Downtown Boston may not be known as the city that never sleeps, but for the next two years, it will be giving New York a run for its money. Just last month, a two-year-long sewer and storm water pipeline project got under way in downtown Boston. All the construction work on this project will take place overnight between the hours of 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. The overnight work hours allow the construction to be completed in a manner that causes the least disruption in terms of foot and commuter traffic and delivery of water utility services to residents.
Today, a single underground pipeline carries both storm water and sewage to the city’s water treatment plant. With the growth of the city over time, both the storm water and sewer feeding into the single pipeline resulted in flooding of the city’s water treatment plant during severe storms. In order to correct the problem, the Boston Water and Sewage Commission (BWSC) needed to come up with a plan to divert the storm water away from the plant since it wasn’t necessary to treat it. As a result, the BWSC developed a strategic construction plan to completely separate the storm water from the sewer line. The project that would remove the citywide combined storm water and sewer pipeline currently in place, by installing two separate pipes, one which would carry storm water directly to the bay, the other which would carry sewer to the treatment plant was then put out for bid.
The 15 million dollar bid was awarded to Albanese D&S Inc. of Dracut, Mass.
“We did a similar job in Hartford not too long ago,” said Giovanni Albanese, owner of Albanese D&S Inc. “We understood the scope of the work well, and what would be required to complete the job on time and on budget.”
Albanese and his crew began work exposing the current pipe one block at a time. To expose the pipe, they had to carefully penetrate and dig through the asphalt pavement, then scrape and remove the soil between the pavement and pipe.
“One of the biggest challenges on this job is to avoid hitting underground utility lines while digging to access and remove the existing pipe. It’s a slow, but steady process,” said Albanese.
In order to minimize any disruptions in delivery of utility services to nearby residents and area businesses throughout the construction project, temporary, above ground water lines were installed to bypass the underground flow just prior to the start of construction. Once the construction in an area is complete, the temporary lines are removed with customers being reconnected to the new lines.
To expose the pipe, Albanese and his team rely on their LiuGong 936D, 81,500 lb. (36,968 kg), 280 hp (209 kW) excavator. For the more finite, compact work, they rely on their LiuGong 906C, 13,200 lb. (5,987 kg), 49 hp (36.5 kW) mini-excavator and its petite 6 ft. 3 in. by 19 ft. 4 in. (1.9 by 5.9 m) footprint. The 936D is used to remove large amounts of material utilizing its 24 ft. 1 in. (7.3 m) digging depth and 2.09 cu. yd. (1.6 cu m) bucket, the 906c for smaller scale scraping and digging. As the excavators remove the asphalt and soil, the materials are loaded into a dump truck and taken to a nearby staging yard where they are stockpiled.
After exposing the current pipeline, Albanese and his crew work to install temporary trench boxes prior to laying the new pipe to keep workers safe. To install the I-beams that support the trench box walls, some up to 82 ft. (25 m) below road level, Albanese equipped his LiuGong 936D excavator with a Daedong Engineering pile driver attachment. Once the I-beams are installed, the steel side panels are brought from the nearby equipment and material staging area by a LiuGong 842Z bar wheel loader equipped with a coupler and forks to complete the trench box installation. Once the trench is safely secured for work, crew members begin removing the existing pipe and prepping the trench for the two new sewer and storm water pipelines.
After installing the new pipes, the stockpiled materials removed during the process of exposing the old pipe is reloaded into dump trucks using a LiuGong 842Z bar, 35,000 lb. (15,876 kg), 3.0 cu. yd. (2.3 cu m) wheel loader. Once loaded, the material is transported to the trench being completed to cover the new pipe and bring the base back up to street level ready for paving.
“As one can imagine, working in and around the city can be fairly complex,” said Albanese. “We are working under stringent timeframes and can’t afford to get behind schedule. The demands of this job, really any job nowadays necessitate reliable equipment that can withstand the rigors of 10 hours days, while providing quick cycle times and versatility. All of the LiuGong equipment on this job has performed impeccably from day one. We’ve had no downtime outside of scheduled maintenance intervals and have used both of the excavators and a number of LiuGong wheel loaders with various attachments to accomplish a variety of work on site.”
Albanese D&S Inc. specializes in water, sewer, pipeline, communication and power line construction for publically bid projects in the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. Established in 1991, Albanese D&S is a family owned and operated business.
LiuGong Construction Machinery has been producing construction equipment for more than 50 years and is growing throughout the world, producing more than 50,000 wheel loaders a year. LiuGong currently offers wheel loaders, excavators, mini-excavators, backhoe loaders, skid steer loaders and vibratory soil compactors to the North American Market. Beyond its substantial and ever-growing dealer network and product lines, LiuGong North America is a member of AED, AEM and NUCA.
For more information, call 281/579-8882 or visit www.LiuGong.com.
Today's top stories
