Development Authority of the North Country
Pamelia, NY
The Development Authority of the North Country owns and maintains critical public infrastructure that provides water supply and sewer service to many areas of the North Country. The Authority distributes drinking water via their Army Water Line (AWL), to several District’s as well as to Fort Drum. The AWL is a 20-inch diameter ductile iron pipe (DIP) that is 11.5 miles long. In 2019, EDR provided design documents for a project which replaced 17 mainline isolation valves along the AWL. During the project, pipeline leaks and corrosion were observed on the pipeline. After the completion of the valve replacements, the Authority commissioned a pipeline integrity assessment project to further understand the existing pipeline’s condition.
EDR evaluated options and developed a plan to assess the AWL using a free-swimming scanning tool. The results show several areas of significant corrosion, and these were categorized for replacement accordingly. EDR provided an engineering report and design documents for the replacement of approximately 13,000 ft of the AWL (i.e. Phase 1) with a 24-inch HDPE pipeline, which is hydraulically equivalent and not subject to corrosion. Design documents were developed in alignment with potential funding sources requirements (i.e. NYSEFC). The design phase efforts included hydraulic modeling, detailed planning of bypass for minimal water supply disruption to existing customers, coordination with local and state agencies, field services (i.e. geotechnical and field survey) to support permitting requirements, SEQR, and environmental permitting to perform the work.