Stormwater Drainage: 5 Groundbreaking Flood Protection Megaprojects to Watch in 2024
Flooding is a huge problem that affects people worldwide whenever the rainy season arrives. Therefore, a large number of megaprojects for flood protection are currently being constructed to address this issue.
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1. Mill Creek Drainage Relief Tunnel, USA
The Mill Creek Tunnel, currently the largest tunnel being constructed in the United States, aims to safeguard residents, schools, medical facilities, businesses, and streets by ensuring essential relief for stormwater drainage. When it is finished, the tunnel will be five miles long and will be buried between seventy and one hundred fifty feet below the surface. It would offer flood protection for a period of one hundred years to about two thousand two hundred residential and commercial structures in the east Dallas area, including Baylor Medical Center and Fair Park.
2. Dubai Strategic Sewage Tunnels Project
The government of Dubai issued a request for proposals to contractors in February 2024, inviting them to submit bids for a sewage tunnel project that will be created as a public-private partnership and will cost AED80 billion or $22 billion. As part of the undertaking, two sets of deep tunnels will be constructed, each of which will end at a pump station. These pump stations will be situated at sewage treatment facilities in Jabal Ali and Warsan. Within the city of Hatta, there will be constructed sewage treatment plants in addition to a normal sewage and drainage system. Additionally, it consists of distribution networks for reclaimed water that are connected to several sewage treatment plants.
3. West Shore Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana
Situated in southeastern Louisiana on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, the West Shore Lake Ponchartrain development includes drainage structures, pumping stations, a mile of concrete flood wall, and 17.5 miles of levees. It is the responsibility of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, to manage the implementation of additional non-structural protection measures that extend from the Bonnet Carre Spillway to the Mississippi River Levee near Garyville. Moreover, in the parishes of St. Charles, St. James, and St. John the Baptist, the project, which is anticipated to cost 760 million dollars or more, is intended to give protection against storm surges to sixty thousand residents. Accordingly, beginning in December 2022, construction is anticipated to be finished in the year 2027.
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4. Clearwater Project, Los Angeles
Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles agreed to construct a tunnel that is seven miles long and has a diameter of eighteen feet to transfer cleaned water from the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant in Carsen to the ocean outfalls that are already in place at Royal Palms Beach in San Pedro throughout the transportation process. This decision was made following an evaluation that lasted for multiple years and involved the main sewer system that serves more than five million people. Dragados USA, the USA branch of the Spanish construction company Dragados, was given a building contract of 630 million United States dollars in 2019 and is anticipated to be finished in the year 2026.
5. West Shore Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana
In June 2016, the report of the West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Chief was made available to the public. Additionally, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 provided funding for the construction effort for $760 million.
Following the establishment of nine 'land bridge' roads connecting state highways and Interstate 10 to a prospective levee alignment, the focus has shifted to two sand placement contracts for the WSLP-101/102/103 sections, contracts for pile load testing, three contracts for sand and clay stockpiling, and the awarding of multiple mitigation bank contracts. It is anticipated that the process of awarding contracts for the levee building will continue until the summer of 2024.
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