7-13-21_Pre-Proposal Conference Meeting Minutes.pdf

Pre-Proposal Conference July 13, 2021

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NEW LOCK AT THE SOO

NEW THIRD LOCK

PRE-PROPOSAL CONFERENCE

Pre-Proposal Conference held at

Lake Superior State University, Walker Cisler Center, Lake Superior Room, 650 W. Easterday Avenue, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan 49783 and streamed on Webex

Tuesday, July 13, 2021 - 1:00 p.m.

PRESENTATIONS BY: Mollie Mahoney

Travis Specht

Darin H. White, P.E.

John Behrens, P.E.

Clint Dougherty, P.E.

REPORTED BY: Natalia Rutkowski, CSR #9088 Certified Shorthand Reporter Registered Professional Reporter Rutkowski Court Reporting, LLC

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Pre-Proposal Conference July 13, 2021

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction by Mollie Mahoney 3

Remarks by Kevin McDaniels 3

Remarks by Mick Awbrey 5

Agenda/Project Overview by Mollie Mahoney 7

Presentation by Travis Specht 9

Presentation by Darin White 17

Presentation by John Behrens 76

Presentation by Clint Dougherty 93

3D Model Presentation (off the record)

Question/Answer Session 108

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INTRODUCTION BY MOLLIE MAHONEY

MS. MAHONEY: Good afternoon. Welcome to the

Pre-Proposal Conference for the new lock at the Soo project. I'm Mollie Mahoney, the Project Manager for the project. I just want to start off by welcoming everyone and thanking everyone for taking the time to travel here if you traveled, or just for coming out today to help us move this project into the next phase. We're really very excited to be kicking off the solicitation for our final phase for the new lock project.

So, I'm going to hand it over to Kevin

McDaniels, our Deputy District Engineer for the Detroit

District, to lead us off with some remarks.

REMARKS BY KEVIN McDANIELS

MR. McDANIELS: All right. Good afternoon, everybody. So, on behalf of the Detroit District, welcome. Lieutenant Colonel Katalenich, our District

Commander, could not be here today. He's actually in the

Soo, but he's in another meeting. He kind of got tied up, so we had to divide and conquer here.

So, this is pretty historic for us, hopefully for most of you too, but it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a structure like this. So, don't write the number down, but I'm just going to say it's a billion-dollar project overall, plus or minus, depending, Pre-Proposal Conference July 13, 2021

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(906) 250-1462 obviously, how things work out. But that's something that most of us don't get to do on a day-to-day basis, especially in the Corps of Engineers. A lot of people work their career and don't get to build a piece of infrastructure like this.

You'll hear from Mick in a moment. He's built infrastructure like this before down in Olmsted, so --the good part of Olmsted that finished it, right, Mick?

So, you know, the third phase, getting the staggered solicitation out for the new lock chamber was really important for us this summer. We've got an aggressive timeline to try to get this into construction for next year.

And we've got a lot of support vertically through our chain, through our regional office in

Cincinnati, through our headquarters in D.C., through the

Assistant Secretary of the Army. We have congressionals from eight states, senators, congressmen, congresswomen pushing this project along.

So, if you're tracking, the President's budget has us proposed for 480 million dollars. That's in addition to the over 400 that we've already received.

And that even includes money from the State of Michigan, who contributed to help see this project move forward because of the importance to the nation, really, for what

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(906) 250-1462 this lock will do. So again, very excited to have you here. Excited to see this get kicked off.

Along the back wall here, we have a team of incredible professionals who have just put thousands of hours into getting this project to where you see it at today. So, they're going to be available to answer questions for you. They are the experts. We pretty much have the dream team of design folks. And, just want to personally thank all of you for what you've done for us.

So, Mick, if you would. Mick is the Chief

Manager, leader, Program Manager, head of the Integrated

Project Office. So, here you go.

REMARKS BY MICK AWBREY

MR. AWBREY: All right. Again, welcome. It is a great afternoon. We've been working a long time to get to this point. It is very significant. It is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most people.

A little history of the Soo: The first locks were constructed/completed in 1812. So, the industry has been transiting past here since 1812. Continuous locks were built. The Davis and Sabin, the one's that we're replacing with the New Lock at the Soo, were completed in

1914 and 1919, respectively.

The next lock, the MacArthur Lock, was completed in 1943, during the middle of the war, the war

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(906) 250-1462 effort. That lock was completed in 13 months start to finish with the construction. 18 months from start to finish with design to finish the completion of construction.

The next lock, the lock that we're duplicating, is the Poe Lock. That was completed in 1969. So, for --

Since 1812 through 1969, it was pretty much a tempo of every 20, 25 years, a new lock was being constructed.

It's been 52 years since the Poe Lock was completed, so that tempo really dropped off. So, the

New Lock at the Soo is desperately needed for redundancy for the aged Poe Lock to continue the very important mission of transiting traffic through here for the iron ore industry and the farm industry. So, it is a once-in-a-lifetime. It is historic.

