Celebrating 45 Years of Consulting Engineering
Celebrating 45 Years of Consulting Engineering
Over the past four and a half decades our firm has provided customary civil engineering design for residential subdivisions, apartment complexes, townhouse developments, and many coastal resort residential projects within South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. The experience gained through these projects now emphasizes the use of low impact best management practices including bio-swales and bio-retention depressions to minimize adverse impacts upon predevelopment site conditions to the greatest extent practical. Utilizing and enhancing existing ground covers and in site topography for stormwater management reduces overall cost while enhancing the overall livability of a residential project. Surveying and engineering services typically include lot layout, street and roadway design, grading and stormwater design, water distribution and wastewater system design, design phase coordination with the local agencies, regulatory agency permitting, Bidding and Negotiations, Construction Phase Administrative and periodic inspections, and Project Close-out.
Our firm has designed both new and rehabilitation timber and steel marine bulkheads, boat ramps, individual docks, and marina facilities throughout the Lowcountry over several decades. These projects included private residences, POA marinas, commercial marinas, as well as commercial properties. A recent riprap revetment project for the Charleston Museum including assistance to acquire a State Historic Preservation Grant and coordination with the USACE for an extensive riprap revetment rehabilitation project to protect the Civil War era Battery Pringle on the lower Stono River. Other similar projects included shoreline protection of the James Island Yacht Club. Engineering services typically included coordination with Local and Federal permitting agencies, applicable design services, permitting, Bidding and Negotiations, Construction Phase Administrative services, periodic inspections, and Project Close-out.
For several decades GRGA has assisted public utilities in the Lowcountry to upgrade, rehabilitate, and designing new wastewater pump stations. These projects have ranged in sizes from small 2 HP duplex submersible stations to 150 HP triplex regional stations and treatment facility influent and effluent pump station projects. Above grade piping manifolds varied from 4” DIP to 24” DIP. Each project was designed to include applicable client standards and conformance to regulatory agency requirements including flood-proofing electrical equipment, variable speed VFD pump controls, SCADA monitoring and remote operation, and emergency generator equipment. Design phase services customarily included detailed hydraulic modeling of station piping, pump selection, and transmission network analysis including systematic hydraulic network modeling for receiving force main network compatibility when multiple stations discharged into a common force main.
Design services frequently included site redesign and expansion when necessary, SCADA antenna towers, conversion of confined space entry dry wells to submersible pump wells to increase wet well capacity, upgraded electrical service, and natural gas service where available for generator operation. Elevated equipment platforms were often required for electrical equipment, control panels, and generators for flood-proofing to applicable FEMA base flood elevations or higher local building code requirements. Operational design objectives for larger regional stations included service area life cycle flow demand projections and analysis of both near term and build-out design objectives to minimize pump cycling by extended period simulation hydraulic modeling of desired VFD pump output. Where applicable, extensive force main transmission network models were developed to include several stations discharging into common hydraulic transmission networks to insure multi-station operational compatibility during dry and wet-weather influent conditions. Engineering services typical included all regulatory agency permitting, SCDHEC SRF loan application preparation assistance, Bidding and Negotiation Phase services, Construction Phase Administrative and Inspection Services, start-up commissioning and testing, and Project Close-out.
In conjunction with pump station engineering services, GRGA has assisted area public utilities to upgrade and replace existing force mains with larger, often parallel force mains to accommodate both existing and projected service area growth and increasing transmission capacity requirements. Transmission force mains networks designed throughout the Tri-County area have varied from 4” to 24” ID transmission networks extending up to nine miles; several projects were from two to three miles in total length. Network hydraulic models have included complex systems with over three dozen pump stations discharging into a common transmission force main. Typical design phase services included multiple alternative route evaluations, cost-effective analysis, minimization of adverse environmental impacts, and alternative material and construction method analysis. Route selections and construction methods are now most often driven by the impacts of increased surface restoration costs, utility conflicts, jurisdictional wetlands, and major roadway crossings associated with conventional open-cut construction methods. Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) and closed-face or pilot rod guided jack and bore construction methods are now often more cost competitive within increasingly urbanized project environments offering few practical conventional construction alternatives.
A recent force main upgrade/by-pass project on James Island included a 360 feet pilot-rod bore and casing under an Expressway, a continuous 16” ID HDD HPPE tidal marsh crossing over 4,000 feet long, and the complex acquisition of a large HDD drill rig site easement within the front of a USPS site. Typical engineering services provided for force main projects included project funding acquisition assistance, easement acquisitions, all regulatory agency permitting, Bidding and Negotiations, Construction Phase Administrative and progress inspections, pressure testing and CCTV inspections, and Project Close-out.
Our firm has provided stormwater modeling and analysis and related site drainage design services as a major component of essentially all site developments over the past four decades. Several recent projects included the analysis and resolution of problematic drainage issues by designing and coordinating the rehabilitation and diversion of storm water through new drainage networks. Many of these projects required the development and analysis of extensive hydrology models, primarily utilizing the universally accepted ICPR software that our firm first used during its early development by the predecessor of Streamline Technologies in the 1980’s. Many of these Lowcounty projects have required extensive permit coordination with both SCDHEC OCRM and USACE to design outfalls to mitigate and minimize cyclical tidal backflow impacts and provide adequate catchment area drainage and reduce periodic flooding. Site design services also include construction phase sedimentation and erosion control devices and related MS4 and SCDHEC NPDES permitting. Common engineering services include early design related coordination with local permitting agencies, design of protective structures, permitting, Bidding and Negotiations, Construction Phase Administrative services, periodic inspections, and Project Close-out.
In addition to wastewater pump station and force main project engineering services, GRGA has assisted area public utilities to upgrade, repair, line, and replace existing gravity sewers with larger sewers to accommodate both existing and projected service area growth and increasing trunk sewer transmission capacity requirements. Our firm has recently completed the fourth in a series of five phased gravity sewer CIPP lining and manhole repair/lining projects financed by a series of SCDHEC SRF loans. Representative trunk sewer projects have included the 2.7 mile long 36” ID HOBAS Mount Pleasant Waterworks “Greenline Trunk Sewer” extending from the IOP Connector northward beyond SC-41 requiring the acquisition of over a hundred permanent easements paralleling the southeast right-of-way of US-17N. Engineering services provided for gravity sewer projects included SCDHEC SRF funding acquisition assistance, easement plat preparations and acquisitions, all regulatory agency permitting, Bidding and Negotiations, Construction Phase Administrative and progress inspections, pressure testing and CCTV inspections, and Project Close-out.
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