SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 30, 2020 /CNW Telbec/ – The engineers at the San Francisco Public Utility Commission (“SFPUC”) and the City of San Francisco Water Utility (“CSFWU”) joined forces with LOGISTEC Environmental Services Inc. (“LOGISTEC”) to address a critical challenge to renew a century-old section of water main buried below historical Taraval Street. Located in Parkside, between Sunset Beach and the San Francisco Zoo, the 800 feet of old 8-inch cast iron pipe along Taraval street required attention to avoid a water main break and major disruption to residential buildings and businesses. The multi-faceted project had to incorporate several important environmental, community and cost considerations into the planning and execution, which was made possible with LOGISTEC’s ALTRA Proven Water Technology (formerly Aqua-Pipe), an innovative trenchless technology and the only solution on the market to be proven earthquake-resilient.
Last December, the SFPUC and other West and East Coast utilities facing aging water main infrastructure and increasingly severe weather and natural events attended a live testing scenario of ALTRA Proven Water Technology’s earthquake resilience in Ithaca, New York. LOGISTEC partnered with Cornell University’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering to test the resilience of their next generation of water technology in the case of severe earthquake and flooding events. A section of an old cast iron pipe from a construction site in California was shipped to Cornell’s Geotechnical Lifelines Large-Scale Testing Facility where it was fit with ALTRA Proven Water Technology and then subjected to severe ground deformation. The results far exceeded expectations and proved, through life-size simulations of severe ground deformation, that ALTRA Proven Water Technology would have been able to withstand The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and beyond.
ALTRA Proven Water Technology addressed many of the other unique challenges specific to Taraval Street in this historical area of San Francisco. Unlike the traditional dig-and-replace method, which would have required that the street and surrounding elements including trees, planter boxes, brick pavers, driveways, curbs, sidewalks and utility poles be dug up to be able to access and replace the pipe, ALTRA Proven Water Technology significantly reduced the impact and disruption to the community during construction. The fully structural pipe lining technology is equivalent to a new pipe and is designed to extend the useful life of the pipe by an additional 50 years. In addition, it avoids the difficulty of working around and/or of relocating other buried infrastructure such as power, gas, sewer, cable and other water lines in the vicinity. Moreover, ALTRA Proven Water Technology is up to three times faster than the traditional dig-and-replace method for pipe replacement and, since there is no open trench, vehicular and pedestrian traffic can move more freely throughout the project and it allows businesses to stay open..
“We have been so fortunate to work alongside the incredible experts and engineers at the SFPUC and CSFWU on the Taraval Street project,” explained Benoit Côté, Vice-President, Water Technology, LOGISTEC Environmental which installs ALTRA in the USA. “This is exactly the type of challenging project that ALTRA Proven Water Technology was designed for. On top of our technology’s earthquake resilience, keeping disruption to the lives of residents and businesses at a minimum and working carefully, quickly and efficiently, we are able to install a brand new section of water main pipe that will protect the water supply to the community for the next 50 years and beyond.”
About LOGISTEC
LOGISTEC Corporation is based in Montréal (QC) and provides specialized services in both the marine and environmental industries. Marine services are offered in the areas of bulk, break-bulk and container cargo handling in 38 ports and 64 terminals across North America. LOGISTEC also offers marine transportation services geared primarily to the Arctic coastal trade, as well as marine agency services to foreign shipowners and operators serving the Canadian market. Environmental services are offered through its subsidiaries SANEXEN Environmental Services Inc. and FER-PAL Construction Ltd.
SOURCE Logistec Corporation – Communications
For further information: Marie-Chantal Savoy, Vice-President, Strategy and Communications, Phone: (514) 235-3911, [email protected]