Grading and Excavation Contractor

Minnesota contractor uses largest, longest trench box from Efficiency Production to lay big pipe in New Mexico.

By James McRay

There are only a few options available to a contractor when laying 72-inch pipe in 40-foot lengths. If possible, open cut is the preferred method, but what does a contractor do when he wants to use a trench box? Forty-foot lengths of pipe do not easily fit into most trench shields; they don’t even fit easily into two trench shields end-to-end. Such an extreme challenge requires an extreme shoring solution.

Minnesota’s S.J. Lewis Up for the Challenge
S.J. Lewis Construction Inc. of Waite Park, MN, was recently awarded a $22 million contract from the City of Albuquerque, NM, to install a new raw water transmission line in Albuquerque that will divert water from the Rio Grande to a new state-of-the-art water treatment plant. The water treatment plant is scheduled for completion in 2008.

S.J. Lewis Construction installs a raw water transmission line that will divert water from the Rio Grande to a new state-of-the-art water treatment plant.

S.J. Lewis is subcontracting from Bradbury Stamm Construction of Albuquerque, NM, the installation of 17,500 linear feet (3.3 miles) of 72-inch-diameter spiral-steel pipe in 40-foot lengths. Each pipe is cement lined, tape wrapped, and mortared. One stick of pipe weighs 32,000 pounds.

In several areas along the pipeline’s progress, access is severely limited, especially where it runs along the right of way of the Paseo del Norte highway. In this stretch, the pipeline trench needs to be cut vertically, mere feet from the road’s shoulder and very near adjacent buildings in some spots. With the option of sloping and sheet piling (due to potential vibration damage) eliminated, a trench shielding system becomes the desired option.

S.J. Lewis Seeks Help From United Rentals Trench Safety Division
“For big pipe lengths, we frequently have used a combination of shorter trench boxes, sometimes abutted with arch spreaders,” says Kenny Zajac, S.J. Lewis’ project superintendent. “For this project, however, it’s so much faster and easier to have a complete open-span shield in order to lay the 40-foot-long pipe completely horizontal, with no obstructions, spreaders, or arches in the way. Essentially, we don’t have to adjust the angle of the pipe when we are laying it, or walk it under arches.”

In order to obtain a trench box that would meet the requirements of the project, S.J. Lewis contacted United Rentals’ Trench Safety Division. United Rentals in turn contacted Efficiency Production Inc., a leading trench shielding and shoring manufacturer headquartered in Mason, MN, that is well known for its ability to custom-engineer and design shoring systems to meet tough project challenges.

Lewis is using the largest trench shield ever designed and built by Efficiency Production.

Manufacturer Efficiency Production Inc. Provides Shoring Solution
For Efficiency Production Vice President of Engineering Mike West, the solution was to “build for them one of the largest, longest steel trench boxes that we have ever designed and manufactured.” The result was the timely design, engineering, and production of a 50-foot-long, 10-foot-high steel trench shield with 12-inch-thick sidewalls. To accommodate the 6-foot-diameter pipe, the box incorporates a five-pipe independent spreader system with 10-foot-long, 10-inch schedule-120 steel spreader pipe with reinforced sidewall collar oversleeves.

The depth of the trench ranges between 15 and 17 feet in very fast-moving sandy soil. The project also includes five highway bores involving 96-inch casing, which S.J. Lewis subcontracted.

Trench Box Works Great on Project
Kevin Collins of Boyle Engineering, the project’s design engineering firm, had this to say about the project: “With the fast-moving sandy ground, many times a trench box is the only way to get the trench down to grade near adjacent structures, and certainly it keeps all the workers safe.”

S.J. Lewis is using a Cat 385 excavator to set the pipe and handle the trench shield. A Komatsu PC600 is used on the back end of the box for backfill and compaction.

Primary contractor Bradbury Stamm’s Safety Director John Brown also had high praise for S.J. Lewis’ work installing pipe: “With those 40-foot joints of pipe, there are spots where they just could not do this without that 50-foot trench box. It’s keeping adjacent buildings and roads from being seriously compromised, and they’re moving less dirt, which saves them time and money,” Brown adds.

Access is severly limited where this pipeline runs next to the Paseo del Norte highway.

New Water Supply Part of San Juan–Chama Drinking Water Project
The Drinking Water Supply Project is one of six work projects in the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority’s San Juan–Chama Drinking Water Project. The project is necessary because Albuquerque’s current water system relies entirely on pumping groundwater from an underground aquifer that is being seriously depleted. San Juan–Chama will provide 70% of the metropolitan area’s future water. For more information on San Juan–Chama, visit www.sjcdrinkingwater.org.

The job started in October 2005 and is scheduled to be completed by December 2006; however, Zajac is confident the pipeline will be completed ahead of schedule.

S.J. Lewis was founded by James Schueller in 1983. The company currently employs over 400 people and specializes in underground utility work, specifically large-diameter pipe installations. S.J. Lewis is a member of the National Utility Contractors Association and the Minnesota Water Well Association.

Efficiency Production Inc., “America’s trench box builder,” provides the widest selection of standard and custom-engineered trench shielding and shoring systems. Efficiency’s versatile products are designed specifically for safe and cost-effective installation of utility systems and infrastructure improvements. All products are professional engineer–certified and engineered to comply with OSHA excavation and trenching standards.

James McRay is the media and marketing manager for Efficiency Production Inc. He can be reached at 800-552-8800 or jmcray@epi-shields.com.

GEC - September/October 2006

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