September 3, 2008

The proposed Tower Road dam will be developed similarly to Turtle Creek dam, pictured here. The project will incorporate the earthen dam, reservoir, spillway, and bridge.

Environment

Moncton set to build new dam and reservoir

$20 million project will get under way in 2010

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

MONCTON, NB

The City of Moncton has selected Touchie Engineering, a division of R.V. Anderson Associates Ltd., to design and provide construction engineering services for the new Tower Road dam and reservoir in Turtle Creek, New Brunswick.

The project’s estimated $20 million first stage includes construction of a dam, concrete bridge and spillway and a concrete intake structure. Construction is expected to get under way in the spring of 2010, with completion slated for the summer of 2012.

The project is being undertaken to ensure that the city has an adequate supply of water to meet its current and future development needs.

Touchie Engineering’s Moncton-based project manager John Gallant said the key challenges facing the engineering consultants stem from the multidisciplinary nature of the project.

“There are many phases and considerations that must be addressed in order to successfully complete the project,” he said.

“For instance, incorporation of the environmental components and coordinating the construction activities around these components will require careful planning.”

Gallant said the same is true of a communications plan, which needs to be developed to allow the public, First Nations people and other stakeholder groups the opportunity to view and comment on the project.

“Keeping an open line of communications with the public is a very important factor in the success of this project.”

To that end, a project web site will be maintained throughout the design and construction phases. Public information sessions will be held on completion in early 2009 of a pre-design report. Detailed design will be completed by the summer of 2009. The proposed dam will be located at Tower Road in the Turtle Creek watershed, approximately five kilometres upstream from the existing Turtle Creek dam. The old dam, designed and constructed between 1963 and 1966, currently acts as the city’s primary storage facility for its water supply system.

The new dam and reservoir will provide necessary water storage capacity for the tri-communities of Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview.

Touchie Engineering anticipates the main dam will be approximately 20 metres in height and extend 1.2 kilometres along Tower Road. It would be constructed of either a homogeneous section of compacted impervious fill or a central core of impervious fill with quarried rock or gravel upstream and downstream.

The project is expected to be developed in two stages. The $6-8 million second phase makes provision for a pumping station, forcemain and control gates. Addition of the gates would increase the storage from an initial 10 million cubic meters to 16.5 million cubic meters.

Design and construction services are being carried out with Touchie Engineering’s long-time project partners Gemtec Ltd., AMEC Environmental and Hughes Surveys.

“While each structure may have its own individual challenges, our team’s experience on complex projects such as this and our involvement in the previous stages of the work have given us a good understanding of the project’s requirements,” Gallant said.

Over the last six years, Touchie Engineering has completed much of the related work for the City of Moncton, including the recent Moncton water supply review and the Tower Road dam environmental impact assessment registration.

Gallant said both of these assignments addressed a number of environmental and stakeholder issues and have provided the foundation for the current $20 million construction project.

Touchie Engineering has been engaged in the practice of civil, municipal and environmental consulting engineering in New Brunswick since 1980.

In the Moncton area, it has worked on such large construction projects as the Moncton water treatment plant and the Turtle Creek dam spillway gates as well as complex work for the Greater Moncton sewerage collection and treatment system.

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