WATER / WASTEWATER

This project involved the installation of a water wheel-powered trash interceptor in the City of Newport Beach along the San Diego Creek to collect floating trash east of Jamboree Road before it enters the Newport Bay. The water wheel system consists of a trash wheel platform supported by vertical guide piles (allowing the structure to move with tides and flood events), floating booms anchored to the creek channel edges by pipe piles, a pile supported rail system traversing land and creek to transport trash containers to land, and a landside ingress/egress area.

Group Delta, an NV5 Company, conducted a geotechnical investigation which consisted of drilling one mud-rotary boring to a maximum depth of 67 feet bgs and two (2) CPTs to a maximum depth of 75 feet bgs, along an existing embankment. In addition, existing information from the adjacent bridges was utilized to avoid the need to drill in the channel avoiding additional cost to the client.

The investigation was coordinated with Orange County Flood Control to avoid any environmental impacts. Pile design for the structure was optimized through collaboration with the structural engineers. The creek subsurface condition consisted in the upper 25 feet was saturated soft clays that required 30-inch-diameter guide pipe piles to accommodate the lateral loads at the 100-year flood event level resulting in large moment demands in the piles.

 Added Value

• Strategic Subsurface Investigation: Our team performed targeted geotechnical exploration using mud-rotary drilling and CPTs along the embankment, leveraging existing bridge data to avoid in-channel drilling—minimizing cost and environmental impact.
• Optimized Pile Design Collaboration: Our team worked closely with structural engineers to design 30-inch-diameter guide pipe piles capable of resisting significant lateral loads from 100-year flood events, addressing complex subsurface conditions of saturated soft clays.
• Environmental Coordination and Compliance: Our team coordinated with Orange County Flood Control to ensure the investigation and design process avoided environmental impacts, supporting sustainable infrastructure development.