2009 Engineering Excellence Awards
Competition Results

 

 

It is a pleasure to announce the award recipients for the 4th Annual Engineering Excellence Awards Program in South Dakota.

MERIT AWARDS

Banner Associates, Inc., Brookings, SD

Milbank Water Supply and Treatment Improvements, Milbank, SD

 

The City of Milbank receives its water supply from three shallow spring galleries/collector wells and three deep vertical wells. These water sources are located over eight miles west of Milbank and at an elevation roughly 200 feet above the Milbank water treatment facility.

The original spring gallery and water transmission line was constructed in the 1920s and was designed to deliver water by gravity flow. Decades later a second parallel line was added to deliver the pumped well water.

After several decades of operation, the City of Milbank began to experience problems with line breakage and had concerns with the existing systems ability to meet future flow demands. As a result, the City of Milbank began in 1998 the first of a multi-phase project to upgrade their water supply, transmission and treatment systems.

The first phase of a three phase project included the replacement of the original spring gallery with a new radial collector well. A radial collector well utilizes horizontal screens to capture the spring water, the water is then collected in the well caisson and transmitted to the transmission line. Construction on Phase II began in 2006 with the replacement of the again 8-inch cast iron and the 10-inch asbestos cement transmission lines with new parallel 12-inch transmission lines stretching 8.5 miles from the water sources to the Milbank water treatment facility. The third phase replaced the aging chemical feed and pump station building. Phase III of the Milbank improvements was completed in 2008 and consists of a new 2,900 square foot building that houses the chemical feed equipment and high service pumps. This facility has the capacity to treat and pump 1.5 million gallons per day, enough to meet the City of Milbank’s projected water demands for many years to come.

 

Eisenbraun and Associates, Inc., Yankton, SD

The Mead Building High Definition Laser Scanning Project

The historic Mead Building on the Human Services Center campus in Yankton carries a story that should not be lost to future generations. Built over a hundred years ago, it was sentenced to be demolished by the state of South Dakota until the Yankton County Historical Society embraced it as a possible regional museum and cultural center. Mead’s beautiful split marble stairway, massive pillars, and soaring ceilings were justifiably worthy of being restored to their original grandeur. In its conceptual stages, the project lacked adequate funding and the sponsors did not have reliable drawings of the building and its many structural and architectural details.

Eisenbraun and Associates offered the use of their High Definition Survey 3D laser scanning technology to survey the exterior and portions of the interior of the 45,100 square foot structure. Capturing over 70 million survey points in five days would be an impossible task by any other method, but the futuristic laser scanning technology enabled a two-person survey crew to capture copious amounts of accurate spatial data, creating a dense point cloud from which rich detail of the building could be extracted. The database was then used to create AutoCAD drawing files of the building floor plans and elevations for use by the architectural team that would develop the renovations plans.

The Mead Building has since received national attention, having been designated to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2009 List of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

Howard R. Green Company, Sioux Falls, SD

Water Reclamation Facility Transfer Pump Replacement Project

This project alleviated a critical hydraulic constraint within the Sioux Falls Water Reclamation Facility, preparing the facility for the City’s ongoing growth while decreasing the facility’s energy consumption. The project replaced four pumps at the Water Reclamation Facility’s Process Pump Station with a more efficient pumping regime. The Process Pump Station transfers wastewater from intermediate to tertiary treatment. The project also involved major structural modifications and expansion of the wet well that precedes the pumps.

To prevent delays, HR Green authored a detailed sequence of construction operations requiring the pump procurement process to begin in July 2008, well before the design was complete, in order to install the pumps in early 2009 and allow sufficient time to complete the project before peak sewage flows in April. HR Green also helped the city to overcome funding challenges resulting from inadequate estimates in the existing capital improvement plan. There simply was not adequate funding in the capital improvements plan to cover the true cost of the project. Therefore, HR Green began by quickly preparing a technical memorandum explaining the needed improvements and providing a detailed opinion of their probable cost. This memorandum was used by the City Finance Authority to allocate additional funds from the city budget for the project.

