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Heavy storm drains lifted into place in short order

Given the difficult weather conditions in the country, Valentine Underground Services sought Sarens’ help to complete the project in the shortest possible time, managing to install the tank modules within three days.

Sarens had an LTM 1070 crane and an operator for the duty. In this way, the Sarens team was able to place approximately 30 pieces weighing 7,000 pounds each, a heavy lifting manoeuvre without transport.

Sarens has participated in the installation of an important storm trap on the North Service Road in Burlington, Ont., where it has been able to provide its crane to the construction team for the lifting and placement of each of the modules of which the storm water storage gallery consisted of.

In this way, the government of Ontario intends to carry out a stricter control over the level of water falling during storms, which will prevent occasional flooding in some important sections and areas of the city.

Storm traps are stormwater infiltration and detention systems. These huge subway tanks also have an extremely important function: they store the first rainwater, which is the most polluting because it carries all the dirt accumulated on the streets and asphalt and regulate its flow to the treatment plants. Thus, the tanks prevent the treatment plants from exceeding their maximum flow and having to discharge the excess, untreated, into the receiving watercourses.

Given the difficult weather conditions in the country and taking as a precedent the rains of last August with rainfall of up to 50 mm, Valentine Underground Services sought Sarens’ help to complete the project in the shortest possible time. The installation of the modules that make up the tank was completed in a period of three days, so that the rainwater that fell could be filtered through the culverts and properly stored in the tanks until the rainfall ended.

As Neil Docherty, Sarens Key Account Manager, points out, “The idea is that before reaching the tanks, the water passes through a series of filters to retain solid contaminants such as plastic bottles among other objects. Once in the tanks, the water is gradually conveyed to the purification stations, avoiding not only contamination of the rivers, but also preventing possible flooding and environmental damage. This is why this project is also an important milestone for Sarens in its commitment to sustainability”.

The works were carried out by a team specially selected by Sarens for the occasion, with an LTM 1070 crane and one operator. Since the system had significant new features that necessitated its installation whenever there were groundwater problems, the contractor wanted to rely on Sarens’ expertise to perform the task as efficiently as possible. In this way, the Sarens team was able to place approximately 30 pieces weighing 7,000 pounds each, a heavy lifting manoeuvre without transport.

“On this occasion, despite being a novel system, our team did not experience any operational setbacks. In fact, beyond that, we highlight the speed with which our team unloaded and placed the material, something that was of great relief to the community by not having to worry about the possible flooding that could be caused by the next storm”, adds Neil Docherty.

Sarens owns extensive experience in the Canadian construction industry as well as other similar complex projects. The company was recently able to work on the renovation of Union Station, where its engineering team worked on the lifting and subsequent installation of several iron girders, weighing approximately 9.4 tons, for the flying garden that connects the station’s north and south towers. In addition, other projects, such as the refurbishment of the Lafarge cement factory in Bath, Ont., have contributed to increasing annual cement production and boosted the country’s construction sector, attesting to Sarens’ expertise within the industry as one of the world’s leading players.