Looking at the historical pictures of all the projects and stuff, it's amazing what they accomplished and when they accomplished it during the worst conditions, during the war effort, and still succeeded.

The men and women that did that, they were persistent and they had great perseverance. And perseverance leads to character, and when you have the right character, we can complete just about anything. And that's what we're looking for, is men and women with character, not only on our team, but from our industry partners and from the

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(906) 250-1462 contractors.

So, with that being said, again, very proud of our team, the design team. They basically started the effort from scratch two years ago, and didn't miss a beat even through the year, COVID impacts. We were able to deliver on schedule to get the Stagger One approach out.

So, excited to be in this moment in time.

Excited to have you guys here. Very proud of the team.

Very proud of the industry supporting us, of Congress and the Government figures in supporting us with budgets, and we'll be proud to be associated with the contractor that gets this or contracting teams that get this.

We're looking for a win/win/win approach; a win for the Government, a win for the industry, and a win for the contractor ultimately, and we'll do everything possible to continue that relationship through the completion of this critical mission.

So, with that, Mollie.

MS. MAHONEY: Thank you.

AGENDA/PROJECT OVERVIEW

MS. MAHONEY: Okay. So, here's our agenda for today. I'm going to start off with just a quick little project overview. Then our Chief of Contracting and

Contracting Officer for the project, Travis Specht, will come up and go through solicitation requirements.

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Then Darin White, our Lead Engineer for the chamber, will go through chamber major features. Then we'll stop for a little break, about 15 minutes. And then Darin will pick up after the break with an overview of how the contract is broken down into base and options.

Then we'll have John Behrens, our Chief

Engineer for the pump well, give an overview on the pump well design. And Clint Dougherty, who's our Chief

Engineer on the New Power Plant Bridge, go over that.

And then I'm hoping that at the end, we'll have time as well to give everyone a little taste of the 3D model using our virtual reality headset showing on the display, the overview of the project.

So, the remaining work on the project is broken into three phases:

The first phase is the upstream channel deepening. It's shown on this figure in yellow -- I'm sorry -- in red. That work consists of deepening the upstream approach, which is about a 6,000-foot-long channel to the new lock, to a depth of 30 feet. And that contract was awarded in January of 2020 to Trade West.

They are out there digging now, and will have everything wrapped up by early next spring.

Then the second phase of work is the upstream approach wall contract shown in yellow on this figure.

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That work consists of rehabbing the upstream approach walls to the new lock on both the north and south side of the channel. And that contract was awarded to

Kokosing Alberici in September of 2020. You'll see them out there tomorrow when we go out on the site walk. And they'll be out there this year, and then again in 2022 and 2023.

Then the third and final phase of the contract, the phase that this solicitation is for, is -- we call it the new lock chamber. Technically, the name of the solicitation is New Lock at the Soo, New Third Lock.

But the work is shown in blue, and it includes the construction of the chamber, the downstream approach walls, the New Pump Well, and the bridge to the New Power

Plant.

So, I'm going to hand it over to Darin -- I'm sorry, to Travis -- I'm looking at Darin -- to Travis

Specht, our Contracting Officer and Chief of the

Contracting Branch.

PRESENTATION BY TRAVIS SPECHT

MR. SPECHT: Travis Specht. I am the Chief

Contractor for the Detroit District, and as she mentioned, the Contracting Officer for this contract.

So, before we jump into the solicitation requirements, I do want to touch on one thing that's not

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(906) 250-1462 covered here, and that's how we'll address questions.

As Kevin mentioned, we've got a great team back here that's prepared to answer questions. But any questions that do come up here at this meeting can only be related -- that you want to address here, can only be related to information that's already provided through the solicitation. So, we can't provide any new responses here that's not based off of information already provided.

So, if you have any questions related to information that you can't draw from the solicitation, they need to be submitted through the RFI process through

ProjNet. We do have a drop box over here by the front door, so if you want to submit questions that way so that we are prepared for them and can start, you know, getting that information ready, you can do that. But they still also need to be submitted through ProjNet to be official

RFIs. So, that's what we've got for questions.

So, this is the basic overview of the solicitation process. I'm not going to rehash all this information. It's all available through the solicitation that's posted on SAM.gov. It is a full and open competition, so it's not set aside. Small Business standards are provided in there, and the requirements to provide your Small Business breakdown is also provided

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(906) 250-1462 through the solicitation.

The magnitude for construction is over 500 million. It is a base bid with seven options, as you can see through the CLIN structure. And the period of performance is 1,642 days for the base bid, plus an additional 365 days for Option 1, and 365 for Option 3.

Price will be evaluated inclusive of options.

So, funds are not presently available for the contract. As Kevin said, those are still being processed through the approval process. All the information from any of us will be submitted -- or, it will -- Any information we have will be submitted through SAM.gov.

