In Wyoming’s Sweetwater County, the Joint Powers Water Board manages the treatment and supply of drinking water, all of which is drawn from the Green River. Although the river generally provides enough water for county residents, its quality drops when spring runoff or heavy rainfall washes soil and debris into the river. Historically, during those periods the Green River water treatment plant sometimes had difficulty meeting demand. 

In response, the board decided to build a dam and levee to create an off-channel reservoir that would hold additional river water and allow suspended solids to settle out of it before treatment. The solution would also provide an emergency water source if contaminants or other harmful substances were found in the river. 

Construction was nearly complete when a leak test revealed that almost five times more water than expected—hundreds of gallons a minute—was seeping into the earth. In addition, the levee was slowly sinking into the ground, and the soil-cement reservoir lining was rapidly deteriorating. The board solicited bids for a team to design and implement repairs and finish the storage project.

Barr and our project partners, Freese and Nichols and JFC Engineers and Surveyors, were selected for the work. After inspecting the reservoir lining, dam, and levee, our team developed a remediation plan that included adding a concrete leveling surface to the soil-cement steps on the dam face, building an internal earthen buttress to stabilize the levee, and installing a membrane liner to minimize leakage.

The Barr team completed investigation and design and helped procure a contractor in less than a year, and construction was deemed substantially complete in spring 2022. Sweetwater County now has a reliable alternative water source when the Green River runs muddy.

A confidential client began the process of building a solar energy system in March 2016. The company hired Barr mid-project to assist with meeting environmental compliance requirements in the project’s construction stormwater general permit, agricultural-impact mitigation plan (AIMP), and Minnesota Public Utility Commission (PUC) permit. The project also had an independent, full-time, third-party inspector reporting to the state.

Initially, Barr worked to improve communication and cohesion among the contractors, owners, and stakeholders by training contractors in the basics of environmental rules, providing updates to the owner’s site representatives, communicating directly with the state inspector, and providing direction to stormwater BMP (best management practice) crews.

Barr provided owner representation for the PUC permit; stormwater pollution prevention plan (SWPPP) inspections; site monitoring to oversee contractors in sensitive areas; native-prairie expertise to assist with final restoration; wetland delineation and restoration; communications with state and local officials; enforcement-action support; civil engineering support for drainage features; and inspection of tracker pilings to check for stress due to frost.

(stock photo shown above)

Working together with local and state stakeholders, Barr developed an aquatic-plant management plan for controlling Eurasian watermilfoil in Beaver Dam Lake. This 1,169-acre lake had Eurasian-watermilfoil infestation rates as high as 75 percent throughout its littoral area (the area less than 25 feet in depth). Most herbicide-treatment programs use a single herbicide and dose throughout the lake. In complex systems such as Beaver Dam Lake, this approach fails to consider variables that influence how long the herbicide is in direct contact with the macrophyte: lake area, depth, flow, and mixing. Barr addressed this by dividing the lake into eight zones, each with its own treatment and dosing plan. 

Herbicide treatments have eliminated the dense watermilfoil growths that caused problems for boaters. Between 2008-2018, the extent of Eurasian watermilfoil was reduced by about 160 acres, declining to 3 percent of the lake’s littoral area. Now that watermilfoil is present at very low levels in Beaver Dam Lake, relatively new management approaches are being used—diver-assisted suction harvesting (DASH) and new herbicides. Barr’s innovative approach has successfully addressed this serious AIS management problem. Annual aquatic-plant surveys have documented that the native-plant community has thrived throughout the management period.

In the event of a theoretical failure of the secondary containment system at a salt water disposal well site, Barr was hired to evaluate how much land would be impacted and the timing of contamination. We also evaluated measures that could be put into place to prevent contamination from reaching the Missouri River in the event of a failure.

Barr created a time-lapse GIS animation showing the spread of the plume under various conditions (see below for a video clip of this animation).

The confidential client had two filter-separators installed for processing natural gas withdrawn from underground storage reservoirs. A slug of production fluids bypassed the slug collection equipment and reached the compressor station piping. The welded nozzle filter-separator was identified by the client as potentially compromised by DPIT analysis.

Barr’s mechanical engineers prepared procedures to safely isolate, blowdown, and purge the vessel ahead of construction and according to the client’s procedures. We supported the procedures with an evaluation of purge velocity according to AGA Purging Principles and Practice. Barr prepared the design documents to retrofit the filter-separator vessel from a welded nozzle to a flanged nozzle including 50%, 90%, construction, and record drawings that involved updating existing plan and profile views, weld schematics, and hydrotest information according to the client’s specific drawing standards, review submittal process, and quality assurance requirements.

During construction, hoisting equipment damaged the filter-separator vessel. Barr was on site to perform a Level 1 fitness-for-service evaluation per API 579 to validate that the vessel could be placed into service without modification or repairs within the planned station outage.

