The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) funded, designed, and constructed storm water pump stations in Virginia Beach, Virginia at 16th Street, 42nd Street, 61st Street, and 79th Street as part of the Hurricane Protection Projects. Upon completion of construction, possession of these outfall pump stations was turned over to the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia.
The City of Virginia Beach is required to perform underwater dive inspections and survey of the outfall structures and discharge pipes for all three pump stations every three years to maintain a Satisfactory rating with USACE.
McLean Contracting Company was awarded the contract to complete these inspections to include diver inspection of the outfall boxes, Multibeam Surveys of the outfall boxes, and complete internal inspections of each outfall pipeline using a remotely operated vehicle.
Additionally, as a part of this contract, McLean Contracting Company was tasked to complete 5 repairs to pipe joints, seal a manhole cover, remove a previously identified pile of metallic debris, install 4 new flap gates on the outfall box at 42nd Street. The longest penetration dive conducted for these repairs was 1850’ by a diver inside a 4’ diameter concrete pipe.
While the internal pipe repairs at the 42nd street outfall were conducted by accessing the pipes through the pumphouse on land, the repairs to the 16th street outfall pipes were accessed at the outfall box, 2000’ offshore of the oceanfront aboard the 95’ long Lift Boat Northstar Voyager. The vessel and crew were hired for three weeks and the dive crew worked aboard the vessel at both the 16th street outfall for pipe penetrations and at the 42nd street outfall box using the vessel’s 50-ton crane to install 4 new 2000-pound flap gates.