My first Construction Job, Quintana, Texas

My work with the Town of Quintana began during the analysis phase. where I was responsible for conducting an alternatives analysis of the proposed alternatives. The alternatives were analyzed using the 1-D cros-shore morphological numerical model SBEACH.

Once the analysis was completed I wasn't active with the project again until the construction phase had begun. It was at this time that I began reviewing the bid documents and prepared myself for a month in the harsh environment of the Gulf coast as the Project Engineer responsible for the construction of the project at Quintana.

The company I work for set me up in a beach house in Surfside, complete with internet access so that I could submit my daily report and pictures every evening. Once I was setup there, I began working with the Contractor, Luhr Bros., Inc., to complete the first phase, which included the pre-construction beach survey and the clearing of debris from the beach.

The Contractor started surveying both Bryan Beach and Cortez Beach (Bryan and Cortez Beach are beaches located in Quintana) in February 2005. The surveying and clearing activities took up the first week of construction as the construction equipment was transported to the project site. The site was surveyed using benchmarks placed along the site by an independent surveyor. The monuments that were utilized for the project are located on the Corps dredge disposal site located adjacent to the project site. Fencing was also placed around the site to keep the public off the beach during construction (this didn't work, residents would drive through the fencing then get stuck in the soft sand we had just placed, but the Contractor attempted to maintain their fencing to keep the public out).

As the Contractor profiled the beach, they began staking the construction area so that they would know the boundaries of the beach placement area and the centerline of the dune. The job took two guys to accomplish, one guy to walk transects along the beach and the other using a total station to capture his position.

In addition to surveying the beach, the Contractor was required to visually survey the road conditions for the roads that would be used during construction. This was to assure that the roads would be maintained at their pre-construction condition or would be repaired once construction was completed.

The second phase of the project was excavating the sand to be placed along Quintana Beach from the Port of Bay City Colorado River dredge disposal site. Before excavation could occur, the ground cover was cleared from the site. The material was excavated using dozers and and excavator and transported to the loading dock, located approximately 1 mile from the disposal site, using tandem trucks. There were between 4 and 6 trucks operating everyday.

The dozers would push material to the excavator who would then load the material into waiting trucks. The trucks would truck the material to the loading dock, located in a turning basin along the Colorado River, and deposit the material in a skip box. A second excavator with a clam shell bucket would pick the material up and deposit it in a waiting barge. The barge would then be sent down the Colorado River to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway where it would then travel to Quintana.

Once at Quintana, the sand would be taken off the barge using a thrid excavator, placed into trucks and then trucked to the construction site. Sediment samples were taken from every barge prior to transport down the Colorado River and submitted to an independent contractor for anlaysis. The analysis was to insure that the sand was of the qualitity specified in the specifications.

To unload the material the loaded barge would pull up along side of a spud barge that contained the excavator. Once the majority of the sand had been removed, the excavator would place a small CAT in the barge that would push the material into a pile to make it easier for the excavator to unload.

The unloading dock was approximately 1 mile from Bryan Beach and 2 miles from Cortez Beach.

It took the Contractor a month and a half to complete construction at Bryan and Cortez beaches. Approximately 45,500 tons of sand was placed along Bryan Beach - increasing the beach height to 5.5 ft above MSL (Mean Sea Level), increasing the beach width to 115 ft along a 1850 ft section of the beach and adding a 6 ft wide dune for a length of 740 ft to an elevation of 9 ft above MSL.

Approximately 27,500 tons of sand was placed along 2000 ft of Cortez Beach increasing the beach width to 80 ft and an elevation of 5 ft above MSL. A 6 ft wide dune was added along 1340 ft of Cortez Beach to an elevation of 7 ft above MSL.

After the Contractor had completed construction of the dunes, the Town of Quintana placed dune fencing and vegetation along the dune.