Movement To Locate Laterals Gaining Strength
Efforts to prevent accidental damage to underground utility infrastructures have accelerated over the past several years, bringing positive steps to reduce the number of costly and often dangerous strikes of buried pipe and cable.

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Lubbock Deep Tunnels Mitigate Flooding
Lubbock, TX: In recent years, several factors, including steady growth, have combined to create flooding problems when rains occurred in rapid succession. To address that problem, construction is under way on the second of two ambitious drainage-improvement projects.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Engineering firm:
Parkhill, Smith & Copper Inc., (806) 473-2200,
Pipe manufacturer:
Amitech, (225)-658-6166
Excavation equipment:
Caterpillar, (309) 675-1000

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PRV Stations Provide Fire Protection, Lower Insurance Rates
The city of Hillsboro, home to businesses such as Intel, Planar Systems and TriQuint, is one of several high technology centers in Oregon. Most of Hillsboro’s commercial industry is located in park-like, industrial campuses built to blend in with the surrounding countryside. The water distribution system in the northeast section of the city, where the high-tech firms are located, was experiencing a gradual reduction in service pressure over time. As a result, the water pressures provided to a major customer in this section of the city was lower than the original pressure used in the design of the facility. In late 2004, the facility owners were informed that they could face substantial increases in their fire insurance rates if water pressure was not increased by Jan.1, 2006.

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HDPE Saves $125,000 On Arizona Water Conversation Project
One of the largest water wholesalers in the country got their first taste of what a growing number of water companies in the U.S. already know – the financial bottom-line for water projects using high-density polyethylene (HDPE) is the same color as the pipe – black. That’s what officials at the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD) discovered when they let their bid-winning contractor value engineer a 15,000-foot pipeline for the Tonopah Desert Recharge Project (TDRP).

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
HDPE pipe: Plastics Pipe Institute,
(202) 462-9607

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Mojave River Pipeline Project: PVC Pressure Pipe Plays Cost-Saving Role
Perhaps like no other area in the United States, the availability of water is the most critical issue facing growing municipalities in southern California. The history of this state is replete with concerns over water supplies and many of the state’s undertakings are related to conveying water to its drier, populous regions.

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Rehabilitation Technology

Repairing 9-Miles Of LA’s Lower North Outfall Sewer
The rehabilitation of an aging Los Angeles sewer tunnel currently under way has posed numerous challenges for project designers and the contractors doing the work. One of the biggest challenges is the tunnel’s size.

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Short Burst, Big Savings
In the midst of a $53 million addition to the Mechanical Engineering building on the Purdue University campus in Indiana, it was discovered that a 15-foot deep, 12-inch clay sewer lateral that serviced the building had a collapsed section of pipe.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Utility contractor:
TPI Utility Construction, (317) 769-4777
Purdue engineering:
Purdue University, Utility Plant Office Facility, (765) 494-3415
Lateral pipebursting:
HammerHead, (800) 331-6653

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The Last Word
A Time To Reevaluate: What Is Our
Biggest, Best Safety Opportunity Today?

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