Civil           Environmental         Survey

Austin, Texas


Vickrey & Associates, Inc. (V&A) is proud to be a contributing engineering consultant on the Austin Clean Water Program’s (ACWP) efforts to improve the environment and enhance the quality of life for citizens of Austin. In November 2001 Austin Water Utilities created the ACWP to address an Administrative Order from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency which mandated the elimination of sanitary sewer overflows from the city’s wastewater collection system. Since that time, over 190 miles of sewer lines have been installed and rehabilitated. The program has received national recognition from the International Right of Way Association (IRWA) as one of the top 10 infrastructure projects in North America in the last 75 years.

V&A provided engineering design and surveying services for several of the 125 projects under the program, including Govalle 4: Manor/Comal/Rosewood and Govalle 5: Johnson Creek. Being one of the largest in scope, the Govalle 4 project consisted of the replacement of approximately 17,350 linear feet of aging wastewater lines and construction of gravity sewer relief mains to provide additional system capacity. V&A was responsible for the design and permitting of the wastewater improvements that included the construction of PVC and HOBAS pipe ranging in size from 8 inches up to 36 inches in diameter and the construction of 149 sewer manholes. Other improvements included using tunneling technologies to jack and bore 42-inch diameter welded steel carrier pipe. This technique allowed us to mitigate environmentally sensitive areas and avoid open-cutting a 5-ft wide trench through major roadways.

The new Govalle 4 system upgraded wastewater services for over 100 residences, a middle school, a museum, and several local businesses. The majority of the construction occurred within City Right-Of-Way (ROW) under existing paved roads through mostly residential neighborhoods in Rosewood Park along Brushy Creek, crossing several major City arterials such as MLK Boulevard, 12th Street, and Manor Road, and traversing down Rosewood Avenue. The age of the infrastructure, extensive existing utilities within the roadway, and traffic control considerations all combined to create a challenge to finding viable alignments and profiles. V&A conducted an analysis of various methods of construction and alignment options in order to best balance costs, traffic disruption, and environmental concerns. Open-cutting trenches in riparian and environmentally sensitive areas was avoided to the extent possible, and all disturbed areas within stream channels were restored using the principles of stable channel design. Trenchless technologies were utilized to install wastewater lines at numerous locations, including large utility line crossings and environmentally sensitive areas such as creek crossings. The route alignment minimized the removal of heritage trees to the extent feasible.

After a contractor was selected to construct the project, V&A’s team and technical expertise were utilized for construction phase services including review of contractor submittals, weekly site visits and reports, weekly construction meetings, responding to RFI’s, and were available for on-call services during the fast-tracked construction schedule.