As I mentioned, RFIs need to be submitted through

ProjNet. If you haven't used ProjNet before, you can go through ProjNet.org/ProjNet. It will ask you for a bidder inquiry at the login page. You put that in, and it will take you directly to RFIs for this project.

And there's Controlled Unclassified Information for this project. So, to get controlled information, you can e-mail our Contract Specialist, Sandy Kenzie, as well as myself, to get the paperwork process to get any controlled information, including plans and specs.

So, this is the basic security information.

This is in addition to the security information you'll see later. This is the Army-based approved security

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(906) 250-1462 information for the project itself, as opposed to what you'll see later when Darin is going through his slides, I believe, and that is -- what he will go over are the site-specific security information, so, the work actually here at the Soo.

But this is the basics of the antiterrorism and operational security. Again, it's in the solicitation, so for the details on this, you can check there. But, obviously, E-Verify will be used for all labor under this contract. And, you know, you'll have the ID requirements. You can go through the specifics on that when you check the solicitation.

It is a best value trade-off process, which means that, you know, you will have your factors -- your technical factors. We'll evaluate the technical factors and determine the best value to the Government, all things considered. You'll be evaluated on a narrative basis.

Factor I is technical management, which goes into Offerer's technical management approach, the stylistic approach to how you'll manage the project.

Factor II is your technical approach, which is the specific application of work.

Factor III will be your past performance, standard past performance for, you know, working for the

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Government, as laid out in the solicitation.

Factor IV will be your Small Business participation plan, which will be evaluated on a pass/fail basis, acceptable versus unacceptable.

And Factor V will be price.

And this just goes through that one more time.

You've got your individual sections. Section 00 21 16, which is your instructions. It will lay out the details of how you're supposed to submit your proposal.

Your Stagger One -- This is the Stagger One submission based off the 90 percent design, which is what's been provided at this point.

Everything will be submitted through DoD SAFE, which is the Army-approved DoD website for large documents.

And then Volume I will include Factors I, II, and III. Volume II will be your 1442, your joint venture agreement, if you're submitting as a joint venture, and all of your pre-award information as laid out in the solicitation.

Stagger Two: As laid out in the solicitation, this is a bifurcated process, which we go over in the next slide, I believe. But Stagger Two will include the amendment with 100 percent design, and the submission will have Factor IV, your Small Business participation

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(906) 250-1462 plan, your price schedule, your bonding information, and the subcontracting plan.

We do intend to award without discussions.

We reserve the right to have discussions, if necessary, but the intent at this point is to award without discussions.

This slide lays out your Small Business participation plan. I'm not going to go through it in detail. You can review your requirements through the solicitation. It will be reviewed by our Small Business personnel. They'll go through it to determine if it's acceptable or unacceptable, and it will be stacked in as a pass/fail option.

So, proposal preparation: Instructions to offerers are laid out in Section 00 21. Make sure that you carefully review those. Make sure that anything that is required to be provided, anything that's associated with a "shall," a "must," that you've included that information, as is always the case with any Government proposal.

Make sure that your SAM registration is complete and active, as it will be required at the time of award.

And then review Section 00 21 16, Instruction to proposers, as well for format, methodology. Make sure

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(906) 250-1462 that your proposal is clear and distinct. You know, the

Government will exercise due diligence in identifying required information, but it's also, you know, your responsibility to make sure that everything is easy to identify and, you know, identifiable within the proposal.

The RFP does include Davis-Bacon wage rates, as required for construction projects.

A bid guarantee of 20 percent of the bid price or 3 million dollars is required. Evidence will be required as part of your Stagger Two proposal, and ...

Yeah. So, evidence of the ability to obtain your bonds will be required with your Stagger Two, and then the bonds will be required at the time of award.

So again, all documents and amendments will be posted to SAM.gov. Nothing that's provided outside of

SAM.gov is official until it's provided there. Because we are accepting RFIs through ProjNet, we'll provide the answers as soon as we can. Nothing is incorporated into the solicitation until we issue the amendment incorporating those responses, but you can consider any responses that are submitted as RFIs as a future amendment.

You know, check regularly for updates. We can bid all the way up until a reasonable time frame prior to your proposal due dates. Read the solicitation

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(906) 250-1462 requirements carefully. Again, the Government intends to award without discussions.

And the last piece, the number and identity of offerers are not revealed to anyone who's not involved in the evaluation and award process or to other offerers.

So, that's basically saying, anyone that's not involved with the evaluation will not have access to any proposal information. It's secure.

So, this is a layout of what's been provided already. We've got our plans. (Brief interruption.)

I'm sorry. There's -- This is, yeah, what we've provided. (Brief interruption.)

There's one thing that I thought was in here, and it's a layout of the bifurcated solicitation process.

So, as I mentioned, this is a bifurcated process, which means that we have two staggers.

Stagger One, as I mentioned, will include the attachments and requirements that were listed on the earlier slide.

And then, we will go into Stagger Two as soon as the

100 percent design is ready to go.

Only proposers who offer during the stagg- --prior to the Stagger One suspense will receive a

Stagger Two solicitation. So, you have to offer during the Stagger One in order to receive the Stagger Two.

But we will not eliminate anybody after the Stagger One.

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So, there will not be a cutdown of offerers after the

Stagger One proposal. Everyone who submits with

Stagger One will receive Stagger Two. There will not be discussions after Stagger One, and your overall proposal will be evaluated during the Stagger Two as well. So, that's basically a rundown of bifurcated. And if you need additional information on that, you can, you know, submit an RFI, but ... So, I just want to make sure everyone's aware of that, so ...

And now I will kick it over to Darin, who's our engineer.

PRESENTATION BY DARIN WHITE

MR. WHITE: Good afternoon. My name is Darin

White. I'm the Lead Engineer on this phase. And

Mr. McDaniels said he was excited about the project, and Mollie said she was excited about the project, and

I can tell you, I'm excited. And, our team has been working since about February of '19 pretty much on a dead sprint trying to get this project designed and through the solicitation process. So, if it's out to you folks now, then I'm almost done. So, I'm a pretty excited guy to get it out on the street.

So, we gave you a ton of information, right?

If you've looked at the package, there's over 2,000 drawings. There's about 3,500 pages of specs. There's

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(906) 250-1462 some other information in there as well. So, we gave you a pretty big book. So, what I'm going to go through and what my colleagues are going to go through, we're going to kind of give you the cliff notes. If you remember if you were writing a book report back in school, and you didn't read the book and then found some cliff notes, so, we're going to try to give you the cliff notes so that you don't have to read all the book today. But we're going to try to get you up to speed as fast as we can, because we know there's a lot of information there.

So, we're going to give you a cliff note version of the project, try to talk to you about the site conditions, the major features that are out there, how the base -- (Brief interruption.) Uh-oh. Just a second.

Can you hear me now? All right.

So, we'll go through the major features, site conditions. We'll look at the base and options piece.

We'll look a little bit at the bid schedule. It's a little bit -- It's set up a little bit differently than probably you've seen in the past. So, we'll try to take you through some of that.

So, let's start out with what we gave you.

So, we gave you the solicitation and how the plans are set up, and that's intentional. We put them in series.

So, we tried to put them in series.

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The first series is the overall general series.

So, if you're going to start anywhere, start in 01, because that gives you all the site plans, and it will give you all the references to other features and other series of drawings.

So then we set up for the concrete monoliths.

We divided those into a couple. We call them widewall monoliths if they're on their end, I've got another slide about that; chamber monoliths if they're in the middle.

This project does have a lock floor. We'll talk about that a little bit.

Then we get into the hydraulic steel structures, miter gates, culvert valves, some of the machinery, mechanical, electrical, some security issues.

Then we have four control houses. We have a series for each one of those.

Shaft 6, which is kind of a unique feature.

Then as Mollie mentioned, John Behrens will talk about the New Pump Well and the Davis Pump Well and

Poe Pump Well.

We've got some downstream approach wall work.

We heard about the upstream approach wall getting done now.

And then we have hands-free mooring, which is a little bit interesting.

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And then the New Power Plant Bridge, Clint will talk to you about.

So, Mollie, if you'll go to the next slide.

Back one, please.

So, that's how the plans are set up. And then we're going to talk to you about specifications.

So, we start out with Division 1, some general requirements. You'll want to pay attention to those.

I just highlighted a few here.

So, the first one I put at the top, price and payment procedures, because you folks don't do this for experience. You probably want to get paid. So, that's a good place to go if you're looking how you get paid.

The bid schedule one -- (Brief interruption.)

Is that better? They're going to get a backup mic, which is good.

So, price and payment procedures. Obviously, again, you don't do it for experience.

So then we have special project procedures.

You'll hear me reference that a lot. 01 35 13, special project procedures: So, site conditions, there's lots of things in there. We'll talk about that in a bit.

Government safety requirements: Obviously, safety is pretty important to us. You want to make sure you look into that particular section.

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You've got temporary construction facilities.

We have a number of buildings that we have to build temporarily on the project, so you'll want to look at that.

Environmental controls, you'll want to look at that as well, 01 57 19. A lot of information there about environmental constraints.

And then lastly, closeout submittals, you'll want to look at that. We are going to give you the

3D model. So, if you're the successful contractor --

I saw a scowl back there by one of the contractors.

But we're going to give you that. If you're the successful contractor, we're actually going to ask you to update that, so you'll see some information in 01 78 00 about updating our 3D model that we've worked on.

Go ahead, Mollie, if you would.

So, lastly, we want to talk about the specs specifically. We used 01 99 90. So, we list a bunch of information, for-information-only kind of stuff. So, for instance, as-built drawings of the existing facilities, test results, geotechnical information, HTRW information. Lots of information is there.

So, there are attachments to Section 01 99 90.

