A Revolutionary City’s Multi-Faceted Emergency Repair under the Governor’s Avenue: Fid-Bau Portal

A Revolutionary City’s Multi-Faceted Emergency Repair under the Governor’s Avenue

Kunay, Jonathan E. / Rystrom, Nicholas J.

The City of Revere, MA experienced a catastrophic failure of critical sewer infrastructure in August 2013. The 100-year old, 18” vitrified clay sewer, located in the heart of downtown, collects 30% of the sanitary flow city-wide. During routine CCTV inspection and cleaning, a collapse occurred in the 20’ deep conduit. The pipes’ significance in the collection system required immediate bypass pumping which was operated 24-hours a day by City Public Works staff. Immediately, alternatives were analyzed to determine the best approach to repair the pipe quickly and easily while minimizing disruption to the community. To complicate an already difficult situation, above the collapse were two large diameter (16” and 24”) water mains owned and operated by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA). In addition to repairing the collapse, the City needed to ensure that adjacent pipe reaches and sewer structure maintained their structural integrity, to prevent subsequent collapses during construction or in the future. Alternatives evaluated included pipe bursting, pipe jacking, directional drilling, CIPP lining, direct bury, etc., with particular attention paid to the requirements imposed by MWRA to protect their critical water mains. Ultimately a combination of repair methods were cobbled together to comprehensively rehabilitate approximately 800 feet of sewer infrastructure along Winthrop Avenue including spot replacement of sewer, CIPP lining, service lateral lining, manhole rehabilitation and grouting. This paper will detail the significant challenges faced by engineers and contractors during the eight month project including heavy traffic, extreme weather and timely funding, and will describe how a combination of trenchless technologies were used to rehabilitate the century-old infrastructure.