unexpected environmental or cultural resources issues. Specific tasks included interfacing with federal and state agencies; large-scale literature reviews and due diligence studies to identify potential conflicts; GIS-based mapping, modeling, and database preparation; cultural resources inventories, site recording, and monitoring; and biological tasks like avian surveys, plant surveys, revegetation, and monitoring construction buffers for threatened and endangered species. We also identified construction access roads onto the right-of-way and facilitated the resolution of potential logistical issues that could impede construction.