Week 20- Part 2- Pipe Gallery and Bonus Shots!

Before we move on to our next major buildings- Operations-Headworks and Mechanical- we need to put in most of the process piping for the facility. We have lines carrying the waster water between treatment phases, an air line for the Aero Mod system and a water line. A lot of manholes, gate valves, tees, 90's, Romac's, and vaults to put in place. And maybe a little dirt to move around!

Here's a general collection of what we call the "Pipe Gallery" phase-















Just for fun, here's a couple shots from Week 19 that I forgot to include. We had a cold snap in early October. A couple mornings we arrived to frost and steaming dirt! These shots into the sun create unusual lens flares-

Week 20- Part 1 Lift Stations and PREM damp-proofing

Week 20, still busy! Smaller concrete jobs still underway-

Here we have the bottom of the Clarifier being formed for some "hills and valleys" to be constructed. The floor of the clarifier needs a few ridges poured in place to direct material towards suction hoods-




The Lift Stations are being cast in place in sections- sump basin, slab, walls, lid and in one case and access vault.

Here the lid for Lift Station 1 is being formed with rebar and wood formwork-





These pics show the stages of wall rebar and forming for Lift Station 2-







Then we had the newly stripped PREM building sprayed with damp-proofing material which is covered by fiber board to protect it during backfill-





It's a step-by-step process- fiber board, then backfill, then compaction testing, then more fiber board and so it continues...

Week 19, Part 2 PREM finished and overhead views-

The final pour for the PREM building (Phosphorous REMoval) was last week and it took a few days to strip the forms off. Early this week that was wrapped up-






Late in the week I had the chance to get some elevated shots in a Genie lift-
the first is the PREM building, 24 foot walls on top of a slab, 18-20 feet of the walls sit below the original site grade. I left the trucks in the upper right corner for perspective-



This is the Treatment Building with half of it being tested for water leaks at the time of picture-



In the meantime the Wetland Discharge Area has seen step-by-step progress- this week the perforated pipe with gate valves was installed. I'll be back soon with Week 20 update!

Week 19- Part 1 Force Main and Lift Stations

Another busy week! Working on 3 structures and underground piping simultaneously!

The Effluent Force Main installation continued down Toetly Road- had to bypass some power poles with a little help from Kootenai Electric-









In Lift Station 1- the influent pump station by the Lagoons- the slab was poured and wall forming began-







On the main site at Lift Station 2- the effluent pump structure- the sump basin was poured, the slab grade backfilled and a rebar mat was constructed-

Week 18- Part 2- PREM walls finished and Lift Stations begun

The north half of the PREM (Phosphorous Removal) building was poured this week. The Treatment Building took nine separate pours to build, the PREM only three.

These shots represent the late stage of form-building-






Here's a look at the pour from an elevated perspective-



Here's Dennis balancing a rock on his head, how this helps our concrete pour, I do not know!-



Then the forms are stripped off-





This is the Influent Lift Station (LS-1) by the lagoons. The sump basin will be poured first even though the slab rebar is also in place-



How do you get concrete into a deep hole bottom?



And finally over at the Treatment building we've had water in one half of the tanks for a couple weeks running a leak test-



And in the right light the Highway 5 Bridge to St. Maries looks pretty good-

Week 18, PREM final pour, Force Main and Lift Stations

This week saw the project expand into three separate areas of work which made the inspector actually break a sweat keeping up! Well..., not really...

But this week began a very busy period which continues to the day of this post and beyond. The Force Main has been much anticipated and finally got underway this week-






Jason & Don bolt up a fitting in one of the Pressure Cleanout manholes-





We had to go under the Highway 5 bridge to St. Maries-






Third day into it we hit bad weather-



And somewhere along the way we found an unmarked culvert- the new public works director for City of Plummer, Rod Willard, got a close look just to be sure!-



Along with the Force Main, the Lift Stations (Influent and Effluent) continued to move along.

Lift Station 1 (Influent by the Lagoons) was further along and ready for slab rebar-




Lift Station 2 (Effluent, on the main site) needed more adjustments so the bedding was still being placed- (after this picture look for Part 2 which will be posted above this entry)