Natural Resources Consulting Committed to Enviromental Stewardship

Originally published in The Herald-Independent newspaper's

July 31, 2008 edition. 

Natural Resources Consulting (NRC) has put its environmental ethics on display for everyone to see.

The company's newly constructed headquarters at 209 Commerce Parkway in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin is a showpiece of their commitment to ecological stewardship. "We wanted to not just talk a good game; we wanted to be able to show our clients our commitment to the environment," said NRC's Principal Scientist and President Scott Storlid.

Land surrounding the new NRC building is a mix of rain gardens and grass prairies, filled with native plant species. "Most of the landscape has the non-native fine-leaf fescue," says NRC Restoration Ecologist Steve Banovetz. "It will look much like turf but act somewhat like deep-rooted prairie species." Fescue can be mown and kept consistently weed-free like lawn grass."

Native plants were planted in the rain gardens, gardens along the building and along filter strips that line the edge of the parking area. A large area in front of the building was seeded with a native short-grass prairie/savanna mix.

"It's important to be native because our landscape is filled with a number of species that were either accidentally or purposely brought over from Europe and Asia," said Storlid. "Many of these non-native plants have taken over lands once covered with native species."

Banovetz says disappearing native species are cause for concern. "From a naturalist standpoint, you hate to see anything disappear because everything's important. You get into some realms of science where the next best medicine might come from that little snail, that little minnow or that flower."

NRC's rain gardens are examples of native habitat that once was. By taking in rainwater runoff from the parking lot and building roof, water is kept from entering the storm sewers and draining into a retention pond where fluctuating water levels can create an inhospitable environment for the pond's surrounding plant life. And since the parking lot adjacent to the rain garden has no curbs, rainwater coming from the building and pavement is able to flow evenly into the garden.

Rain gardens are actually depressions covered with deep rooted plants. The gardens can hold water for weeks, allowing it to infiltrate down through the porous soil and into the water table. So rather than the water hitting turf grass and flowing over the top of it because the roots are so dense, Banovetz says the rain garden's deep-rooted plants allow more space between them for water to find its way into the soil.

Filtration strips along the edge of the building's rear parking area serve as a kind of long narrow rain garden by capturing rainwater runoff and infiltrating it into the ground before it reaches the storm water sewer.

Storlid sees implementing these features into the new facility as a visual representation of NRC's expertise, but more importantly he wants people to see it as an example of environmental responsibility in action.

As an environmental consultant and restoration facilitator, NRC and subsidiary NRC Restoration serve a broad client base - from individuals, landowners, businesses, utility companies to corporations and state units of government.

"What I saw back in the early '90s was that a lot of people didn't fully understand these environmental regulations," said Storlid. Seeing a need, he started NRC in 1998.

Recent years have seen huge investments across the upper Midwest in the utility infrastructure market. Storlid says that these projects are made to comply with existing environmental regulations. They go through detailed studies before construction and during the approval and permitting process, during construction and then after construction.

This surge in infrastructure development, coupled with a heightened environmental consciousness, is what Storlid says lead to a growing demand for NRC's services, and subsequent need to build a larger facility.

The building itself is another part of NRC's effort to showcase who they are and what they do. From its large skylights, bringing in warm sunlight from above to the in-floor heat radiating warmth up from below, the entire structure is a model of efficiency.

Alliant Energy's Joe DiMaggio said the new NRC building is estimated to garner a 24 percent annual energy savings compared to buildings of comparable size. Working with Storlid and Cottage Grove-based building contractor Ultimate Construction, DiMaggio, a senior strategic account manager, was able to use the utility's Shared Savings program to construct a building that breaks nearly every efficiency expectation.

DiMaggio sees it as an insurance policy for the state of Wisconsin. "If a company manages the energy that they use and they put more dollars to their profit line it's more likely that they will stay in Wisconsin, that they will employ more people, and continue to grow and expand."

The way Shared Savings works is Alliant calculates the annual savings that would be realized from efficiency enhancements used in the new construction and gives low and in some cases no interest rate financing based on five years of that projected savings.

In NRC's case they were able to receive a three percent loan based on their savings. This was much credited to Alliant and Ultimate Construction's efforts to look at every aspect of how efficiency could be optimized during the construction process.

Start with thousands of feet of tubing winding its way through the building's concrete floors. Inside these tubes, circulating water heated by a 98 percent efficient boiler circulates, radiating the heat up through the concrete and into the rooms above.

A forced air blower system is used primarily with the air conditioning systems during the summer months. Both heating and cooling systems are separated into zones throughout the 11,000 square foot building to optimize climate control efficiency.

Two sky lights that open into a large work area in the center of the facility allow natural light and the sun's warmth to enter the building. Return air vents near the top of the skylight shaft pull rising warm air down to the work area in the winter months, bringing additional efficiency to the heating process.

Artificial lighting used throughout the building is set up on sensors that shut off the lights after detecting a room is unoccupied.

But one of the buildings most innovative yet simple examples of efficiency would have to be found inside its exterior walls. Ultimate Construction Owner Scott Foley calls it a foam sandwich, but what these structural insulated panels (SIPs) do is create a nearly seamless wall surrounding the building, allowing no place for air to escape.

Because of the structure of the SIPs and the way they are engineered with five and one half inches of foam insulation sandwiched between two five-eighths inch thick pieces of plywood, studs supports are unnecessary. Traditional stud walls use fiberglass to insulate and can leave gaps where air will escape. The SIP construction has a solid piece of foam with no breaks so air can't get through. Foley says that the only inefficiency with a SIP construction occurs where a window is placed in the wall. And even here there is an energy savings by using Energy Star rated windows.

To top it all off the entire building is packaged in Tyvechouse wrap to further increase isulative efficiency.

But with such a tightly wrapped package the importance of bringing a consistent supply of fresh air into the building becomes an issue. This is another area where the forced air blowers come into play. "You create a tight building, you need to change your air in the building," says Foley. "We're bringing in outside air, filtering it and moving it through the building to create healthy air on a timer system that's timed with the occupancy of the building."

The new Cottage Grove headquarters makes the perfect package to house more than half of NRC's 45 staff members. The remaining staff work from satellite offices throughout Wisconsin and surrounding states. Storlid says they have a number of professionals on staff allowing NRC to offer a range of services, including experts in botany, fisheries and aquatic science, forestry, water resources, conservation biology, environmental planning, and natural resources management.

And Storlid couldn't be happier with the location of NRC's home base. Growing up just down Cottage Grove Road in Madison it was familiar territory for the University of Wisconsin alum. "We first moved to Cottage Grove because of some business relationships I had out here and my desire was to be where I could best serve them." Even though NRC's business has expanded considerably to include areas throughout Wisconsin and neighboring states, Storlid says that they plan to keep headquarters in Cottage Grove.

Natural Resources Consulting

209 Commerce Parkway

Cottage Grove, WI 53527

Phone: 608-839-1998

Web site: http://www.nrcdifference.com/