Fort Myers Wellfield Expansion Program: Race against Time to Install Miles of Raw Water Pipelines

This paper will focus on three raw water main pipeline projects under the City of Fort Myers Wellfield Expansion program aimed to provide a critical well water supply to the City's only Water Treatment Plant (WTP) facility in response to increasing potable water demands with an aggressive schedule. Raw water main pipeline projects 6A, 6B, and 6C, which total 16,428 LF of 24-in., 20-in., and 10-in., respectively, were installed within narrow right-of-way (ROW), intersections, roundabouts, Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) roadways, and one railroad crossing. In order to compress the schedule, Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) alternative contract delivery method was used by the City to streamline the design, procurement, and construction of projects. In addition, the City, CMAR, and engineering team elected to design and construct the majority of the pipelines via horizontal directional drilling (HDD). A review of the project baseline schedules versus actual schedules for procurement and construction duration has shown successful project acceleration of the overall raw water main pipeline projects of 20% to 40% overall. This paper will focus on discussing the benefits and challenges encountered with installing over 14,000 LF of pipe via HDD, coupled with the impact on project baseline schedules.