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GHD and Conestoga‐Rovers & Associates (CRA) have joined together to create a global leader in engineering, environmental consulting, architecture, and project management services. The result is a company that is more than 8500 strong, with 4000 in North America alone. The merger includes all of CRA and its family of companies, including Inspec-Sol and eSolutions. The companies have officially merged, with all ongoing employee shareholders in CRA becoming shareholders of GHD. This unique feature of the merger makes it one of the largest private stock transactions in the engineering and environmental consulting industry.
Ian Shepherd, GHD’s CEO, says, “This is one of the largest true mergers to have occurred in our industry. We are building on the strengths of two leading companies to create a global team of more than 8500 people across five continents. We are adding significant growth and scale to our business, while retaining the advantages of our private, employee-ownership business model for creating client value.”
Ed Roberts, CRA’s President, says, “CRA’s goal has been to leverage our outstanding environmental, geotechnical and forensic engineering capabilities and broaden our business in the municipal infrastructure markets. With GHD we’re able to do this, while expanding our global footprint, particularly in Australia and Asia, to better serve our multinational clients.”
By combining resources, melding business practices and pooling equity interests, the two companies become mutually dependent on each other for the creation of value over time. CRA and GHD will do this together by leveraging a deeper and more diverse talent pool, across a stronger geographic footprint.
Richard Wankmuller, GHD’s General Manager – Americas comments, “Our emphasis will be to integrate these two great companies while ensuring we maintain the responsiveness and service levels our clients expect from us. Our merger continues our growth trajectory in North America and around the world. With our combined business we now operate across a network of 200+ offices with 130 located in North America.”
The two companies will work together on a progressive integration program while focusing on continuity of service and maintaining a high level of responsiveness to clients. The combined business will be known as GHD.
Learn more on the GHD website.
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A specialized Robbins EPB broke through to fanfare on June 11, 2014, marking the completion of twin tunnels at San Francisco’s Central Subway in California, USA. The first of the two machines holed through on June 2, with both Robbins machines achieving swift advance rates of up to 40 m (131 ft) in 24 hours and 513 m (1,683 ft) in one month. The Central Subway is the second phase of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA) Third Street Light Rail Transit Project.
Two 2.5 km (1.5 mi) long tunnels were excavated through ground ranging from soft soils to thinly bedded siltstone, shale and sandstone bedrock, as well as concrete diaphragm walls. The TBMs, operated by the Barnard/Impregilo/Healy (BIH) JV, were designed with a number of features to efficiently navigate the varied geology, steep grades and turns along the alignment, and to bore in what was rated as “Potentially Gassy with Special Conditions” by Cal/OSHA. A mixed face cutterhead was selected and designed to excavate the anticipated wide variety of ground, while active articulation was integrated between the TBM shields to lessen the risks of segment damage, ring deformation, and settlement during boring through curves. Robbins continuous conveyors offered efficient muck removal throughout tunneling.
Content via The Robbins Company. To read more about this project, visit The Robbins Company website.
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Fort Collins Utilities was faced with the need to rehabilitate two critical water supply pipelines. 
One was a 24-inch concrete transmission main that followed a very serpentine alignment along the Poudre Canyon north and west of Fort Collins. The concrete raw water line was built in the 1920s and is in excellent structural condition but has had a history of leaking joints due to pipe movement. The pipe is located in mountainous terrain, which makes access very difficult for repair. The other pipeline is a 27-inch steel finished water main. In contrast to the line in the Poudre Canyon, the steel line is a straight alignment and lies in the backyards of homes with very limited access. It has suffered from corrosion related leaks.
Stantec evaluated numerous rehabilitation or replacement solutions and selected Swagelining as the preferred rehabilitation methodology. The Poudre Canyon project lined 1,500 feet of concrete pipe. The steel pipeline project rehabilitated 2,600 feet of pipe and was lined in a one day pull. It was the longest 27-inch pull done in the United States for the liner subcontractor at the date of this writing.
Both projects were successfully completed and are now in service. The differences in the construction experiences between these two projects, however, were substantial. This paper will illustrate the lessons learned in the design and construction process through a compare and contrast analysis of the projects and outline the City’s plan to complete the rehabilitation of the 24-inch waterline.
The City of Fort Collins Utilities had identified two waterlines in need of rehabilitation or replacement. One pipeline carries raw water to the Water Treatment Facility (WTF) and follows a serpentine alignment along the Poudre Canyon (Poudre Canyon Waterline). The other pipeline carries finished water to the Foothills pressure zone in the northwest portion of the Utility’s service area and is the only feed to a water storage reservoir (Foothills Water Transmission Line). These are two critical waterlines representing two drastically different situations.
