Clearview
Drainage
Pump
Station
APC Construction Company, LLC
By Stuart Clouatre, APC Construction Company, LLC
APC Construction Company, LLC was awarded the temporary
retaining structure and deep foundations contract
by Industrial & Mechanical Contractors, Inc. (I&MC)
for the Clearview Drainage Pump Station for Jefferson Parish in
Louisiana. APC was responsible for the design, installation and
removal of a 42-foot wide, 73-foot long and 24-foot deep temporary
retaining structure (TRS) using 55-foot and 60-foot long PZ-27,
with a single whaler system at top. Forty-three pairs of 15-foot long,
PZ-22 sheet piles were used for scour protection and 14 pairs of
45-foot long PZ-35 sheet piles were installed for the intake basin
structure. The project included 15 plumb 12-inch by 12-inch by
60-foot concrete piles for the pipe bents; 59 plumb 13-inch butt,
7-inch tip timber piles for the transformer pad; and 56 each, 2.5-on-
1 battered 70-foot long HP 12x53 H-piles under the pump station.
The project was located in the high traffic area on both sides of a
frontage road at the northwest corner of the cloverleaf intersection
of Clearview Parkway and Louisiana Highway 3139 in the center
of Metairie, La.
Meeting the challenge of a difficult job
This was a challenging project, due to the difficult logistical and
technical problems the APC team helped resolve, to not only complete
the TRS portion one month ahead of schedule, but to do so
with no safety issues and with extremely minimal impact to the
highly congested traffic situation adjacent to the jobsite location.
The surrounding community was also spared disruption to the
power grid, as the scope work was performed without the initial
anticipated power outages. All sheets and piles were unloaded, lifted
and driven precisely while maintaining very stringent clearance
requirements close to adjacent distribution power lines.
Innovative construction techniques
The key to reducing the overall duration of the project by one
month was punching 34 of the battered H-piles 15 feet deep inside
the TRS prior to excavation of the TRS by I&MC. The APC surveying
crew was on site to assure accurate location of all punched
80 | ISSUE 5 2017