Williams was the hot spot for construction over the last month or so. We've added site lighting, signage, continued construction on a 2 million gallon tank and moved (24) 30,000 gallon tanks to the new containment. All this while continuing to supply customers with fertilizer through a very busy August and September. Hat's off to the guys at the sites for not breaking stride while we disrupt their daily activities with the site improvements.
In the last 4 weeks I've made a couple trips to Williams. Trip 1 was for the phase 1 tank move of 24 tanks. Trip 2 was to work on plumbing for those tanks.
As I pulled up to the site on trip one, I couldn't help but notice the new road side sign. Hopefully this will help distinguish our site from the coal company next door. For those who don't recognize the sign, it was re-purposed from the old office in St. Johns. I wonder if they figured that into our LEED points.
The cranes arrived the day before to get set up. The set up alone takes a couple hours so we didn't want to waste valuable time in the morning doing it. This is the larger of the 2 cranes used. It has a reach of 350'. However, we didn't need quite that much height for a 35' tank. This is set next to the new containment in front of the new load out building.
The second crane, which only has a 275' reach but is still adequate for this purpose, set up next to the old containment, which we will be de-comissioned and used for trailer parking in the future. So it was a beautiful morning with a little breeze to kick off the tank move.
The cranes have 2 hooks. One would fasten to the lugs on top of the tank while the other was used to raise and lower the rigger (guy on top of the tank). This looked like a pretty cool job. I've seen carnival rides that would work as good training tools for this occupation.
After the tank was rigged, the crane operator set the tank vertically on a flat bed. Once secured the truck would transport the load 500 miles to it's destination. Correction....about 500 feet to it's destination.
It was a smooth ride for the tank moving across fairly flat concrete the entire way. However, the wind did pick up a bit adding some difficulty to the task. We ended up shutting the operation down after moving 6 tanks on day 1 because of the wind. Day 1 allowed us to figure out the system making day 2 very efficient. We were able to move the remaining 18 tanks in about 5 hours on day 2.
The crane operator has just picked the tank off the trailer and is moving it into position. I was amazed at the accuracy of the operator.
He's just about ready to set it down. We set these tanks on 1" foam insulation in the containment to prevent stones or abrasive concrete from rubbing on the tank. You can't see him in the lift on the right but Grounds and Building Supervisor, Ron Andrews, is securing the tanks with cable guy lines down to the containment walls.
The rigger is taking a ride back up to unhook the tank. Site Manager, Jeff Luiken is scoping out the location for the next tank. I might add, it was about 100 degrees with 90% humidity while this was going on.
At this point in the operation, the cranes have left, the tanks are set and secure. You can see from the void spot in the containment there will be a phase 2 tank move. There are 32 more tanks to move in this phase (scheduled for November).
A birds eye view of the tanks.........
........and a moles eye view of the tanks.
And here is what's left of the existing containment. We'll re-purpose the fence around the new containment and the peastone in the rings can be re-purposed when we build another large tank out back.
This photo may not mean much to most but it's a completely new plumbing method for us. We typically run flexible rubber hose from tank to tank resulting in hundreds of feet of wasted hose. This method uses a rigid common header which all the tanks with common products will feed. The 6 inch header (pipe) pictured here will run to the intake side of the pump resulting in the maximum supply the pump needs to give us the flow rates we want to achieve.
Since I was up in the lift taking pictures I thought I'd face east and get one of the 2 million gallon tank. This photo is about 3 weeks old. Currently, the crew is working on the third ring (24' tall).
This probably looks familiar. We've developed a standard at the sites when it comes to the way our buildings look. This is the new truck load out office in Williams. The building layout is slightly different than Ashley and Stockton because we re-purposed an old office from the plant area in Williams but asthetically we mimicked the colors and design of the other sites.
Next week I'm back off to Williams to continue work on the plumbing. The full facilities crew will be out there at the same time to complete the phase 1 plumbing set up for loading High-NRG-N and Pro-Germinator with the new truck load out office (pictured above).
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