Colorado River Aqueduct Project
The Colorado River Aqueduct is a massive 242-miles long water conveyance that provides Southern California with a large majority of its drinking water. Overtime, the structures’ concrete begins to crack, and water begins to rust the underlying rebar. The continuous erosion means that time-to- time the aqueduct needs to be shut down for two weeks to conduct maintenance and repairs.
Cut to Penhall- A Team of 84 Penhall employees from 15 West Coast Branch offices were brought in to ensure project success and an on-time completion.
- One of the main challenges was the jobs’ location, in the middle of the desert in Southern CA. All personnel, equipment, generators, supplies, fuel and sources had to be strategically brought in and stored in the desert.
- Work was done around the clock. Crews switch off between 12-hour day and night shifts.
- The project required precision of both vertical and horizontal cuts using wall and hand sawing.
- Cutting was immediately followed by Penhall’s demolition crew who used excavators to remove the damaged concrete sections.
- Eight wall saws ran day and night to perform the cutting and complete the project on time In all, 20,000 cubic feet of concrete was removed from the CRA.
You can read a full article in that was featured in CSDA’s Concrete Openings Magazine: