Owner:

Hopkinsville Water Environment Authority (HWEA), Hopkinsville, Ky.

Project Summary:

The Lake Barkley Transmission Main consists of a new intake and pump station on Lake Barkley, with a line running 27 miles from there to a 220-million-gallon reservoir in Hopkinsville. A major part of the project was the purchase of the right-of-way of the abandoned Tennessee Central/ICG railroad bed between Hopkinsville and Gracey. That right-of-way represents roughly half of the 27 miles traversed by the transmission line.

The new intake and waterline increased raw water at HWEA treatment facilities by 20 million gallons per day, thus reducing problems resulting from limited water supplies during drought conditions. The project also will enhance HWEA’s ability to treat water to higher EPA drinking water standards.

Because of conditions surrounding the work, service became even more important than usual, and AMERICAN worked closely with the contractor, Garney Companies, to ensure timely deliveries on almost 1,000 truckloads of pipe.

The HWEA job entailed almost 2,800 feet of auger bore and jack installations under major roadways. Garney, utilizing AMERICAN restrained-joint ductile iron pipe, provided value engineering and savings to HWEA in those situations by installing 36-inch Flex-Ring pipe in a 48-inch steel casing in lieu of a 54-inch steel casing as originally designed.

“AMERICAN sales, customer service and manufacturing were all focused and responsive from the very outset to ensure we weren't ever waiting on pipe.”

In a similar vein, Garney minimized labor costs by utilizing more than 50 AMERICAN welded-on outlets. The contractor installed 44 pieces of 36-inch AMERICAN ductile iron pipe with a 24-inch flanged welded-on outlet for air/vacuum relief and another 11 pieces with a six-inch Fastite welded-on outlet for farm irrigation taps.

Key Players:

Engineers for the Lake Barkley project were JV Engineering (Nashville, Tenn.) and TetraTech (Lexington, Ky.). The contractor was Garney Companies (Nashville, Tenn.).

What They Said:

“This was a high-production job, and being able to get pipe delivered, unloaded and strung out along the right-of-way well in advance of pipe-laying operations was of major importance and proved to be a major undertaking. We unloaded more than 940 truckloads of ductile iron pipe. The fact that AMERICAN manufactures ductile iron pipe in 20-foot-joint lengths was of major significance on a project of this nature. I hate to think how many more truckloads of pipe we would have had to coordinate and unload had the pipe been manufactured in shorter joints. AMERICAN sales, customer service and manufacturing were all focused and responsive from the very outset to ensure we weren’t ever waiting on pipe.- Steve Ford, Garney construction manager

“AMERICAN’s welded-on outlets always provide less labor-intensive installations than mechanical joint fittings. By using an outlet on a joint of pipe you also end up with fewer joints, and anytime we can reduce the number of joints, we’re better off.- Steve Ford, Garney construction manager

What They Used:

AMERICAN supplied roughly 26 miles of 36-inch ductile iron pipe and about four miles of 16-inch pipe, as well as 55 welded-on outlets. That included 130,500 feet of 36″ Fastite joint pipe; 4,400 feet of 36″ Flex-Ring joint pipe; and 23,000 feet of 16″ Fastite joint pipe.