There's little proof that construction of St. Albert's new sewage station is shaking Kingswood homes to pieces, says one of the city's top planners.
Rumours have swirled as of late that vibrations caused by the construction of the new sewage pump station on Sturgeon Road were damaging nearby homes. The $19 million station, which has been under construction since October 2010, is meant to pump St. Albert's sewage to a treatment plant near Fort Saskatchewan.
The city has heard complaints about vibrations from the construction site from a few Kingswood residents and completed an investigation last month, said Guy Boston, the city's general manager of planning and engineering.
The vibration studies suggest that the site causes shakes of about one to 1.5 millimetres per second in Kingswood — way below the 12.7 mm/s levels known to damage homes.
"That doesn't mean it's not perceptible," Boston added. "You can feel that, but it's not doing anything."
Ron Simonsmeier's Alberco Construction Ltd. is the group building the new pump station. Simonsmeier said he knew of about five vibration complaints from Kingswood residents. The apartment complex across the street from the construction site has yet to make any, he noted.
"With a construction site, there's always going to be noise and vibration," Simonsmeier said, mostly in the form of heavy equipment moving.
Crews haven't done any pile-driving, but they have had to dig down several stories to lay their sewer pipes. The most intensive vibrations were probably caused by sheet-piling, he said, which is when crews slowly pushed large metal girders into the ground.
Alberco's insurance company did its own vibration study in response to the complaints and compared them to industry standards, Simonsmeier said. An engineer's report shared with the Gazette suggests that the maximum amount of vibration measured at Kingston Close during sheet-piling was about 1.48 mm/s. Industry standards (the same ones used by the city in its study) suggest that vibrations of at least 12.7 mm/s will damage plaster in old homes.
"The vibrations we did are no worse than a bus driving by your house," Simonsmeier said. "We're not even close to anything that could cause any damage."
Alberco is done sheet-piling on site, Simonsmeier said, so any future vibrations will be less intense ones caused by moving equipment.
"If there is some damage caused by our operations, our insurance company will repair it, but there has to be some proof it was caused by our operations," he said.
Construction update
Alberco crews are now assembling forms for the other half of the roof and has one more set of underground pipes to put in, Simonsmeier said Friday.
Crews have added several concrete floors to the station, which was a big, empty concrete cup as of last August, and painted the insides hospital white. Three tall, grey, cylindrical 700-horsepower engines wait on the lowest level to be installed, ready to pump St. Albert's sewage.
Simonsmeier said he expected the station to be finished on schedule by the end of this year.
