When Sundt Project Manager Greg Clark said his crew will excavate a million yards of soil at a jobsite at Fort Bliss Army Post in El Paso, Texas, some people thought he was kidding. A million yards is a LOT of material, even for a major heavy civil project like this one, in which Sundt is performing all of the infrastructure and site development for the future William Beaumont Army Medical Center.
But then Greg corrected himself – it’s actually 1.3 million yards of excavated material – and it became clear that he was serious. The massive excavation effort will allow the team to safely install a new sewer line up to 48 feet deep, beneath a large layer of sandy soil.
“The top 15 feet of the site is good quality soil, but below that it’s really sandy – just like beach sand,” Greg said. “That’s a problem when you’re trying to dig down deep because the sand runs at a two-to-one slope. It constantly runs as you dig; you can’t put a trench box in it. For various reasons, the client didn’t want to install a lift station (a value engineering idea that would have reduced the excavation depth significantly), so the only safe solution is to open up the whole area with scrapers. We will end up digging out and replacing 1.3 million yards of material to build a trench for an 18-inch sewer line.”
Sundt’s ability to dig through problems and focus on solutions is just one reason our clients choose us.