Excavated dirt & mud temporary storage challenge!!! 1

[thien2002]

The majority of the dirt moving is from vacuum excavations to provide trenches for new underground water piping. We do not have enough environmental permitted land on this military base to dump our dirt. I am looking for an alternate solution to temporarily store the mud & dirt. Looking for any possible solution A.S.A.P. Thank you!

 

[cvg]

you could raise the height of your piles by using retaining walls, maybe reinforced earth or temporary method to stabilize and increase the allowable slope

 

[thien2002]

Your prompt response is very kind. Can you please be a little more descriptive about set up to handle large capacity of mud & dirt from our vacuum excavation. Thank you.

 

[cvg]

i assume you are estimating the storage volume of your site based on an assumed angle of repose for the material and a maximum height for the piles. you could increase the steepness of the slope by using retaining walls of some sort or maybe by using a geogrid to reinforce the embankment. you would need to consult with a geotech to design the system.

 

[BigHarvey]

You can mix the dirt with cement. There is mixing equipment that can be attached to a hydraulic excavator. With quantitie of cement around 150 kg per m3 you obtain a material that can be used as backfill

 

[Zambo]

How wide are your trenches? Can you reduce the width? Have you considered installation by directional drilling? Good idea from Big Harvey put the excavated material back - what's wrong with it in its excavated state.

cvg think you've read the post incorrectly!

Zambo

 

[Focht3]

I assume that a part of the problem is the wet condition of the spoils. Have you thought about "reclaiming" the spoils much like is done with dredging operations? Some sort of dewatering seems to be needed.

[blue]cvg[/blue]'s post wasn't far afield; dewatered spoils could be put into large piles temporarily - or the spoils placed and dewatered by gravity (with help, of course.) To me, the big question is why the excavated quantities are larger than were expected (hence the permitted land area wasn't big enough)...

Perhaps we are dealing with a symptom, not the real problem.



Please see FAQ731-376 for great suggestions on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

 

[thien2002]

The contractors did not expect the amound of mud collected from vacuum excavation. The original plan was to hand-dig but since vacuum excavation was introduced to the recently. We do not have any permitted land to dump our mud because environmental people are afraid that it will run to the nearby creek, this is a symptom that we are dealing with.

However, if any of you can think of any possible solution that won't involve cost, I certainly appreciate that, otherwise, thank you so much for everyone's time.

 

[Focht3]

Hmmm,

"There's no such thing as a free lunch."

My first suggestion is that you talk to your base CE (unless that's you, of course!) to see if s/he has any ideas. Then you might contact any friends you have with COE, particularly the folks at WES in Vicksburg. Those are all resources that are available to you (assuming we are discussing a U.S. base, of course.)

Do you have any other real estate that could be used temporarily?

You could also create a dike around your dewatering area to protect against contamination of the creek - allowing you to increase the storage depth.



Please see FAQ731-376 for great suggestions on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

 

[thien2002]

Fotch,

Thank you so much for your concern. You are exactly right. We already found the solution: we will have a small area to dump mud, we will create a pit that will handle certain volume, and we will empty every other 2-3 days to off-base landfill.

Again, thank you so much for people who are concerned about other people.

 

[Zambo]

Hmm... I read cvg's post wrong. Where he said piles I would say heaps. When he said piles I thought about piers! Strange.. apologies.

Zambo