When flood levels inundated this 330 MGD wastewater treatment plant, NJ during Superstorm Sandy, untreated sewerage discharged into the local flood plain near Newark Bay causing serious impact to the local marine environment and to the 1.4 million residents it serves. With FEMA support, the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC) launched an ambitious resilience program to upgrade the facility with perimeter floodwalls, pump stations and headworks to protect the treatment plant from future storm surges, which included 2.5 miles of flood wall and 3 pump stations to protect one of the largest wastewater treatment plants in the USA.
Railroad / Posillico JV (RPJV) selected GTR to provide a wide range of engineering, testing, Quality Control inspection and Automated Instrumentation services. GTR designed, instrumented and executed a full-scale pile load test programs for the floodwall, pump stations, and headwork’s structures to evaluate the performance of various pile types including driven pipe piles, caissons, and drilled-micropiles. GTR worked alongside RPJV to conduct on-site load testing including static compression, static tension load testing and dynamic pile tests (PDA / CAPWAP). GTR conducted sixty (60) static compression, tension and lateral load tests on driven piles and drilled caissons. GTR also performed conducted dynamic pile testing (PDA) on over 50 pipe piles and caissons piles.
Additional services provided include full-time Construction Quality Control of drilled caissons, driven piles, secant piles, drilled micropiles and permanent rock anchors, video inspection of caisson rock sockets, Automated Vibration Monitoring and in-situ drawdown testing to evaluate the groundwater flow beneath the floodwall structures.
