Week 9- Base Rock and Vertical Iron

Good progress this week in the Phosphorous Removal hole. Got the subgrade rock in, placed fabric and installed the bedding. Here you can see how to get a rubber-tire roller out of a 20' hole!







By the end of the week we had initial wood forms lowered into the hole, ready to set up a carpentry shop and build stuff!




In the meantime at the Treatment Building the next step after slab pour was to get more vertical rebar in place and construct forms on the east side for the first wall pour-

















By the end of the week- getting close!

Week 8- first concrete pour

--- Note for early readers of the blog- this current update was so huge- Weeks 6, 7 & 8 all at once, you may have to go to the bottom and click on "Older Posts" to find week 6, or even Week 7?! ---

This week the slab rebar for the Treatment Building was completed but plenty of vertical rebar, the initial pieces for the walls, also had to go in-







After a couple days the outline of the building began to take shape-



Back at the Phosphorous Removal hole additional benching was required for the depth of excavation- this took a few days to accomplish-





Finally it came time for our first rebar inspection, all concrete and rebar testing and inspection is being performed by All West Testing & Inspection of Hayden, ID-



Brian is making sure the wall is in the right place!



And the day arrives for our first concrete pour! Concrete for the job is supplied by Spokane Rock Products-



Champion Concrete Pumping will be on site at least a dozen times also to help place the concrete in our slabs & walls-





For the Treatment Building slab Reed Concrete supplied a finishing crew-







All-in-all, a nice day for the first pour-



Meanwhile at the Phos hole- Jason, have you found the bottom yet?

Week 7

So- you've got over 1,000 cubic yards of blast-fractured rock. What do you do next?

Dig-



Scoop-



And more digging-



Until you get it down the the water table-



Empty some of the water and dig some more! Hey, Jason- did you find the bottom yet?




In the meantime Rodbusters got on site and began installing rebar for the Treatment Building slab-





And back at the Phosphorous Removal hole, more fun with water and rocks! This is going to take a while, see where we're at in Week 8-

Week 6- Drill & Blast continued...

Lift Station 2 was the final area to drill for blasting-



In the meantime preparations at the Treatment Building continued by stockpiling rebar. At this point we were ready to place drain rock and bedding gravel so rebar work is just a few days away-



The rock layers under the Treatment Building slab didn't take long to place and set to grade-





Then it was time to dig into our nice flat grade and set drain pipes! Ellie Key, Project EIT, stopped by to keep everyone on their toes!








Finally the day arrived to charge the holes and light 'em up- Brain, Dean & John watched final prep at the Lift Station 2 hole while the blasting contractor rigged all the wires in the Phosphorous Removal hole-









Dean and the Owens Construction crew found a nice viewpoint at the edge of the ITD pit to the west-



Finally we heard "Fire in the hole!"-









Here's a reference shot to show how high the pile of rock stacked up- the hole was drilled about 16' below excavated grade which was 8' below original grade. My feet are standing about 4' below original grade. The newly fractured rock pile is 25'-30' vertical in and above the hole!




Here's some before & after shots-