Case Studies

Palm Beach Aggregates Quarry: Slurry Wall Installation for Water Reservoir Creation

Project Summary

Use of Geo-Solutions Specialty Excavation Equipment for Slurry Wall at Loxahatchee Site

The Southern Florida Water Management District purchased a large, depleted gravel pit in order to convert it into a water storage reservoir. One of the most important steps in the conversion was to seal the sides of the gravel pit with a cutoff wall to enable water storage. The gravel pit was founded on impermeable bedrock, so the cutoff wall was keyed into the bedrock.

Geo-Solutions teamed with a local contractor to build the cutoff wall. The wall was a Soil-Bentonite (SB) slurry cutoff wall. To achieve higher productivity, two long stick excavators were utilized the excavation.

Portions of the excavation were performed with a double shift for even higher productivity.

For the construction effort, Geo-Solutions provided technical assistance services to the contractor. The technical assistance included specialty equipment and materials. The specialty equipment included two long stick and long boom (capable of digging maximum 85 ft) attachments for 120 ton (Komatsu PC1100) excavators, bentonite slurry mixing plants, and HDPE pipe welders. Geo-Solutions was also able to provide favorable pricing on the bentonite material for the project. Geo-Solutions supervised contractor quality control of the work as well as operation of key specialty equipment.

Completed Reservoir at Loxahatchee Site

Excavating through the hard soils surrounding the former gravel pit required pre-blasting with explosives of the alignment in order to permit backhoe excavation. Higher than normal bentonite usage was required in order to seal the pre-blasted soils.

The owner appreciated the efforts of the construction team and awarded a second project for dynamic compaction to Geo-Solutions on the same site. The slurry wall was successful in sealing the sides of the gravel pit, as evidenced by the picture of the completed reservoir, shown to the left.

Slurry Wall Dimensions

SB wall: 750,000 sf, 30 inches wide, maximum depth of 80 ft.

Geo-Solutions Can Help

To download, read, and learn more about the various slurry wall sample specs and technical papers we offer online here at Geo-Solutions.com, click on the links below or to your left:

• Slurry Wall Sample Specs– Geo-Solutions provides slurry wall sample specs which can be modified for real world use on your project. Download sample specification for Slurry Wall Construction.

• Slurry Wall Technical Papers – Browse our library of Slurry Wall Technical Papers.

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