In 2020, one of our petroleum-refining clients approached us to assist with ESG tracking and reporting. Like many companies, our client wanted to present meaningful ESG data to its investors and the public—but reporting was still relatively new and in flux, creating uncertainty about the precise types of information to collect, how to make sense of sometimes contradictory reporting standards, and where the company stood in relation to competitors.
Barr helped the refining company gain a sure footing on shifting terrain by developing two primary items. The first was a benchmarking table that showed how the organization’s 2019 ESG report ranked among those of the 15 midstream companies most similar to it. The second was a workbook that laid out comprehensive ESG reporting requirements for oil and gas companies, which allowed our client to pinpoint both the metrics it was already tracking and ones it needed to start tracking.
An especially valuable aspect of the workbook was Barr’s incorporation and centralization of the company’s existing data sources, including the locations of existing reports and details about information being tracked at particular facilities but not others. We also added instructions for gathering data in the correct format and for tracking new types of data.
Together, the two documents supplied the client with clear insights for validating its ESG metrics and reporting.
.
For more than a decade, Barr has worked with the Metropolitan Council to develop, maintain, and update a groundwater-flow model of the eleven-county metropolitan area of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. The current version, Metro Model 3, is a major update to Metro Model 2, also developed by Barr. The model assists in evaluating groundwater use and water-sustainability issues, surface-water–groundwater interaction, short-term and long-term regional water planning, the effects of changing climate on groundwater, and groundwater appropriations.
The model includes all of the major aquifers and aquitards in the region and encompasses an area of about 8,400 square miles. Metro Model 3 is available to governments and private users addressing groundwater appropriations and sustainability issues. Barr also developed a user’s manual and helped Metropolitan Council staff use the model to optimize high-capacity pumping in sub-regions of the model.
Metro Model 3 was most recently updated in 2018 to include the most up-to-date regional pumping and climatic data. The model is used as a starting point for most wellhead-protection plans and sub-regional groundwater-flow models in the Twin Cities area. To date, more than 15 different sub-regional models have used Metro Model 3 as the underlying model, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for local governments.
A city’s natural resources extend beyond parks and green spaces to encompass all parts of the city – even commercial areas. With broad community understanding that healthy natural resources are essential to a thriving community, the City of Minnetonka partnered with Barr to set direction and priorities for natural resources protection and enhancement for the city.
When identifying natural resources improvement opportunities, we looked at issues effecting both private and public land, including habitat fragmentation, dwindling native plant diversity, lack of pollinator species, invasive species, urban heat island effect, climate change, human perception of natural resources, and more. With a holistic understanding of the historic and present state of Minnetonka’s natural resources, we then developed urban ecology management strategies through this comprehensive plan.
The final natural resources management plan presents suggestions for ecosystem regeneration and practical strategies for mitigating specific negative impacts such as habitat degradation, deer over-browse, and a common ‘everything green is good’ public perception. As part of the plan, Barr also provided volunteer, education, and engagement suggestions for ways in which the city can partner with the community to bolster support around the management of natural resources.
With acres of property, and many acres of maintained lawn, the Metropolitan Council sought an ecological approach to land management. Not only is lawn maintenance an environmentally unfriendly practice—consuming a lot of fuel, water, fertilizer, and pesticides—lawn maintenance is costly. With Barr’s guidance, the Metropolitan Council developed sustainable landscape guidelines to inform their land-use approach.
Sustainable landscapes are designed to work with nature and improve ecological function. Features include capturing and reusing stormwater to conserve potable water; building soil and sequestering carbon dioxide; diversifying plantings, creating pollinator habitat; and much more. Once established, maintenance costs for sustainable landscapes are significantly lower than traditional lawn maintenance.
While developing the sustainable landscape guidelines, Barr and the Metropolitan Council worked to balance the prioritization of sustainable landscape with the need to protect and preserve accessibility to underground utilities, provide site security, and to be socially equitable. To focus design and management resources where higher maintenance landscapes are most seen and appreciated, the master plan organized landscape zones. Front yard zones are the most visible parts of properties; they receive the richest landscape design and require the most maintenance. Side and back yard zones are visible while driving through properties but are only occasionally used by staff. These areas include simple plantings that are not irrigated and will provide visual appeal while being low maintenance. The back 40 zones are out-of-the way areas used for habitat and passive recreation. Planted with native plant communities, they require little maintenance.
The guidelines developed are being implemented as sustainable landscapes are phased into Metropolitan Council land. These lands will be an environmental asset to host pollinator species and other wildlife, sequester carbon dioxide, clean the air, and filter stormwater, as well as be beautiful places for people to experience.
The City of Brainerd acquired a century-old hydroelectric dam on the Mississippi River to provide residents with a renewable energy source. BPU commissioned Barr to assist in evaluating the Brainerd Hydroelectric Project, then owned by Wausau Paper, before making a potential purchase offer. Within a timeframe of one month, Barr completed a condition assessment of the hydropower facility to assess its structural integrity, remaining life, and functional adequacy.
