Dewberry has hired Connie Lasher as a staff environmental scientist in the firm’s Pensacola, Florida, office.
Lasher joins the Dewberry team responsible for developing multi-year implementation plans (MYIP) and recovery frameworks for Gulf Coast counties to use funds related to the Resources and Ecosystem Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act of 2012 (RESTORE Act). With more than 27 years of experience, Lasher specializes in Florida’s environmental statutes, wetland and environmental resource permitting, and sovereign submerged lands. She has experience in environmental site investigations and assessments, environmental cleanup—including dewatering and soil excavation—environmental remediation, water quality assessments, mitigation, dredging, and shoreline stabilization. Her site remediation experience includes sites contaminated by petroleum and other hazardous substances.
Before working with the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) in response to the 2014 Texas City Y oil spill, Lasher participated in 10 NRDA studies in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. For nearly eight years before that, Lasher was the delegated signatory for all wetland resource and stormwater permitting, sovereign submerged land authorizations, and warning letters for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s northwest district. She is recognized as an expert witness in the interpretation of Florida statutes and rules in relation to environmental and wetland resource permitting and sovereign submerged lands.
Lasher is an academic advisory board member for the University of West Florida Environmental Studies, a position she has held since its inception in 2001. She served in the U.S. Army Reserves for 17 years and received her bachelor’s degree in biology with an emphasis in zoology from the University of Wisconsin.
