A confidential mining company operates and maintains a 6,000-acre tailings storage facility (TSF) with nearly 10 miles of zoned-earth perimeter dams and 8 miles of granular-earth interior dams. Portions of the existing dams exceed 100 feet in height, and are projected to eventually rise to about 150 feet. The facility has been operating continuously since the 1970s.

Barr prepared a draft closure plan for the facility that featured a comprehensive analysis of regulatory and permit requirements; concepts for reclamation and post-closure land use; and sections on deactivating, restoring, and reclaiming the TSF, including monitoring dam safety during and after the transition.

Our work on the closure plan included:

Barr’s background with this tailings storage facility dates to the 1960s; we helped bring it into existence. Our engineering and environmental services over the decades have encompassed:

Using an ecosystem planning approach to address environmental degradation

People impact ecosystems through much of what we do in our daily lives, mostly without knowing. To address the degradation of its natural water bodies and surrounding ecosystem, the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District (RPBCWD) wanted to take an ecosystem approach to its planning efforts. RPBCWD hired Barr to develop an ecosystem health action plan, which takes all physical and biotic factors into account regarding decisions that benefit people and the environment. 

Using insights from a series of collaborative workshops with watershed constituents; city, county, state, and federal staff members; and RPBCWD’s board of managers—as well as the expertise of RPBCWD’s and Barr’s staff members—regarding primary ecosystem malfunctions and potential remedies, the plan developed strategies to address ecosystem degradation.

This plan establishes how RPBCWD can intervene on nature’s behalf to achieve the district’s mission to protect the watershed ecosystem. Actions posed in the plan include adjusting regulations, developing protective policies, conducting climate adaptation planning, implementing multi-functional capital projects, expanding ecosystem education and outreach, working with local cities and developers to promote low-impact development, and providing greenspace to improve the urban ecosystem.

Climate change presents risks to our natural and built environment and to all of us. The South Washington Watershed District (SWWD) worked with Barr to develop a plan to improve the resiliency of the district and its communities in Washington County, Minnesota. Barr developed and facilitated a two-day planning workshop with policymakers and interested parties to identify specific climate hazards and risks to their communities and to develop high-level prioritized strategies to respond to those risks.
 
Using the workshop feedback, Barr developed recommendations to address increased risk due to climate change to the groundwater, natural resources, and storm sewer infrastructure in the SWWD. We investigated the risk of climate change to 25,000 storm sewer pipes in the district by assessing the likelihood of pipe failure and the potential consequences of pipe failure. Using that analysis, Barr identified high-risk pipes and culverts throughout the storm sewer systems of the SWWD cities and townships and made recommendations to reduce infrastructure failure risk.

In 2020, the City of Cedar Falls, Iowa, hired the team of Perkins & Will, Barr, and LHB to help develop a resilience plan to achieve its goal of being a proactive, prepared, and flexible community in the face of a rapidly changing world. The plan provides an action guide to evaluate existing community plans and actions and identify additional actions needed to improve the city’s prosperity and stability.

The project engaged city staff and community members to identify actions and goals to move Cedar Falls toward a more climate-resilient community. The plan provided recommendations for local economics, community, weather, nature, energy, and mobility. Barr led the development of actions and strategies tied to extreme precipitation, climate change, flooding, green stormwater infrastructure, and the vulnerability of neighborhoods and critical infrastructure. 

The Cedar Falls resilience plan is now available online.

A strategy to recover and maintain long-term ecological health

The City of Woodbury has an extensive park and open space system—encompassing hundreds of acres of woodlands, wetlands, and prairies—but an agricultural history and encroachment by invasive plants have left many of these natural areas in poor ecological health. The city turned to Barr to develop a prioritized, scheduled, and budgeted plan to systematically restore and promote native plant diversity.

Barr began by facilitating internal workshops to gather knowledge and restoration priorities from city staff. We combined this information with relevant spatial and field-investigation data to assess and describe the existing ecological quality of 30 selected open spaces from across the city.

