When runoff from heavy rains began flooding the Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., the city and D.C. Water made a plan to create underground holding tanks for the water as well as install green infrastructure components such as bioswales and rain gardens to absorb storm water before it entered the system. They chose Electrical Alliance contractor Singleton Electric to provide electrical services that power the machines that divert floodwaters.
The project’s first phase was to convert facilities at the McMillan Slow Sand Filtration site into storage tanks that could hold up to three million gallons of runoff.
Once completed, the team began building new diversions and tunnels. A concrete diversion structure 25 feet deep diverts flows from the North Capitol Street storm water sewer to the storage basin. Water flows beneath North Capitol Street through a four-foot-wide pipe inserted through a hand-mined liner-plate tunnel that is five feet in diameter.
A 55-foot-deep concrete diversion structure will route flow to a future combined sewer overflow tunnel. Excavation for that structure was supported by 80 65-ft-deep secant piles and three levels of permanent strut-walker bracing and was complicated by poor soils and proximity to existing utilities.
Much of the construction took place on extremely small sites and busy city streets, so Singleton Electric and other project team members developed detailed plans to maintain traffic, protect pedestrians and homes, and coordinate material deliveries. Restricted work hours mandated significant night and off-hour work shifts. No-parking zones, temporary crosswalks, temporary traffic flagging locations, other public safety measures, and communications with residents were established.
Singleton Electric installed the electrical distribution systems for this project, including all switchgear and tested it under different scenarios to ensure it would work as intended in an intermittent yet intense scenario like a flood.
About The Electrical Alliance
The Electrical Alliance is a cooperative effort between electrical contractors and skilled craftsmen to provide quality products and services to customers and to set the standard for efficiency, productivity, and safety within the electrical industry. It is jointly sponsored by the National Electrical Contractors Association and Local 26, IBEW. To learn more, visit News & Press or follow the Electrical Alliance on Twitter @dcelec_alliance.
Contractor Info
Singleton Electric
7860 Cessna Ave.
Gaithersburg, MD 20879
(301) 258-2600 | info@singletonelectric.com