To read more about this project download the full paper written by Ken Matthews, P.E. Stantec Consulting, Fort Collins, Colorado and Owen Randall, P.E. City of Fort Collins, Fort Collins, Colorado.
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Without good pipe-condition data, water main renewal cannot be optimized. Poor information about the integrity and life expectancy of water mains results in three basic asset management errors:
• Relatively strong mains are often discarded, because they are perceived to be weak
• Renewal of some mains occurs too late, resulting in repairs that were avoidable
• Rehabilitation methods are often inappropriately applied, either wasting money and producing an inferior product, or failing to use the residual strength of the host main and spending too much
In-pipe non-destructive examination (NDE) tools have existed for many years, but these tools are seldom used for small-diameter mains, partly because they are considered too expensive. Many utilities would rather invest in new pipe than in testing old pipe. A large part of the cost of an in-pipe NDE assessment entails inserting and extracting these devices within an operating water system. Moreover, when these NDE tools are used, there are no guidelines for interpreting and applying the data. Instead of using NDE tools, the conditions of mains are usually inferred from indirect data: break history, age, soil conditions, and from limited examinations of the pipes.
Two WaterRF projects are underway, aimed at practical applications of current NDE technology on small mains. Project 4471 proposes to use NDE in a non-disruptive manner to “sample” pipe in a system, then apply the informatoin to infer the condition of similar pipes. Project 4473 goes a step further, proposing to combine the assessment, engineering, and rehabilitation of water mains into a single product delivery.
To read more about this project download the full paper written by Dan Ellison, HDR, Ventura, California; Jonathan Leung, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Los Angeles, California; Sam Ariaratnam, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona; Andy Romer, AECOM, Orange, California; and Roy Brander, City of Calgary.
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Global resin supplier AOC, LLC collaborated with Clean Water Works Inc. (CWW), an 
Ottawa-based leader in pipeline rehabilitation, to restore the sewage pipes serving an automobile factory in Windsor, Ontario. Using polyester felt tubing saturated with AOC’s Vipel L010-PPA-33 vinyl ester resin, CWW installed 2,100 ft of cured-in-place-pipe (CIPP), drastically improving the corrosion resistance and durability of the factory’s sewage infrastructure.
The automotive plant was closed for two weeks to undertake several projects, including the rehabilitation of old, damaged sewer pipes made of reinforced concrete. AOC delivered more than 175,000 lbs of resin from its Ontario plant for three installations between July 9 and July 15. The first installation was 90 ft long with a 54-in. diameter and used 26,200 lbs of resin. The third was 1,440 ft long with a 54/80-in. transitional tube and used 138,000 lbs of resin.
For more information on AOC Resins visit their website.
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Located on a beautiful peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico and Tampa Bay, the City of St. 
Petersburg is the fourth largest city in Florida. Home to the Tampa Bay Rays MLB team, Salvador Dali Museum, annual Gran Prix Indy Car race, and the St. Pete Pier, the “Sunshine City” is committed to protecting the unique environment of Tampa Bay. The City pioneered wastewater reuse over 40 years ago with the first reclaim water system in the country. To further this legacy, the City recently embarked on a major wastewater pump station and 30-inch pipeline project that would enable the closure of the Albert Whitted Water Reclamation Facility (AWWRF) and transfer the gravity sewage flow to the Southwest Water Reclamation Facility. The City retained multiple consultants to design and bid the project in five parts, four of which dealt withthe nearly seven mile long force main.
George F. Young, Inc. (GFYI) was retained to design the force main section nearest the AWWRF, known as Part D. The alignment traversed historic neighborhoods on the outskirts of downtown and, in one area, crossed a vital four lane road to downtown and a major drainage structure. As Toby Spurge, GFYI Engineering VP, explained: “After studying various options to cross these key areas, a single horizontal directional drill of approximately 1,700 linear feet was determined to be the best approach. Bidding contractors were given two HDD pipe options that provided equivalent flow area and pressure rating: 30-inch DR21 Fusible PVC® pipe or 36-inch DR9 HDPE.”
Pipeline Details and Project Summary
Project: LS85 Albert Whitted Master 30” Force Main, Part D
Length/Pipe Size: 1,700 LF, 30-inch DR 21 FPVC® pipe
Installation: HDD
Owner: City of St Petersburg
Engineer: George F. Young, Inc.
Contractor/Driller: Dallas 1 Corp. / Gator Boring & Trenching, Inc.
Craig Kubiniec, Dallas 1 Project Manager, noted that: “The HDD was a very challenging aspect of the project due to limited space and the desire to minimize public disruption. Minimizing borehole size with Fusible PVC® pipe was a major benefit as drilling conditions were more difficult than expected. UGSI’s assistance with pipe layout and fusion was outstanding.”
Thank you to Underground Solutions for content and photos.