So, that's where we kind of funnel all the for-information-only-type information there. So, you'll

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(906) 250-1462 want to make sure you get the attachments, which are

Appendix A, B, C, and D, and then there's one that's called "other information." So, that's where you're going to find all the as-built information for like the

Sabin Lock, for instance, what you've got to take out, what you've got to demo. You'll find that in Appendix A, along with some photos that we've put together as we've worked through the design that might be key.

(Brief interruption.)

Okay. Can you still hear me? Okay. I don't know.

Okay. And then Division 02 through 43, those are technical specifications, obviously. We'll talk to you about that. (Brief interruption.)

I promise, folks, we had this worked out this morning. I'm not sure what the issue is. (Brief pause.)

Okay. Are we better? All right. Very good.

So, specifications. As I was saying, 02 through 43, technical specifications. You'll find information about miter gates, mechanical, electrical, all the things that we don't have on the plans.

So, Mollie, if you'll go to the next slide.

So, just to give you a background. So, they always take design with the end in mind, so we'll give you the site plan.

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So, we'll start here at the bottom, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. And then if you've been to the site, you know that there's two active locks, the

MacArthur Lock here, and the Poe Lock. As Mick mentioned, you know, our lock is pretty -- is going to be really, really similar to the Poe Lock in a lot of ways.

We've tried to make it truly redundant as much as we can.

Obviously, improved -- technology has improved since

1969, but we've tried to make it pretty close to the

Poe Lock.

So, you have two active locks. The other two locks are in the north canal, the Davis and the Sabin

Lock. And as most of you know, our new project goes in the Sabin Lock. It's about 5 and a half feet south of the North Wall, so it's pretty much in the footprint of the existing Sabin Lock.

Now, the existing Sabin Lock is 80 feet wide, and obviously not as deep as we need it. So, basically, our new lock, the way I -- deeper and wider. We need to be deeper and wider. So, we've got to take the old structure out to put the new one in.

So, there's a couple other features I'll point out to you. So, the New Power Plant -- So, existing facilities: The New Power Plant here, kind of abbreviated NPP. We use that term a lot. There's also a

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(906) 250-1462 smaller hydropower plant here called Unit 10. That will be important to us. Obviously, Mollie talked to you about the UAW contract that's kind of west of the sluiceway here.

Other things to point out: So, the north wall, generally for us. The south wall, obviously. The lock floor. The new Shaft 6, so, you'll kind of want to know where that's at. It's pretty much in line with the

New Power Plant and obviously the New Power Plant Bridge.

So, we have those features primarily.

And we demo out the old Sabin Lock, put a new lock in, and then the Davis Lock gets filled in as part of -- with demolition material and/or rock or soil. So, basically, at the end of the day, we'll have three locks;

the two larger locks, the Poe, and the new lock.

A couple things to point out, and I'll point it out later, but kind of where that interface is with the upstream approach wall contractor, we have the downstream work that we've got to do as well in the East Center Pier and the downstream approach wall. We have some rehab work there as well. So, at the end of the day, we hope it looks something like that.

So, Mollie, go ahead, if you would.

So, let's just talk about -- I've got a few slides on site conditions, access, that sort of thing.

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So, I've got a couple of references here for you. So, you'll want to reference Contract Clause 52-236-4 and a couple of specification sections, and you'll see 01 35 13 again there.

So, really, no land access. Obviously, we call this the "island," or ... You know, there's no good way to get to the island, so to speak, obviously, from the land. During the winter months, navigation does cease in the south canal. It's almost -- I believe it's by law.

But, 15 January through 25 March.

We did put in -- I think it's in Specification

Section 01 35 13, that we will allow you 25 folks or so management personnel to get from this side to that side without having to use water access or that sort of thing.

Also, I just want to point out, check the weather. I've got a little photo down here. I threw that in for extra. But, adverse weather days are shown in Section 01 35 13. So, if you've worked with the

Government before, you know we go about a month, and we tell you how many days you can expect and that sort of thing. So, you would want to look at Section 01 35 13 for that. So, check the weather. Access is pretty difficult to the island, obviously.

Go ahead, Mollie, if you would.

So, Travis touched on this a little bit.

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I won't touch on it a lot. Maybe I'll hit three or four bullets down here at the bottom.

You know, we are a secure DoD facility, subject to the rules and regulations of an international port.

You've got the background check, which Travis went over as well. If you'll need -- You'll probably need some personnel within some sensitive areas, we call it. So, whether or not you got SCADA or something like that, they'll have to go into a little more extensive background check, that sort of thing, in order to get clearance for those areas.

You're required, the contractor personnel, to carry a picture ID. You have to keep a security access list as well. And then we kind of program access cards so that your personnel can go in various places. So, security is a big deal. It takes a little bit to get through the process, so, plan accordingly.

Go ahead, Mollie.