The resulting management plan prioritizes areas of high ecological quality—with the intent to preserve existing native plant diversity—and calls for actions to suppress invasive species, expand native plant communities, and maintain those communities through routine management.

Once the priority areas are restored and advanced to long-term management, the city will move on to the next level of priority. Eventually, all sites will have been restored and undergoing regular management to avoid the need for intensive restoration in the future, saving significant costs in the long run. Barr developed 20-year restoration and management plans as well as cost spreadsheets for each site so that city staff can budget and prepare for ecological management long into the future.

In tandem with closing depleted areas at its Coal Hollow Mine, Alton Coal applied for a permit to begin new operations on an adjacent, federally owned parcel of land. Utah’s Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining (DOGM) requires that a revised mine plan meet certain regulations for containing stormwater runoff and controlling sediment. In particular, ditches must be sized to convey runoff at specific rates and sediment impoundments must meet capacity requirements. In this case, the revised mine plan addressed both the area of the mine being prepared for closure and the proposed expansion.  

To meet DOGM’s detention-volume requirements for sediment control, Barr developed a hydrologic model and used it to (1) analyze the 400-acre watershed area that could be affected by past mining disturbances and (2) size ditches, culverts, and a sediment storage basin. The resulting sediment-management plan incorporated efficiency by using existing infrastructure where possible.

We started by conducting a drone survey of the watershed to obtain accurate topography, and then evaluated the most efficient routes for diverting runoff from undisturbed upgradient areas and around the mining operations. Bypassing the mined area prevents the water from picking up possible contaminants while reclamation activities are taking place. 

A separate system collects runoff in the disturbed mine area and conveys it to a sediment impoundment structure, or storage basin. The basin was sized to contain the runoff volume of a 10-year, 24-hour storm, and features a decant structure that allows settling of sediment and eventual controlled release of runoff. 

After the ditches and decant structure were built, we performed another drone survey to verify the system’s capacity and update as-built drawings for Alton Coal’s permit application. A hydrology and runoff-control report and accompanying reclamation design plans were part of the larger permit package submitted to DOGM. 

Barr also used drones to survey the volumes of multiple pit and fill areas, which was critical for managing both the final mining operations and new reclamation activities taking place at the site. 

In addition to permitting assistance and drone surveys, our services at Coal Hollow Mine encompassed a bond release; environmental compliance inspections; engineering assistance with mine planning, geotechnical investigations, and hydrologic and hydraulic analysis; and operational evaluations to improve mine production efficiency.

 

 

Using GIS mapping to identify the impacts of climate change

A climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) serves as the first step in climate adaptation planning by identifying the greatest risks from climate change. When Hennepin County wanted to learn how the changing climate is affecting its people, water resources, infrastructure, natural systems, and the built environment, Barr was hired to develop a CCVA for the county, including Minneapolis and its densely populated suburbs.

Overlaying the data

Barr leveraged GIS open-source data to show how climate change is impacting Hennepin County. For example, we identified facilities, roads, and sidewalks vulnerable to extreme precipitation events using FEMA floodplain and localized flood risk data from the Metropolitan Council. We also identified where natural resources are at risk by employing Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ Metro Conservation Corridors and the U.S. Geological Survey’s land cover data. 

Identifying vulnerable populations

A primary aspect of the plan involved identifying population vulnerability in Hennepin County. Health, demographic, and economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau was used to reliably identify and map population vulnerabilities. Barr identified 14 vulnerability variables, ranging from median household income and population age to English-language proficiency and asthma hospitalization rates. We mapped variables at the census-tract level, classified them, and assigned a subsequent score, which was then added to create a composite population vulnerability map. Areas with the highest scores represented populations most vulnerable to climate change.

The CCVA equipped Hennepin County with the data to build a more climate-change-resilient future for its people, natural resources, and infrastructure. The CCVA served as a foundation and technical reference for the development of the Hennepin County Climate Action Plan, allowing county work groups to present data-based strategies, initiatives, and actions aimed at building resilience to the risks posed by climate change.

