CCNZ / HIREPOOL CONSTRUCTION EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2015
Stormwater artery
keeps industrial heart of Mount Maunganui beating While stormwater systems perform a simple function, laying them can be far from easy. Connell Contractors knows this only too well – navigating everything from a four-lane highway to a penguin colony during its build in and around the Port of Tauranga.
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CATEGORY
PROJECT: Stormwater Upgrade, Tauranga CONTRACTOR: Connell Contractors
30 Civil Contractors NZ in association with Contractor magazine
H
amilton-based Connell Contractors was given the challenging task of putting together a 500-metre pipeline that would take stormwater from Mount Maunganui’s industrial area to Tauranga Harbour. From the town’s shipping channel, the pipeline had to cross two sea walls, a log yard, rail tracks, heavily-trafficked port roads and a four-lane highway. A bevy of critical services also needed to be relocated, including 33 kilovolt power, water mains and fuel lines. The $7.98 million project was undertaken between February and December 2014. Complex and risky, Connell Contractors was more than up to the job. Heading up a formidable list of challenges was having to conduct operations in a busy and dangerous port environment; not to mention orchestrating a large number of consultants, subcontractors and suppliers. One of the trickier parts of the project happened at the harbour outfall. Project manager Dave Connell says this was down to the “gravity pipe” having existing stormwater flows introduced as work progressed. Sheetpile walls were built to isolate this and other pipes from the high tide. Stormwater was then pumped over. The pumps struggled to handle rainfall at times, so pipe bulkheads were used to let the pumps catch up.