So, this didn't show up real well, unfortunately, but ... So, let's talk about contractor work limits or limited work limits. So, I want you to make sure you see those 01 Series drawings. They're up front. I've got you a drawing reference down there.

So, this is the upstream portion or the west portion of the project. Here's kind of the sluiceway.

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So, you have the Northwest Pier here. You have the contractor currently working. The batch plant is about here. He's got some other staging here as well. But we give you kind of where the contractor work limits are on the upstream portion in this slide.

And if you'll go to the next one, Mollie.

So, this is kind of the site conditions on the downstream end. Here's the property line. But we gave you the coordinates there of where you can be and where you can't be. I just want to note to you to look at those restrictions specifically if you're talking about a limited work limit. We only let you in there if that work, for instance, is -- the option is exercised, or there are other constraints with those limited work limits.

We are on an active site, as I said. We've got two active locks. We have the folks from the Soo Area

Office that are out there trying to do their mission, which is get boats locked through. So, there's restrictions and constraints you need to pay attention to there.

Go ahead, Mollie, if you would.

So, in that vein, obviously, the island, you're not the only one on the island. So, we just mentioned that we've got UAW contractors working kind of sluiceway

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(906) 250-1462 upstream, so this becomes kind of a shared work area.

There's some limitations too on the end. Just, if you've not heard the term, this is the Whale's Mouth. So, if you're looking on Google Earth, this looks like a whale and a whale's mouth. So, this is the Whale's Mouth area.

So, there's some limitations there of when the

UAW contractors are going to kind of finish their work here as well. There's a shared work area, as Mollie said, between now and November of '23, when that contract is scheduled to finish up. So, you've got some limited work here that you've got to do, and certainly coordinate with the Phase 1 and Phase 2 contractor.

I have some drawing references down there.

We tried to describe that for you of when contracts were let, when they're expected to be completed, what their scope of work is. I'll mention a couple of other ones.

There's some other work that's being done on the facility, actually in the Poe Lock, some ship arrestor work there. The contractor might need a little bit of coordination there maybe on the south Davis wall.

So, there's some other coordination there, including the

Soo Area Office's own personnel and/or contractors that they might have. So, you're not the only one on the island, unfortunately. We couldn't wait to get done with the other two phases before we started this one.

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(906) 250-1462

Go ahead, Mollie.

So, I just wanted to throw one slide in about geology. So, site conditions, what you're going to try to -- what you're going to see out there.

So, we have a number of drawings under geologic profiles or cross sections. There's a number of drawings in there about the rock condition there where existing ground is. There's test results, there's borings, that sort of thing in the back under Section 01 99 90, Appendix B.

So, you can see there's a legend up here that talks about sandstone that you'll probably encounter.

The ones we worry about are those little dashed red ones.

Those are weak seams that, from a design perspective, we tend to worry about.

So, also, I didn't mention it on the front, but there are some drawings that we tell you to print to color, so it makes it a whole lot easier. If you printed that black and white, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to you. So, if -- There's a number of drawings we tried to tell -- I think we do it in a couple places.

We say it there and then also here, print this sheet in color, so you can get the full effect, make sure you're tracking with us there.

So, take a look at that. We gave you a lot of

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(906) 250-1462 information again in the drawings, and also in

Section 01 99 90, Appendix A or B, one of those.

Go ahead, Mollie.

So, let's just talk about major features.

So, I'll start with the cofferdam. So, we often -- when we think about a cofferdam, we think about these cells maybe, perhaps. But I took this drawing, and it's in your package, it's 01-CF101, and I just annotated it just so I could show you everything that's really associated with the cofferdaming surface.

So, upstream pool, 601.6 here. You've got

Unit 10. So, it drops down to the lower pool here, 580.1, through that. This is the Unit 10 tail race and the head race for the New Power Plant.

So, we're going to try to obviously keep water out of our excavation. So, how are we going to do that?

So, we'll start here:

We've got a grout curtain that runs from the south Davis wall. It runs across the cofferdam cells.

It runs on the back side of the North Sabin Wall, and then runs across the downstream cells and here, and ties back into the south Davis wall. So, there's a grout curtain, hopefully, to stop the water coming through the rock. That's the intent, obviously.

We have a hybrid wall that we tie. It's

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(906) 250-1462 actually -- That cell is from the UAW contract.

It's S-05, I think. So, we tie that cell to some existing cells that are by Unit 10. So, we're trying to cut off water to make sure we don't get upper pool coming through, maybe going around this there.

We also have a -- it's called an SCB wall, Soil-Cement-Bentonite wall. So, we're trying to cut off water that's going through the existing soil back there.

So, we've got it cut off through the soil with the SCB wall. And then we also have the grout curtain back there as well, to try to, again, isolate ourselves from that.

We do have some mitigation we have to do for the Davis Lock. So, the Davis Lock right now, if we run the numbers, if we try to dewater the Davis Lock, they don't meet current-day criteria. So, we had to put some stabilizing, some mitigation measures in. What you'll see in the package is you'll see some rock anchors that are required for some of the monoliths, and then we put struts to strut between walls in some areas as well.

