Page 10 - TransAqua WWTP Project

This saved about eight months on the overall

construction schedule.

They have also had to accommodate a facility that
is still in service. Workarounds include planning

power outages during low-flow times, and designing
and building a diversion channel.

“While they were building the primary clarifiers we
were able to keep the plant running by installing the

diversion channel to keep the flow moving,” Rice
says.

The big challenge, however, turned out to be
a positive, says Rice. A general contractor had

completed work on phases 1 and 2 in September

2019, and at that point Rice’s team took over the
reigns, now working directly with a number of major

local contractors.

Dewatering Building masonry upgrade
“We said, ‘We’re going to handle this project

ourselves,’” says Rice. “We basically had to move
“So we seconded two people on our staff. One was
from a typical ‘design, tender, construct’ process
our wastewater systems engineer and our lead
to a ‘design, build-on-steroids’ process. We were
operator. So we seconded them to be the project
pushing on the design phase and basically saying
manager and the construction manager.”
‘as soon as you get that basement designed, we’re

starting to dig a hole. And as soon as we’re digging
The move paid off.
a hole for the basement, you’re designing the

building structure.’ We were really kind of pushing
“It’s been nothing but success,” says Rice, who
them and there’s a risk, because some things get
adds the project is on time, despite the COVID-19
missed.”
pandemic.

The issue that then cropped up was Rice’s team DEALING WITH THE
consisted of only 17 people. COVID-19 PANDEMIC

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