TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant, located near Knoxville, TN, suffered a complete failure of its coal ash containment dike on December 22, 2008. Immediately following the reporting of the event on national news, many Bowen employees wanted to see if there was a way our company could help with the cleanup efforts. Bowen was recently provided that opportunity and it came in record setting fashion.
Up to now, Bowen’s largest HDPE pipe work had been on 36” diameter pipe. But on the morning of Friday, March 6th, 2009, Bowen received notification of award and authorization to proceed for installation of 1,900lf of 42” DR17 HDPE pipe for relocation of the Kingston Fossil plant sump discharge line and 1,350lf of 63” DR32.5 HDPE pipe for the re-establishment of waterways throughout the area devastated by the ash spill. Our mission was to fuse and place in the trench the 42” HDPE by noon on Thursday 3/12/09 and complete the 63” by end of shift on Friday 3/13/09.
After mobilization of equipment, the first pipe started fusing at noon on Monday, March 9th. After completion of the first 24-hr of work, it became apparent TVA would have to quicken the pace if they hoped to keep from holding back the “Safe Production Machine” that is Bowen Engineering. TVA mobilized additional machinery for the excavation of the 42” pipe trench, and through the unfaltering efforts of the project team lead by Bowen’s Corey Serowik and Don Pierce, the 42” was completed successfully.
The 63” work is continuing per TVA’s schedule.
We congratulate the project team of:
1st Shift
Corey Serowik (Superintendent)
Rob Fife (Pipefitter FMN)
Rich Bowen (intern)
Donald Passmore (Pipefitter)
Jeff Presson (Operator)
Joe Collins (Operator)
Robert Leary (Labor FMN).
2nd Shift
Don Pierce (Superintendent)
Matt Brewer (Pipefitter FMN)
Bill Best (Pipefitter)
Justin Walker (Operator)
Travis Thompson (Operator)
Mike Colyer (Operator)
Jimmy Jordan (Laborer)
Also, a special thanks goes out to Bowen’s Tony Crowe, Mat Valentine, and Rick Ferguson for helping obtain/supply the equipment and tools needed for this extremely fast-paced project. Without their efforts the team wouldn’t have been ready to go.
To learn more about the Kingston ash cleanup efforts, please visit TVA’s webpage here or TVA’s site dedicated to the cleanup efforts here.
Rick Meunier is a Bowen Project Manager based in Knoxville, Tennessee. He has been a member of the Bowen team since 2000.
