Hudson Valley Environmental Inc. (HVEI) has been doing its part to help revitalize the waterfront in Bayonne, NJ.
South River, NJ-based company is nearing completion of a $5.5-million demolition project on Pier 35 on the Hudson River.
According to HVEI Vice President of Operations Frank Pasalano, the project, which began in April 2005, is part of a revitalization effort by a private developer who plans to build a condominium on the project’s 65-acre site.
HVEI’s primary responsibility is the demolition of a three-level, 270,000-sq.-ft. (25,084 sq m) warehouse made of concrete with mushroom columns, This warehouse sat on 18,000 wood and steel pilings and extended 800 ft. from the shore into Newark Bay.
Pasalano said project challenges include taking down the collapsed building on the river. To accomplish this crews used a 200-ton (181 t) conventional American crane on a spud barge. This crane was leased from Hughes Brothers of Brooklyn, NY.
Attached at the end of this crane is a 220 LaBounty shear with a hydraulic pack. The shear was used to cut the collapsed building’s concrete, which took five months to complete.
A second crane, Pasalano said, owned by HVEI, was located on shore to extract sheet pilings.
He said a flat barge was used to load the debris from the demolition. It was then hauled to the shore for disposal. The material confinement during demolition was accomplished using a 3,000- linear-ft. (914.4 m) canvas fast water screen.
Pasalano said that a Komatsu 650 excavator with a grapple was used to help demolish the warehouse from the south. A Daewoo 920 excavator with a grapple, purchased from Hoffman Equipment, also was used to help raze the building. In addition, a Daewoo 450 excavator, a Daewoo 300 excavator with a 60-ft. (18.3 m) reach were used to offload debris from the demolition from the barge.
According to Pasalano, a Daewoo 290 excavator with a 60-ft. reach, which was purchased specifically for this project, was used to offload debris from the barges and load it into two JCB articulated trucks. HVEI also used a Daewoo 320 excavator with a concrete pulverizer to further reduce the size of the chunks of concrete that had once been part of the dilapidated warehouse.
“After the concrete was demolished, it was downsized further and stockpiled on the site,” Pasalano said. “We also used a Rosco water truck to keep the site free of concrete dust. Following demolition of the building, pilings, grade beams and dirt had to be removed, he noted, adding that the same equipment was used for this part of the operation.”
Soil removal also was challenging.
“We had to remove 20,000 cubic yards of soil in an area in the water that was 60 feet wide, by 16 feet high, by 370 feet long,” said Pasalano. “To accomplish this, we had to use the 200-ton American crane with a three-cubic-yard clamshell attachment, a Komatsu 650 excavator with a three-cubic-yard bucket, and the Daewoo 450 excavator with a two-cubic-yard bucket,
“We used the crane to load the debris on to the barge. The soil we dug out was loaded in to the JCB articulated trucks, which then hauled it to the site to be stockpiled and then removed,” he added.
Cutting the sea wall also posed challenges.
“This concrete sea wall ranged from three to 10 feet in height and was 385 feet long. We used diamond to accomplish this,” Pasalano said.
Pasalano expected the project to be completed on time by the end of January. But what he is mostly proud of is that there have been no incidents or injuries over the course of 40,000 man hours of work. CEG
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