GREAT CANADIAN PROJECTS
ON THE ICE
Building a water intake structure
on a remote Alberta river during
winter provided some interesting
challenges for construction crews
from Formula Contractors Ltd.
By Mark Halsall
Deep foundation work, when it’s done in isolated northern locations in the
deepest cold of harsh Canadian winters, can be an ordeal. Sometimes,
though, it can be even more challenging when the weather isn’t cold enough.
That was the case for the Little Smokey River Water Intake Project near
Fox Lake, Alta.
The project, which involved the construction of a sheet pile cofferdam, a sheet
pile water intake cell and associated structures including a pump intake and grizzly
screen, started in January 2015 and was completed four months later.
Phil Toma, director of operations for Formula Contractors Ltd., the Prince
George, B.C. company that performed the work, recalls that particular winter was,
like others in recent years, milder than normal.
“It wasn’t cold enough, honestly,” said Toma. The result, he adds, was some logis-tical
issues that need to be sorted out – the main one being ice on the Little Smokey
River that was too thin to support the 230-ton Terex HC230 crawler crane used to
drive piles for the project.
“Ultimately, we wanted the crane to sit on the ice but … we couldn’t build the ice
up thick enough,” said Toma. “The crane had to sit on the shore.”
The Formula Contractors team, however, was able to freeze up enough ice to
build a working platform on the river that could support pickup trucks, man bas-kets
and other gear used during construction.
“Having to construct halfway into a frozen river channel, there are safety issues
to think about,” said Toma. “You’re freezing in all the ice to get construction weight
on top of it.”
PILING CANADA 73