Collector Well Construction
The collector well consists of a 13-foot inner diameter caisson to bedrock approximately 70 feet below grade, with a pump house approximately 20 feet above grade for flood protection. The well has five 200-foot-long laterals projected in a fan orientation along the Mississippi riverbed.
Construction adjacent to the river requires consideration of excavation, hydraulic uplift and potential flooding during critical sequences. Our team successfully sank over 70 feet of caisson collector well and built the pump house without encountering unanticipated conditions, mitigating risks with best practices for subsurface investigation, monitoring hydrological conditions and optimizing the design.
Our team worked with a specialty contractor, Ranney Collector Wells, to facilitate the protocols and methods necessary for pouring and sinking sections of the caissons. Sump pumps pulled water from the bottom of the wet well as the new well was built.
Source Water Development
Water is extracted from beneath the Mississippi by laterals that protrude horizontally from the bottom of the caisson to fresh water. The water is clean due to river bed filtration, and the supply is resilient to drought because it is extracted from beneath the river instead of through a surface intake. The laterals do not interfere with fish or wildlife along the river.