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Largest geotextile tube project in U.S.
As a result of more than a century of industrial activity on the shores of Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, N.Y., the lake’s sediments have been contaminated with chemicals and heavy metals such as lead, cobalt, and mercury. Due to this contamination, Onondaga Lake and related upland sites were added to the Federal Superfund National Priorities List in 1994.
Today, the action plan for the lake involves a massive dredging/dewatering project using geotextile tubes. It is described as “the largest geotextile tube project in the U.S. and North America,” according to a Jan. 10 press release from TenCate Geosynthetics, sole supplier of its Geotube® containers for this project.
The design by Parsons Engineering is to hydraulically dredge an estimated 2.1 million cubic yards of sediment waste and pump it through four miles of double-walled pipeline to a 50-acre dewatering cell pad.
The design specifies containing and dewatering the waste in geotextile tubes stacked 30 feet high. TenCate’s geotextile tube containers, of various circumferences, are designed to dewater the sediments.
The project is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2012 and is planned to continue for four years. Upon completion of dredging and dewatering, the containers will be permanently stored in the capped cell.