For a multi-year program to improve highway, avalanche-mitigation, water-flow, and erosion-control structures in six national parks in Alberta and British Columbia, Parks Canada Agency (PCA) retained Barr to conduct environmental impact assessments. We provided complete environmental assessment services. Our tasks included desktop review of background information; field reconnaissance to identify data gaps; flora, fauna, fish, and wetland inventories and assessments; soil, water, and air assessments; cultural heritage assessments; ecosystem mapping; plant collection and salvage; impact assessment reporting and development of mitigation measures; and quality assurance and quality control. We also consulted with PCA engineers, biologists, archeologists, and regulatory agencies; completed permitting; and met and communicated regularly with the client and its engineering consultant.

Many of the projects required complex ecological considerations. As an example, the clear span Haffner Bridge in Kootenay National Park provided nesting and roosting habitat for Species at Risk Act-listed barn swallows and little brown bats. Haffner Creek is also a permanently flowing river with a variety of fish species, including the British Columbia blue-listed bull trout. Barr recommended mitigation measures, including engineered controls such as exclusion netting and temporary alternate habitat (bat-roosting structures).

The projects frequently triggered federal and provincial guidelines, protocols, and legislation by Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Resources Information Standards Committee, the Species at Risk Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, the Fisheries Act, and the National Parks Act. Barr completed the projects on time and within budget.

This midwestern energy producer burns agricultural residuals at its combined heat and power plant to generate electricity and steam. In 2013, deflagration (an explosion and fire of combustible material) destroyed the plant’s fuel-handling system and shut down production. To quickly restore operations and improve safety, the client turned to Barr to perform an options study with a fire/explosion protection analysis.

We evaluated three options for rebuilding the facility. Our work involved an on-site document review of the fuel system, developing fire detection/protection system upgrades for both the existing and proposed systems, developing a design basis for a new fuel-delivery system, presenting risk-analysis findings for the options, and preparing a report describing each option so the client could move ahead with the project—all within 24 days.

The client ultimately selected an option that incorporated the most robust hazard protection with a fuel barn and new fuel-handling system including conveyors, a fabric filter, and day storage bins. Barr completed detailed design of the new fuel-receiving, -storage, and -handling facilities by the fall of 2013, working with the client’s construction management firm to expedite the engineering and fast-track construction. The facility has been back in production since early 2014.

The City of Hastings, Minnesota, has a federally funded levee that mitigates the city’s flood risk from the Vermillion River. Sedimentation and trail improvements near the Highway 47 bridge had changed the bridge hydraulics putting the Hastings levee in danger of being dropped from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ levee safety program. Barr completed a feasibility study to demonstrate that removal of sediment from beneath the bridge would restore the bridge’s hydraulic opening associated with the original levee design. We prepared construction plans and specifications for the sediment removal and coordinated permits with the Corps and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Sediment removal was completed in fall 2018, allowing the community to keep its levee in the Corps’ levee safety program.

Aqueous-film-forming foam, containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), has long been used for fire-suppression training at the Bemidji airport. The PFAS have migrated into groundwater and are being captured by the city’s water-supply wells. In 2017, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) updated the health-based advisory values for two types of PFAS. The city asked Barr to evaluate its ability to provide drinking water that met the updated values. Barr recommended a multiphased approach including immediate, short-term, and long-term actions:

1. Continue monitoring the PFAS concentrations in the wells and implement an emergency water-supply plan if the concentrations exceed health-based guidance values.

2. Prepare a preliminary design for short-notice PFAS treatment of water from a portion of the city’s existing wells.

3. Perform bench and pilot testing that could be used to design an effective PFAS treatment system.

4. Evaluate and recommend a location for a new water-supply well.

5. Form a technical advisory committee consisting of representatives of the city, MDH, and Barr to find reasonable solutions to provide drinking water that meets MDH health-based advisory values.

The preliminary design for PFAS treatment of a portion of the city’s wells, as well as bench testing for granular-activated-carbon treatment and pilot testing for ion-exchange treatment, were completed in 2019. Evaluation of the location of the new water-supply well has also been completed and design is underway to install the new well and watermain to connect to the city’s distribution system.

Learn more about our PFAS engineering and environmental capabilities.

NRG owns and operates more than 130 peaking generation facilities in seven states. Barr worked with the company to implement Intelex software as its corporate environmental-management information system (EMIS) and to manage ongoing compliance tasks at all facilities. NRG’s program encompasses air quality and permitting; solid- and hazardous-waste management; EPCRA reporting; spill prevention, control, and countermeasures; and corporate environmental policies.

Barr’s work included identifying compliance tasks for each regulatory program and meeting with NRG to determine the responsible person assigned to each. For every compliance requirement, we developed tasks to clearly show end users what needs to be completed, as well as why and when. We then categorized associated tasks and facilitated the initial task setup process within Intelex.

To streamline the system for users, we grouped similar compliance tasks and facilities. For example, a responsible person receives just one notification about an identical task at multiple facilities, rather than separate notifications about each facility. This user-focused approach not only clearly communicates compliance requirements to environmental staff but also saves them time when marking tasks as complete in the system.

Barr continues to assist NRG with routine monthly, semiannual, and annual environmental compliance tasks. As new facilities are added, and when regulations change or permits are modified, we review the environmental requirements, upload new documentation to Intelex, and add compliance tasks.