City of Corpus Christi, TX Minimizes Wetlands Impact Using Fusible C-905® Pipe and Horizontal Directional Drilling

The City of Corpus Christi Water Department oversees 1,600 miles of water transmission and service lines. Approximately 15 years ago, the Water Department installed dual 16" HDPE waterlines beneath Oso Bay to serve Texas A&M University's Corpus Christi campus. Because the lines provide the only source of potable water on Ward Island, the City installed dual lines to provide redundancy. That farsightedness paid off last summer when the City had to place the dormant line into service to repair a leak on the main transmission line. Although repair was attempted, the Water Department was unable to repair the line due to the break's location. In addition, the City was fined for damage to environmentally sensitive areas that were impacted by the attempted repair. A long term fix was required that could be implemented with minimum impact to the sensitive wetland habitat where the pipeline was located.

In late 2009, the City contracted with engineering firm URS (Corpus Christi, TX office) to evaluate potential repair options and to recommend an approach offering the greatest reliability with minimal environmental impact. City engineers and URS eventually specified installation of a new pipeline by horizontal directional drilling (HDD) with the option of using Fusible C-905® pipe or restrained ductile iron pipe. Fusible C-905® pipe proved more economical than the ductile iron option and was the only option bid by Jhabores Construction Company, Inc., the low bidder on the project.

Kevin Barke, Project Manager with Jhabores Construction, commented: "Fusible PVC™ pipe was easy to use, easy to pull, and connections were a breeze using standard ductile iron fittings." Jeff Edmonds with URS stated: "We were very impressed with the material and will definitely specify Fusible PVC™ pipe on future installations."