Underground Construction - July 2017 - 6

NEWSLINE LATEST INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS

assistance will allow the Authority to provide first-time sewer
service to approximately 105
connections within the Angelina County Fresh Water Supply
District No. 1's service area.

Metro Regional Connector
Surfaces In LA
The $1.55 billion Metro Regional Connector Transit Project, a
1.9-mile long subterranean twin
rail tunnel linking L.A.'s Gold,
Blue and Expo lines, has punched
through the site of the future 2nd/
Hope Station in Bunker Hill.
Scheduled to wrap up by early
2018, the tunnels will connect
three new stations along the Connector's expanded path, from Little Tokyo to the Financial District
in downtown L.A., including the
1st /Central Station in Little Tokyo
and the 2nd /Broadway Station in
the Civic Center. Arcadis is contracted to provide Construction
Management Support Services for
the project.
A 1,000-ton, 450-foot long
tunnel boring machine christened
"Angeli," simultaneously digs,
builds circular concrete to shape
the tunnels and lays train tracks at
a rate of 50-feet per day, while excavating 1,300-tons of soil.

Titan Machinery Donates
CASE Equipment
CASE Construction Equipment
dealer Titan Machinery donated the use of two excavators to
Team Rubicon for a service project
and training event at the DeSoto
National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa
and Nebraska. The excavators - a
CX210C and CX250D - were used
to remove several levees and water
culverts as part of a wetland habitat development project.

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Managed by the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, the 8,362-acre refuge is located along the Missouri
River floodplain and provides essential habitat for resident, migratory and endangered species. Team
Rubicon has a partnership with the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to create training opportunities for volunteers, and the organization has
worked on several habitat management and mitigation projects in
refuges all over the United States.
The team tore down four levees
and removed seven water culverts
that were initially built to develop
a wetland habitat for migratory
birds. This work will offer improved management capabilities
on over 200 acres of wetland on
the refuge, and allows for greater
fish passage for spawning fish
from the lake into these wetlands.
Team Rubicon is a veteran-led
disaster response organization
that deploys teams globally. Its
heavy equipment operators have
been trained as part of a partnership with CASE that began in November 2015.

In Memoriam
George Mercer
died May 18, at
age 56, in Parker
County, TX.
Known for his
keen business
acumen, Mercer
took over the small family pipeline
company in 1993 - during a tough
economic recession - and grew
TG Mercer Consulting Services
into the largest pipeline logistics
company in North America, with
hundreds of employees and locations worldwide. He was actively
involved in the industry and was a
strong supporter of the National
Association of Pipe Coating Applicators (NAPCA).
His legacy of service and success
also extended to his community.
He contributed his time and money to numerous charities and nonprofits in Parker County, including
the founding of Miracle League, a
baseball league for special needs
children and young adults.

Report Highlights $300 Billion Municipal Water
Opportunities
Pipe and hardware companies should benefit from heightening
concerns about U.S. municipal water infrastructure and $300
billion of forecasted capital expenditures over the next decade,
according to a new report from Bluefield Research, U.S. Municipal
Pipe Markets: Trends, Opportunities and a Changing Competitive
Landscape in Water.
Bluefield forecasts that new and replaced pipe and hardware
infrastructure will make up more than 57 percent of municipal utilities' total capital spend through 2026.
"The public does not want to think, or even know, about the 1.6
million miles of pipes underground, but hundreds of thousands
of water main breaks and lead-tainted water have begun to put a
spotlight on this historically overlooked sector," said Reese Tisdale,
president of Bluefield Research. "In fact, the average age of water
pipes continues to climb - from 25 years in 1970 to 45 years in
2020 - largely because of underinvestment."
While municipal demand for pipe solutions is expected to scale
going forward, the pipe sector's material profile, for water and
wastewater, is also being reshaped. New spending on pipes is showing a preference by utilities and engineering firms for plastic pipes
(PVC and HDPE), which account for $97 billion of the 10-year total. This trend highlights the continued growth of these materials,
largely because of cost.
As pipe materials change, so does the highly fragmented supply
chain. Companies are expanding their portfolios of pipe technologies and innovative solutions, and in some cases, entering new
geographies to capitalize on growth. At the same time, positive
signals for increasing demand have sparked merger and acquisition
activity. Bluefield has tracked 28 acquisitions of pipe companies,
totaling $6.3 billion, since the start of 2016.
The scale of investment going into upgrading pipe networks is
already driving more innovative, smarter solutions to stay ahead of
rising costs. More than $2.7 billion will be directed towards asset
condition assessment and pipeline monitoring through 2026, while
operating expenditures on leakage management, alone, will total
$1 billion through the forecast period.
"Replacing water pipes is extremely labor intensive and costly,
so utilities will increasingly be forced to look for ways to squeeze
costs with more cost-effective materials, installation techniques ...
and network analysis," said Tisdale. "Certainly adoption will take
time, but innovative solutions are in front of them."
Underground Construction July 2017

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Underground Construction - July 2017

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