Also in the Sabin Lock, we have some struts there, and I'll talk about that in a second, but it's more of a sequencing construction scheduling issue there.

So, we went ahead and put some struts there as well.

I won't mention it too much, John Behrens will cover it more than I will, but crossover tunnel plug, Pre-Proposal Conference July 13, 2021

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(906) 250-1462 don't miss that. That's a difficult piece of work, and you'll want to take note of that. We have to basically go down one of the pump wells, and there's a crossover tunnel. We're going to have to do that in the wet.

So, definitely don't miss that. And John will talk more about that.

So, if you'll go ahead, Mollie.

I think I just detailed out some of these features. I won't spend a lot of time on it. But the upstream cofferdam cells, some of those are 65-foot in diameter. Some of them are 78-foot in diameter. Some of them have rock -- I'm sorry. Some of them have aggregate. Some of them have concrete in them. You'll take note of that, I'm sure, when you look at them.

Downstream cofferdam cells, kind of the same thing. Some of them have concrete, some of them have aggregate. Note on the downstream too that there's a little note right here that says that some of those concrete monoliths are on timber cribs. So, it might be a water infiltration kind of situation there for us, so, you'll want to take note of that.

And also, we have this structure called the cofferbox, which I'll show you a detail of that. That tie-in is a little bit different, and I'll tell you why.

Go ahead, Mollie.

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(906) 250-1462

So, just a quick -- I just pulled one of the cross sections, and one of the profiles for the SCB wall, it runs about 10 to 20 feet back there through soil.

Again, we're trying to cut the water off from the soil.

So, it runs about 10, 20 feet. And then here you can see it in the section. SCB wall is over here, kind of behind the north Sabin wall there. It's about 3 feet wide, again, Soil-Cement-Bentonite wall.

Go ahead, Mollie.

The grout curtain, you can see it down here in the cross section where it is. We're obviously in the rock. We're behind the Sabin wall. It buries in depth to some degree. We have primary, tertiary, and secondary holes -- I'm sorry -- primary, secondary, tertiary holes.

There's some zones up here you'll want to pay attention to as well. But there's a number of drawings on this.

We show the profiles. We tell you what the grout curtain should look like.

Go ahead, Mollie.

So, I mentioned the cofferbox. So, this is the cofferbox. It's kind of a space frame, if you will.

And the reason we had to do that is because these pipes that run through this cofferbox are coming from the

New Pump Well. So, we needed the weight of discharge, basically, water coming from New Pump Well to the

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(906) 250-1462 downstream end. So, there are pipes that run through this space frame, if you will, a number of those, we've got some flap gates on the end, and then we have -- that will eventually get filled with concrete. So, you basically have a space frame, you set it in there, we tie everything together, and then we fill it with concrete, make sure we get the pipes through there. So, it's a little bit different. I wanted to mention it to you.

Also up here, just talking about rock anchors.

Nothing unusual you probably haven't seen there. But we have rock anchors we have to put in the monoliths that go down on an angle. Obviously, we tried to identify anything that you might hit there, and we tried to go between them, but ... So, they're varying sizes.

They're not really, really big. If you go to the

Huntington District, you know we're not talking about

65-strand anchors or anything like that. They're 19, 17, 23, whatever those might be.

Go ahead, Mollie.

I'll show you the hybrid wall. So, we've talked about the hybrid wall. We want to tie into that existing cell that's -- Actually, I was out there yesterday. They were excavating for those cells, I think, and then eventually that cell will be in there pretty shortly. So, this existing cell, we want to tie

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(906) 250-1462 it together so we have what we call a hybrid wall, which involves some piling in between some piles here that fill with concrete.

Down at the bottom, we talked about struts.

Those are pipe struts. They just have anchors. You've probably seen that on other projects where we've had to strut between walls to dewater. It's not unusual.

So, those struts, just for your information, no, you don't get to keep those. We -- You'll see in the specs that we ask you to turn those over to us at the end of the day there.

I mentioned the crossover tunnel plug. I won't talk much about that. John can talk more about that.

But it's in the Poe well. I think he's got a slide on it.

Go ahead, Mollie.

So, let's talk about demolition. So, we -- I like this deeper picture, and we actually put it on a drawing. It's Drawing 01-CD401. And we just point out, if you've never been to the project, so, this picture, you're standing at the downstream end in the Sabin Lock.

So, this is the Sabin Lock.

So, as I said, about 5 and a half feet will be our north wall there. It will be 5 and a half feet or so off of the existing wall. And then we have a bunch of

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(906) 250-1462 stuff to demolish, as you can see: Concrete walls, we have equipment, we have gates, we have lights, control buildings, a number of other things to demolish. So, everything pretty much has to come out, obviously, so we can get deeper and wider, including the excavation behind the existing walls.

