David Mettz, with Gulf South Operators in New Orleans, had a regulatory nightmare on his hands. His company was taking over a marshland project in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge, which was producing oil with no safety system and creating a bank mess.

Mettz called Richard Leonhard, a senior regulatory specialist with C.H. Fenstermaker and Associates, and asked for help. Leonhard worked out all the regulations with the Delta National Wildlife Refuge and help make the project environmentally safe.

Gulf South Operators later received a letter of commendation for its regulatory efforts on the project.

Regulations and permitting can be burdensome to oil and gas companies but are fertile areas for environmental consulting, civil engineering and land surveying companies such as Lafayette-based Fenstermaker.

C.H. Fenstermaker and Associates, which also maintains offices in New Orleans, Houston and Baton Rouge, reported $12.8 million in 2003 revenue and projects $14.6 million this year - nearly double the $8.5 million made in 2000.

Fenstermaker plans to add space to its New Orleans office in the Energy Centre on Poydras Street, take on a handful more employees and increase its project load. Fenstermaker services 250 companies through its four offices.

"The New Orleans office has exceeded our expectations and we have a lot of capable people there who are making that an effective office for us," said William Fenstermaker, president and chief executive.

Fenstermaker said his company will soon break ground on a 5,000-square foot building in Lafayette and renovate two other buildings. Space will be added in Houston, too, he said.

Fenstermaker projects revenue will continue to increase between 12 percent and 15 percent annually because high oil and gas prices are resulting in more projects, which means more work for regulatory specialists and environmental consultants who deal with the watchdog regulation oil and gas agencies.

"Regulatory issues have gotten so complex that companies need a consulting business with every project they do," said Leonhard, who has worked out of the New Orleans office since 1989. "It's sometimes a balancing act trying to resolve time issues for a company within an operation and trying to get the approvals in a timely manner."

Louisiana's Department of Environmental Quality is one regulatory agency increasing its focus on environmentally safe projects. The DEQ opened in 1984 with 330 authorized employees; now the agency employs 1,018. The agency's 1984 budget of $25 million has ballooned up to $138 million now.

"In that regard, a company like Fenstermaker has had a lot more work to do for oil and gas companies, assuring them that they're abiding by the rules," said Jean Kelly, DEQ public information officer.

Fenstermaker's New Orleans office opened in 1986 after the company bought Aubry G. Burke & Associates, which specialized in oil and gas surveys. Two years later, Fenstermaker's first big project in New Orleans came from a $5 million contract with the Army Corps of Engineers to map 1,000 square miles of the Atchafalaya Basin. The map, which identified landowners and provided legal descriptions for privately held land in the 595,000-acre basin, was necessary so the Corps could begin a 10-year, $120 million project to protect endangered wetlands.

Ralph Gipson, with the New Orleans office since 1986 and now branch manager and a professional land surveyor, said the project load has been diversified since then with work from government agencies, small and large oil and gas firms and pipeline companies.

"In this day and time you can't operate any project without being sensitive to surroundings," Gipson said. "Public boundaries are as important to oil and gas as doing a subdivision or commercial development in real estate.

"The real story or feather in our cap has been our environmental department and wetlands permitting branch. Being on top of the ever-revolving world of regulations and wetland permits has really helped us thrive."

The New Orleans office, which has eight employees, could be up to 12 or 13 in the next couple of months, Gipson said. The company is also ISO 9001 certified, which means it is audited yearly and has a certified quality management system in place.

"We work every day to maintain our viability and keep our licenses up to snuff for our clients," Gipson said. "Our survey division came up with a motto: 'We put our clients where they want to be.'"

Gipson said technology played a major role in the company's success, keeping up to date on the latest surveying equipment like the RTK GPS (Global Positioning System) device, a precision instrument measuring property location within a centimeter.

"We do those upgrades every couple of years to serve our clients more efficiently so they have a better comfort level with us," Gipson said. "You can imagine the incredible amounts of data coming in from the field and the data files we have to deal with on some of these projects."

Published in New Orleans CityBusiness

Fenstermaker is a regional company providing engineering, surveying and mapping, and environmental services to federal, state and local governments, the oil and gas industry and private enterprise. Fenstermaker's offices are located in Lafayette, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport, Louisiana and Houston, Texas.