January 2013, Vol. 68, No. 1

Inside drops for sanitary manholes eliminate outside drops, clean up failed inside drops and are excellent as stormwater drops and in lift stations.

Respected industry consultant and technical writer Paul Hayward, 59, passed away Nov. 13 after a battle with cancer.

George O. Vernon, 73, died on Nov. 2 at the Memorial Medical Center in Ashland, WI. He founded Northern Clearing Inc. in May 1966 and passed on the ownership to his sons Richard, Todd Craig and daughter Kristine in 1997.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) and the I Make America campaign announce the 2012 recipients of the annual Pillar of the Industry awards, given to companies achieving or maintaining Gold status in the campaign.

Don Santa, president and CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, recently released a statement on the National Transportation Safety Board’s decision to include pipelines on its 2013 Most Wanted List of transportation safety issues. Excerpts from that statement follow.

A recently launched $1 billion initiative to upgrade sewer lines, water mains and water treatment plants across Illinois will create 9,700 construction jobs in the state, according to Gov. Pat Quinn’s office.

Ductile iron pipe has earned the SMaRT Sustainable Product Certification, an independent rating system for the sustainability of a product throughout its life cycle, the Ductile Iron Pipe Research Association (DIPRA) announced recently. Ductile iron pipe is only the second product in the buried infrastructure industry to earn this certification.

Industry efforts are well underway to assist with the relief efforts stemming from Hurricane Sandy that that devastated portions of the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeastern United States during late October 2012, with lesser impacts in the Southeastern, Midwestern states and Eastern Canada.

Excavation damage is one of the most significant threats to the integrity of underground utility assets. Some utility lines cannot be detected with standard locating tools, so researchers are exploring new applications of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to enhance utility locating operations.

Far beneath the surface of Austin’s Lady Bird Lake ‒ a 416-acre water reservoir that provides recreational opportunities as well as flood control ‒ years of intense “dirty work” took place, largely unnoticed by local citizens, as crews labored to create a huge wastewater tunnel that ran as deep as 80 feet underground.

The city of Norfolk, VA, needed to replace 92-year-old reinforced concrete pressure pipe that had reached the end of its useful life in the city of Portsmouth.

Root Control from Duke's Root Control and RootX.

Hidden stress cracks from improper assembly techniques frequently result in costly rework to repair and replace underground pipe installations.

Vanair's Air N Arc I300 uniquely offers six forms of power in a single 48-inch unit.

The CUES Digital Universal Camera (DUC) is a semi-autonomous, high resolution, digital CCTV, side-scanning camera designed for rapid and detailed condition assessment of your wastewater system.

The new Doosan DXB130H and DXB190H hydraulic breakers feature an energy recovery system that increases strike power for maximum productivity.

The compact Grundodrill 4X is designed for residential service, small diameter main installations, last mile operations, and gas pipeline applications, offering 9,800 pounds of thrust and pullback.

Weiler Corporation offers a full assortment of high performance, American made wire brushes engineered specifically for use on 4 ½-inch right angle grinders.

New federal pipeline integrity rules require utility companies to evaluate thousands of gas mains buried beneath highways, railroad tracks and airport runways – each and every one cased inside a larger pipe. The research and development team at ULC Robotics in New York has developed a robotic inspection tool that is capable of inspecting and gathering critical data about the integrity of cased pipe.

When you were younger, playing the game hide-and-seek was fun and a great way to just be a kid. When you are looking for a 36-inch pipe with a 42-inch casting and a 30-inch pipe with a 36-inch casting that is causing a short on active fuel lines at a depth of more than 20 feet, it really isn’t that fun of a game. That is what Price Gregory International was faced with on a site in Lisle, IL.

Pipelayers and crawler tractors from John Deere, Volvo CE, Pipeline Machinery, Case, Midwestern Manufacturing Company and Caterpillar.

Grouting technology from CUES, Pipe Renewal Technologies, Avanti Intl., Logiball, Aries Industries and Prime Resins. <strong>CUES</strong>

Advertisers from the print edition of <em>Underground Construction</em>, January 2013, Vol. 68 No. 1.

Vacmasters has introduced the new System 5000 air vacuum excavator which combines power and versatility in a compact package mounted on a 33,000 pound gross vehicle weight truck to efficiently make “soft” excavations for potholing, trenching and other types of excavations.

NASSCO (National Association of Sewer Service Companies) closed out an eventful and successful 2012 marked by continued growth in membership and impressive advances in the organization’s educational programs.

The Pipe Line Contractors Association (PLCA) is closing out an active 2012 with members busy and labor agreements in place with the unions representing the four crafts engaged in pipeline construction.

For most residents of Denver, CO, and surrounding areas, the Denver Union Station has been a city landmark for as long as they can remember. The name Denver Union Station brings to mind the impressive stone structure dating from 1914. However, the first train steamed into Denver in 1870 and for the next few years, railroads built individual depots. In 1881, the first Union Station consolidated rail traffic under one roof.

The American Bottom, or Bottoms, is a Southern Illinois area of 175-square miles in the flood plain of the Mississippi River, protected from flooding by a system of levees and canals. The cities in the American Bottom, such as Granite City, IL (population 30,000), have to contend with seasonally high, fluctuating groundwater, which can have a disastrous effect on underground facilities like sewers.

As the new year began, construction was nearing completion for 800 miles of fiber optic cable that will comprise the central segment of the state of Maryland’s One Maryland Broadband Network (OMBN) project. Ultimately, this project will create a comprehensive high-speed broadband fiber-optic network to connect more than 1,000 institutional and community facilities throughout the state.

<em>Underground Construction</em> and <em>Pipeline & Gas Journal</em>’s 2013 survey figures indicate 116,837 miles of pipelines are planned and under construction worldwide. Of these, 83,806 represent projects in the planning worldwide design phase while 33,031 reflect various stages of construction.

Ohio-based H&H Enterprises is a directional drilling contractor specializing in making difficult installations, most of them in hard rock. These days, much of the company’s work is in energy shale fields of the Northeastern United States, making road, river and stream crossings on segments of pipeline routes where open-cut construction is not feasible or practical, says Jason Hockran, H&H vice-president/owner.

HammerHead has introduced a 34-inch diameter pneumatic pipe rammer to install large-diameter casings for drainage culverts, for guided pilot bore ramming and to use as a horizontal directional drilling (HDD) assist tool.

In the past decade, many positive steps have been taken to reduce accidental damage to underground utilities, yet construction crews still hit buried pipe and cable on a regular basis, causing service outages, work delays and sometimes serious injuries and death.

In Saskatoon in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, Sunbelt’s task was to install and operate a temporary bypass for a 1,010-foot-long segment of 84-inch diameter sewer interceptor while it was rehabilitated with cured-in-place-pipe (CIPP) liner.

A new breed of pipeline “pig” has arrived in the United States. “Pigging” to clean pipelines is an accepted procedure used by utility pipeline owners. The process is relatively simple: a device (pig) is inserted into a pipe where pressure forces it through the pipe, scraping the inside sidewalls and carrying debris to an exit point out of the pipe. A variety of pig designs are available.

The November elections are over and the nation has survived. But the question remains: when will the much ballyhooed economic recovery begin in earnest? It looks like 2013 is going to be another interesting and challenging year in which the underground infrastructure market must endeavor to persevere. And we will.

The Department of Energy published a report from NERA Economic Consulting which concludes unlimited exports of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) will help the U.S. economy, and the greater the exports, the greater the public good. The DOE automatically approves LNG exports to countries with a Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. But it must find that exports to countries without FTAs are in the public interest. The DOE commissioned the report to help it decide whether to approve additional non-FTA exports.