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HONOR AWARD

Kadrmas, Lee and Jackson, Inc. , Rapid City, SD

Black Hills Airport Clyde Ice Field Runway 12-30 Expansion, Spearfish, SD

In the late 1990s the Lawrence County Airport Board in cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration began efforts to enhance the utility and safety of the Black Hills Airport/Clyde Ice Field to accommodate the current and projected levels of aviation activity and provide improved approach capabilities. Kadrmas, Lee & Jackson assisted the airport and the FAA through an extensive environmental and alternative selection process to satisfy the project goals and ultimately assisted in obtaining approximately 10 million in funding to complete the construction of the preferred alternative.

In January 2002, the FAA and Lawrence County initiated the preparation of an Environmental Assessment to facilitate the extension of Runway 12-30 to the length of 6,400 feet, the identified desired length in the Master Plan. Prior to the project, Runway 12-30 was 5,498 feet long with a displaced threshold of 424 feet on the Runway 30 end that was due to its proximity to Interstate 90. The runway was rated to support single wheel load aircraft up to 30,000 pounds and dual wheel loads of 40,000 pounds. The terrain off of Runway 12 rose approximately 80 feet above the runway and causing safety concerns with aircraft arriving and departing the airport under extreme conditions. While the majority of the aircraft utilizing the airfield are small aircraft weighing less than 12,500 pounds with approach speeds of less than 120 knots, a significant increase in the number of larger aircraft frequenting the airport caused concerns with the issues previously addressed.

The overall project was a success for the Lawrence County Airport Board, the FAA, the aviation community, and the residents of the northern Black Hills region. Through innovative design planning, design, and phasing of the project, KL&J were able to build a consensus with citizens in the area, meet the need for enhanced utility and safety within budget and time constraints.

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GRAND AWARD

HDR, Inc., Sioux Falls, SD

57th Street Reconstruction

In 2005, traffic volumes on 57th Street went from 4,000 to 12,000 vehicles per day. Year 2025 traffic volumes are predicted to be 25,000 vehicles per day. Long backups are already developing at intersections during peak periods, the pavement has deteriorated to a very rough condition, and BNSF trains were causing traffic to cut through residential neighborhood streets to avoid the long delays at the at-grade railroad crossing. In addition, farms on  the south side of 57th street were starting to experience development activity and needed to be served by adequate utility systems and roadways.

Therefore, in July 2005, the city of Sioux Falls announced its decision to expand 57th street from two lanes to four lanes from Cliff Avenue to Sycamore Avenue  - approximately 2 miles and hired HDR as the design consultant. The 10.5 million dollar project also included an overpass of the BNSF railroad tracks and a new alignment and widening of Sycamore Avenue. This was the largest roadway project ever undertaken by the City of Sioux Falls.

Residents who live along 57th street were very concerned about the impacts to their property of widening 57th street from 2 lanes to 4 lanes. HDR developed a flyover animation to help residents understand and visualize the impacts of the project to their property. Another major concern of landowners was the visual impact of the overpass and especially of the embankment approaches to the bridge. HDR and the City took great care in developing color patterns for the bridge and retaining walls and the tree plantings for the embankment that were cost effective and visually appealing to the adjacent landowners.

The 57th Street reconstruction was the largest roadway project ever undertaken by the city of Sioux Falls. Noise and wetland impacts, soil settlement, and public controversy forced the design team to develop multiple innovative design concepts that resulted in the successful completion of this project.

 

A very special thanks to our 2009 judges and Master of Ceremonies:

Ms. Julie Andersen, Executive Director, South Dakota Public Broadcasting
Dr. Lewis Brown, PhD, Dean of Engineering, South Dakota State University
Mr. Art deWit, P.E.
Ms. Kristi Honeywell, P.E., State Engineer, State of South Dakota

Mr. Rick Knobe, Radio Personality and Former Mayor of Sioux Falls - Master of Ceremonies