 

The Nose Creek Watershed Partnership (NCWP) conducts watershed planning to protect riparian areas, improve stormwater management, and enhance water quality in the Nose Creek and West Nose Creek watersheds (collectively the Nose Creek Watershed), near Calgary, Alberta. In 2018, NCWP updated its watershed management plan and identified the need for a highly detailed hydraulic model of both creeks—incorporating over 140 km of stream channel and over 170 hydraulic structures—to evaluate plan implementation options across jurisdictions.  The NCWP hired Barr to develop the model in HEC-RAS.

The highly meandered channels of both creeks presented challenges to using a purely one-dimensional (1D) model, so we coupled a 1D model of the channels with a two-dimensional (2D) model of the floodplains to accurately simulate both in-channel and overbank flow. To efficiently develop a set of closely spaced channel cross sections that achieved the level of detail desired by the NCWP, we created a GIS-based tool that automatically generated over 10,000 cross sections from a high-resolution bathymetric survey.

We supplemented the coupled 1D and 2D model with a fully 2D model from the same survey data, which allowed the NCWP to model both very low and very high flows. We calibrated the model using continuous discharge and water-level measurements from both creeks between 2019 and 2021, and we completed a sensitivity analysis on the channel and floodplain roughness.

This detailed hydraulic model will be used for a wide range of future watershed management efforts, including geomorphology assessments, stream and fish habitat restoration, and flood studies up to the approximate 1,000-year flood event.

Barr helped a midstream oil-and-gas company develop an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) framework. The project involved two phases—training and framework development.

The training curriculum introduced the client’s executives and managers to ESG topics and was developed in consultation with the client. The training covered the history of ESG, ESG stakeholders, business benefits of addressing ESG risks and opportunities, and reasons for the recent interest in ESG. The training also included key ESG issues, including materiality assessment, metrics and targets, and data collection, management, and reporting. Key international ESG standards and frameworks, as well as the reporting requirements within the standards, were also addressed.

In phase 2, Barr worked closely with the client to develop a customized ESG framework. As part of the study, we reviewed the client’s corporate policies relevant to ESG, including those dealing with corporate governance, human resources management, and health, safety, and environmental management. We also reviewed a questionnaire the client uses to report on ESG activities to its main investor. Barr undertook some research and screening of 10 ESG reporting frameworks and standards to identify the most appropriate ones to use.

In addition, we developed an implementation plan with a prioritized list of actions and recommendations for filling gaps identified during preparation of the custom framework.

The City of Provo has experienced rapid growth, and due to increased water demands and climate changes, groundwater levels have been declining. In 2019, Barr began working with the city to perform an extensive ASR (aquifer storage and recovery) study and implementation of future ASR projects. ASR involves moving excess water during wet or snowy periods or that is available through water rights into the ground for storage in local aquifers. Together with the city and its water-rights attorney, we searched for surface-water sources and infiltration and injection sites that were appropriate and consistent with the city’s 40-year water-supply plan. Along with conducting geophysical surveys for the most promising sites, we developed a detailed three-dimensional geologic model and worked with groundwater models to conceptualize the hydrogeology in this complex geological setting that includes active faults, historical Lake Bonneville deposits, and canyon erosion.

Other challenges included identifying how and where snow melt recharged aquifers, measuring flows in ephemeral streams, and analyzing source- and receiving-water chemistry, all within a complex, regulated water-rights setting. Our team generated and ranked potential ASR locations and prepared cost estimates for the most promising sites. To help stakeholders visualize how the ASR projects will work, we developed easy-to-understand graphics, maps, and figures.

After installing monitoring networks and doing extensive water quality testing of the aquifers at each selected sites, pilot studies for selected ASR sites began in spring 2020, continuing through the year. Barr is also leading efforts to obtain state and federal grant and loan funds to help the city plan, permit, design, and construct the final ASR projects.