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process that came down to taking
side frames off of our tracks just to
get everything in.”
Toma says everything then had to
be trucked back out upon the proj-ect’s
completion in April, and getting
that done before the thaw was a chal-lenge
in itself.
“We were right down to the wire in
mid-April, and we were lucky because
of the matting on top of that trail, it
kept the ground frozen underneath,”
he said, adding that trees on either
side also helped to prevent melting
by keeping the trail shaded. If not
for that, there might have been some
machinery stuck out there until the
following winter season.
“It was definitely pushing the time-line
to get it out when we did,” said
Toma. In the end, he adds, everything
wrapped up on schedule, thanks in
large part to having the right person-nel,
equipment and systems in place.
A team of 30 crew members, work-ing
in 24-hour shifts, were required to
complete the project.
The end result is a water intake
cell on the Little Smokey River
capable of handling some 500,000
cubic feet of flow. The structure
contains several large submersible
pumps that take water out of the
Little Smokey River and transport it
several kilometres away to an area
where exploration for natural gas
fracking is taking place.
Formula Contractors partnered
with the general contracting firm IDL
Projects Inc. during construction.
Toma says the price tag for his com-pany’s
portion of the work was close
to $3.5 million.
GREAT CANADIAN PROJECTS
“Having to construct
halfway into a frozen river
channel, there are safety
issues to think about.
You’re freezing in all the
ice to get construction
weight on top of it.”
– Phil Toma, Formula Contractors
PILING CANADA 75
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