Upon its decision to purchase the project, BPU again turned to Barr to provide a more detailed due-diligence evaluation before the final sale. Based on our original evaluation of the dam, we performed a risk assessment to strategically address the most critical issues, with a focus on minimizing BPU’s risk for future unforeseen costs and liabilities. Guided by the risk assessment, Barr developed a pro forma to estimate the existing facility’s value, providing BPU with the information necessary to reduce the purchase price by more than $1.5 million.
In 2009, the Minnesota Legislature allocated funds for minimal impact design standards (MIDS), which included developing stormwater-management performance and design standards as well as tools to facilitate low-impact design (LID) and other stormwater-management techniques. Barr’s first phase involved modeling and gathering information to help the MPCA and diverse stakeholder groups decide on performance goals that would best mimic natural hydrology for a variety of site types. Volume and pollutant reductions that could be achieved through BMPs were also considered. Barr evaluated the pros and cons of more than two dozen BMPs, including green roofs, bioretention basins, infiltration basins, infiltration trenches, underground infiltration, permeable pavement, tree trenches, swales, stormwater re-use, disconnection, sand filters, constructed wetlands, and stormwater ponds. We then defined BMP volume- and pollutant-reduction credits. We also developed a MIDS calculator that quantifies the required runoff-treatment volume for a given site. Users can also select BMPs that result in the desired runoff volumes, total phosphorus (TP), and total suspended solids (TSS). Barr provided designers and municipal and watershed regulators with hands-on training on how to use the calculator. In addition, we prepared a MIDS project addendum to the MPCA’s Minnesota Stormwater Manual.
Barr worked with the City of Saint Paul to design a new seven-acre park near downtown in an area referred to as the West Side Flats. The park will provide both green space for people to enjoy and stormwater treatment (as an amenity) for the properties around the park. The proposed park includes community gathering spaces, trails, a boardwalk, and a several-acre stormwater wetland basin to treat, store, and slowly release stormwater. The park establishes a green neighborhood center with multiple benefits for people and nature.
Partnering with the city and several subconsultants, Barr worked closely with the surrounding neighborhood organizations, local artists, and other stakeholders to plan and design a park that meets the various needs of residents and disadvantaged community members. The project is 70-percent designed and will be completed as the surrounding redevelopment occurs.
Xcel Energy and ITC Midwest applied to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission for a certificate of need and route permit for a proposed 345 kV transmission line running from the Huntley substation near Winnebago to the Wilmarth substation in Mankato.
As a third-party consultant for the Minnesota Department of Commerce, Barr prepared a draft Environmental Impact Statement that guided the state’s route selection process for the proposed powerline. The EIS included evaluation of five route alternatives, 19 route-segment alternatives, and three alignment alternatives. Assessing the alternatives required conducting a technical review of a range of complex issues involving human-health impacts, property values, socioeconomic concerns, wetlands, wildlife, and threatened and endangered species.
To assist the public and regulators in comparing routes and understanding the advantages and drawbacks of each, Barr made extensive use of GIS technology. We developed a resource-data-analysis plan listing more than 100 spatial data sets, and then used GIS tools and custom Python scripts to quantify natural resources in and near the corridors being considered. The resulting graphics-based EIS featured multiple GIS maps and figures highlighting the issues most critical to routing.
The final EIS was made available in April 2019, and the route permit was issued by the PUC four months later. Construction began in spring 2020, and the line began delivering electricity at the end of 2021.
In 2020, a confidential power client called upon Barr’s coal mining experience and geotechnical services to better understand the feasibility of a proposed 100 MW solar power project in the Appalachian Mountains. The proposed 1400-acre site was previously used as surface mining for mountaintop coal reserves and has since been graded and reclaimed. Barr’s mining and geotechnical team completed a desktop-based analysis of potential for future settlement, future underground mining, differential movement, and related risks to provide a better understanding of the past mining activities’ implications for siting and design.
To complete the analysis, Barr’s team first had to review site-specific information to identify the previous mining methods and associated depths, as well as locations of key mountaintop coal mining features such as valley fills, areas with surplus mine spoil locations, and impoundments. Barr’s mining engineers collaborated with GIS specialists to develop a means of calculating mine spoil thickness. Using LiDAR and InSAR data, our team then completed a settlement analysis of potential spoil movements and differential settlement.
In addition to the articulated potential risk associated with mine subsidence and anticipated strain resulting from differential settlement, Barr’s deliverable also provided recommendations on setbacks and layout and design concepts. Using this information to proceed with a more detailed design of the solar power project, Barr’s client appreciated our valuable insight based on our mining expertise.
Barr prepared an air permit application for a Minnesota facility that processes biogas generated by anaerobic digestion at three large dairy farms. The biogas is conditioned into pipeline-quality renewable natural gas (RNG) and injected into a natural gas pipeline.
Strategic permitting considerations centered on whether the three gas-processing facilities and the central processing plant should be covered under one permit or permitted separately. Barr used predicted biogas properties to help our client determine achievable operating scenarios that would keep emissions of sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide below New Source Review and Title V air permitting thresholds if all facilities were grouped under one permit.