Note the footbridge as well, and we'll talk about that in a second. But in any event, lots of --

Pretty much, the old structure has to come out so we can put the new structure in.

Go ahead, Mollie.

So, unfortunately, demolition comes with some problems, and some of that is HTRW. So, if you're not familiar with that term, it means hazardous, toxic, radioactive waste. It's a term we use in the Corps a lot, and it means it has some stuff in it. So, we've tried to identify on the drawings, including, we gave you information in the specifications under Appendix A and

Appendix D, and I referenced about three or four specifications there that we use.

So, we have some lead paint. We have some

PCBs. We have asbestos. So, you'll want to take note of all that information, because you're not --unfortunately, we don't just get to take the concrete wall out or the equipment. It's likely got lead paint on

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(906) 250-1462 it, there's some asbestos in some areas, some PCBs, perhaps, from the transformers. We have that information for you, so take note of that. We don't just get to demolish. We've probably got to do some HTRW removal/remediation prior to some demolition or in conjunction with demolition.

Go ahead, Mollie, please.

So, let's try to tie this together. So, you can't talk about demolition unless you talk about excavation as well. We've got a couple sections in there. These are typical sections. There are more sections than this. But I'll start with the bottom one.

So, if you add the typical north wall, the typical south wall, then in some instances we've got to go deeper than that, so we have to do rock excavation.

So, we take the structure out. We might have to do some rock excavation to get deeper and wider. And then, of course, we have to take out the fill associated with it as well behind the two walls. So, demolition, rock excavation.

And then up here, I think we show you where we do -- You take out, I'll say, 99 percent of the existing structure. There are a couple of areas where we have the existing filling/emptying system, and we didn't have to go deeper than the existing filling and emptying system, Pre-Proposal Conference July 13, 2021

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(906) 250-1462 so we kind of left that in. There's a few instances on the ends that we had that situation. So, I think that's the typical section we're trying to show here.

But there's other information here, other plans, demolition and excavation plans, and you can take a look at it. I just threw you a couple typical sections up there.

Go ahead, Mollie.

So, this is another one you'll want to print in color. So, when we're talking about rock excavation, we talk about whether or not -- the outline of the new lock, so to speak. We'll tell you over here in the legend what those mean -- the blue line may mean, pre-split. So, we want to make sure our outline is good.

So, we'll tell you, hey, we want you to do this type of method in this location, because we don't want to maybe fracture the rock or what might happen.

So, we gave you a couple of these. There's a number of these in the plan set. We gave you a couple references down there, 31 23 05 and 31 23 06, and it will talk you through whether or not we're using mechanical excavation, whether or not we're doing pre-split in particular areas, and that's based on our understanding of the geology, obviously.

So, we tell you kind of the outline. But if

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(906) 250-1462 you go to the next slide, Mollie, for instance, there's mass excavation past that. So, we don't really tell you how to get the rest of it out, right? So, we tell you what the outline is and what we would like to do in the outline for various reasons, but if you're choosing to blast, if that's something you're interested in as your methods -- And then we threw this drawing in here. It's

01-BD100. And we've got a little table up here. So, if you're looking to blast, we have pre-blast surveys that you'll have to do, obviously.

If you didn't know, the Soo Locks is on the

National Historic Register. So, a number of those buildings out there, an administration building, Davis

Building, all those kind of things, we've got to take particular care and attention there. So, you'll certainly want to look at Specification Section 01 57 19.

It's got some information in there about those buildings.

And in the event that, you know -- hopefully, you won't damage one of those buildings, but what you'll have to do to repair said building.

So, we gave you some information there on particle velocities. If you're going to blast, a pre-blast survey is what you've got to do, and then what we require as far as peak particle velocity. So, that's a good -- If that's what you're wanting to do, if you're

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(906) 250-1462 wanting to blast, this is a great drawing to start with, at least in those couple specifications, just to make sure you're tracking what the requirements are there.

Go ahead, Mollie.

So, I threw this slide in. It's not in your folio. And I did this just so we can get on a common understanding of terminology and lingo.

So, we call the ends of the chamber the widewall monoliths, so you've got north upstream, south upstream, north downstream, and south downstream.

And then the ones in the middle are the chamber monoliths.

So, the widewall monoliths have all the equipment in them. They're cut up. I mean, they're very complicated. They have the filling and emptying intakes or discharges in them. They have all that stuff. So, they're a little more complicated, they're in their own series of drawings, so you'll be able to look at the widewalls themselves.

And then the chamber monoliths are pretty much the same typical section. They have the same culvert, they have the same gallery, they look pretty similar.

So, you'll want to take note of that. And that's just to get us on the same page of what we're talking about.

When I say widewalls, it means the ends.

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(906) 250-1462

That's where all the equipment is, all that stuff. Those are kind of cut up. And then chamber monoliths are the ones in the middle.

So, if you'll go to the next slide, Mollie.

I think I've got one, just -- I grabbed…