Week 6- drill & blast week!

July 4th weekend brought some rain to the Plummer area. The rainbow was a nice touch for Monday morning-



The PREM hole became a swimming pool (but only took a couple hours to pump out!)-




This was a good test for our structural fill in the Treatment basin, the material drained well and maintained compaction after a good drenching-






The new Lift Station hole by the lagoon also has basalt in the way-



Another post or two will be needed for this week- the blast sequence alone will take it's own entry!

Week 5- making progress...

Fighting the battle on a few fronts this week- first up was the water table under the Treatment basin. This was causing the structural fill to become unstable. After discussing options "geogrid" was chosen as the solution. Here's a shot of the water table in the fill. Picture of geogrid later-



On another front we had to finish exposing rock for drilling & blasting, which is now a "go". Last week the basalt in the PREM (phos. removal) hole had been exposed. We also dug down to rock in the effluent lift station- "LS-2". Beginning of the week the rock below LS-1 (influent lift station) had to be exposed-



By mid-week the drilling was underway!





In the meantime a bypass for the existing lagoon effluent was put in place-



And the geogrid was laid out on the first lift of structural fill in the Treatment basin-



By the end of the week 49 holes were drilled in the PREM hole-






And the geogrid was covered with structural fill-

Week 4- pcs, less water, gradual progress...

So this week was transitional- decisions were being made on blasting the rock, we were trying to finish dealing with PCS and the Treatment basin was prepped for structural fill.

The first order of business was making sure the lagoon effluent line was really fixed, which it was-



Somebody got bored...again!...and drove the dozer into what had been a settlement pond-



Brian to the rescue! (They got it out, safe but dirty!)



Mary Monahan came back for one more round of PCS removal-



and we finished the week with a little structural fill-

Week 3- silt, pcs, water- and how to find a live effluent line in 20 minutes or less!

Early in Week 3 we spent considerable time protecting Plummer Creek from silt intrusion due to dewatering efforts. Straw waddles were installed on both sides of the Trail of Coeur d'Alenes just in case-





Water was still being pumped from the trench (which was backfilled by end of the week) but a sump hole was created next to the Treatment basin to drain that area-




By mid-week the PREM-1 (phosphorous removal) hole began to take shape-



but we were still dealing with PCS in both the Treatment hole and the Phosphorous hole, you can see some dark rocky PCS just below the excavator in this picture-



By the end of the week we literally hit "rock bottom" in the PREM hole which led to a discussion about blasting, then, since there was nothing better to do, the excavator went in search of more work! Well, let's just say, they found more work to do!



"Do you smell chlorine too?"

Week 2- water, PCS and mud...

Well, this is off to a cracking start! John (CNI) is becoming an expert at dewatering, getting plenty of practice with the trench we dug last week. Meanwhile the excavation for the first two buildings began-

Treatment Building (Aeromod basin)-



and Phosphorous Removal Building (PREM-1)-



This is a pattern that we would prefer not to see: dig a hole, find water!

In the meantime Mary Monahan of USKH was large and in charge making sure the PCS was identified and set aside for proper disposal-



"No dice, boys! Take it away!"



Larry Sant of GeoEngineers paid a visit to check the quality of our mud-



"No Larry, the hole on your OTHER right!"



In the meantime, John waved his arms and said the magic words, making the water go away! Unfortunately, over the weekend he forgot the magic words...

No, there won't be one post per day!

So at this point I'll do weekly summary posts until we get caught up to the point of construction where I started this blog which is late July, 2009.

To make a long story short- finding water, trenching for water, getting rid of water, finding more water, getting rid of more water, wishing the water would go away, etc., etc., about sums up the first two weeks. Oh, and the PCS (petroleum contaminated soil), that had to be dealt with too. Here's some shots from the first week dealing with water and some oily material seeping from the soil into the water-

Day 1 of the project!

So, here's our exciting first day (June 3, 2009)...well, not so much. They dug a few test holes yesterday and found water, hopefully not too much! One of the first tasks is to remove some PCS- petroleum contaminated soil- which is why test holes were dug, to take a first-hand look at where and what depth we're dealing with.



fyi- the asphalt bike/walking path in the first picture is the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes. More about that later. It's a long...trail.

Groundbreaking!

Finally the shovels hit the dirt! Or...gravel. It was a well-attended event with very nice weather! Luckily the site has a hillside to the immediate north so I was able to take a panoramic shot from some elevation. As you'll see, I am continuing to use this hillside to document progress throughout 2009, eh, as long as the weather's good and the temp's above, say 25 or so farenheit!

Pre-con meeting...

On May 28, 2009 we held a Pre-Con meeting with CNI- Contractors Northwest Inc., the succesful bidder for the WWTP project. Owens Construction, the excavating subcontractor, and All West the QC testing firm were also represented at the meeting. (Perhaps others that I have forgotten.) The weather had improved greatly in 2 month's time!

Getting caught up!

As this photo reminds me- this project, building a new Waste Water Treatment Plant for the City of Plummer, ID- actually started on site with a Pre-Bid Meeting March 24, 2009! This was my first time visiting Plummer in a long time and obviously the first time seeing this gravel pit we were converting to a WWTP site. It will take a week or so but I am going to enter several posts to catch this blog up to our current progress in late July of 2009.