Spelunking to Clean a Detention Pond
The Property Lifetime Management department received quite the doozy of a job recently. The department was asked to remove the sediment from the bottom of a concrete detention basin. Typically, this sort of work would go off without a hitch. We use a piece of machinery and personal in the pond, along with a few wheel barrows or skid steer, and we shovel out the sediment that has collected in the bottom of the pond. Badabing, badaboom.
Unfortunately, in this instance, the walled pond was about 15 feet below street level, and the only way to get down there was one steep set of stairs – it was impossible to get any equipment down into the concrete box detention pond. But, in typical Construction EcoServices fashion, we had to figure it out, and figure it out we did.
Our crew, headed by Bryan Cordero, went to the bottom of the basin with shovels, 5-gallon Home Depot® buckets, some rope, and some hope. Bucket by single bucket, our crew had to air lift the collected sediment up to street level and then carry the buckets to the trailer to dump them out. Mind you, it was exceptionally hot that day, and our guys had very minimal shade and a very tedious task ahead of them.
Not only did the crew successfully remove all of the silt and sediment from the bottom of the pond, but they left it looking as though there was never any silt or sediment present!
Sometimes, in order for us to stay ahead of the game, and continue to earn our customer’s trust and loyalty, we not only have to think outside of the box, we have to work outside of the box (or “inside the box”, in this case), and in rough conditions. The temporary pain of working in such conditions pales in comparison to the long term rewards for being a company that our clients can always depend on to get the job done.
