2011 Recipient:

Trenchless technology was at the center of a $14 million pilot program to reline 11,000 feet of existing, 115-year-old 48-inch cast iron water main on Madison Avenue in midtown Manhattan. The project owner is the New York City Department of Design and Construction Infrastructure Division (NYCDDC) and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP). The design was by NYCDDC, in a research and development collaborative effort with the Urban Utility Center at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU. The contractor for the project was Halcyon and construction inspection was performed by HAKS. The project was the first of its kind to employ trenchless technology on a large diameter trunk water main in NYC and the program was in the heart of New York City's Central Business District. It was, in addition, one of the largest trenchless technology projects ever accomplished. While the main focus of the project was on extending the life and reliability of the 48-inch trunk main, at the same time it sought to assess the performance and future applicability of trenchless technology. The project also involved installing 1,000 feet of new 48-inch and 36-inch steel water mains, various sized distribution water mains, new curbs, sidewalks and 11,500 feet of roadway paving. Project limits extended along Madison Avenue from East 37th to East 78th Street. Work began in January 2008 and was completed in September 2010.

The particular lining process had not been used before in New York City. It made use of Insituform's Polyfold, a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic lining material to stop joint leakage that could eventually lead to failure of the trunk main in the future. The 50-foot long liner segments were butt fused into longer, predetermined lengths as needed for insertion into the main. Installing the liner was done at staging and receiving pits, spaced three blocks apart, which were dug down from the street to the water main.

At the staging pit the compressed plastic liner was inserted into the pipe, winched through from the receiving pit with the aid of bentonite spray to reduce friction, then positioned and expanded into place inside the pipe. Compared to digging through the street and trenching from the surface down to the main to do the work, trenchless technology relied on only relatively few, discrete access points from the street to the underground main, which significantly impacted the work that would otherwise have had to be done. Trenching would have required increased time and cost for excavation and trench shoring, and for securing or relocating utilities that would be in the path of the excavations. It would have required lane closures, traffic detours, rerouting of transit buses, and pedestrian detours. In general, the trenchless approach to relining the water main had only a minimum impact on the activities going on in the congested Madison Avenue business district, with its heavy pedestrian, vehicular, commercial and residential traffic. Successful completion of the trunk main relining using trenchless technology clearly met the objectives of NYCDDC and exceeded the Department’s needs. It provided a means to extending the aging, local water supply infrastructure at relatively low cost compared to complete reconstruction, and assured the continued, long term reliability of the trunk main into the future. Trenchless technology greatly minimized lane closures, traffic interruptions and detours, and reduced the need for relocating utilities. This in turn shortened the project duration and lowered its costs.

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