News

Nanticoke Workers used a trailer-mounted horizontal directional drill to bore a tunnel about 25 feet below the riverbed

NANTICOKE – As ominous as the deep, repetitive rumbling near the Nanticoke Bridge might have seemed on Wednesday, it was actually a sign the city’s water supply would soon be more secure.

click image to enlarge

click image to enlarge

A horizontal directional drill, just before it pulled a water main through the earth beneath the Susquehanna River on Wednesday.

Aimee Dilger/The Times Leader

Select images available for purchase in the
Times Leader Photo Store

For the past six years, the city has been a pipe break away from losing water service. In 2002, one of two water mains that run under the Susquehanna River broke, leaving a large storage tank to supply the city if the second line broke.

The line has held, however, while Pennsylvania American Water Co. came up with the $1.5 million necessary to replace the breached line. The installation project began about two months ago, mostly hidden from public view by trees, fences and the fact that the river remained unaffected.

Starting in Nanticoke, Gabe’s Construction Co. Inc. of Sheboygan, Wis., used a trailer-mounted horizontal directional drill to bore a tunnel about 25 feet below the riverbed. The drill, similar to those used for oil and gas drilling, could reach a four-degree angle, allowing it to curve under the river. After reaching the Plymouth Township side, the hole was reamed out to several feet in diameter.

On Wednesday, the end of a 1,000-foot-long, 20-inch-wide, plastic pipe was attached and pulled back through the hole. The pulling stopped every 8 feet so an extension piece of the drill could be removed. The project was running about a month behind schedule because of a broken part, but it was slowly nearing an end.

“Today the fat lady is on the stage,” said driller and operating engineer Patrick Thomason.

Though unlikely to break with its flexibility and 3-inch-thick walls, the high-density polyethylene pipe shuttered as it was pulled through the hole in the bedrock, creating a rhythmic, repetitive rumble. Thomason noted the drill was strong enough to pull back a jetliner at full throttle and still have a bit left over.

It would take most of the day to install the entire black line, which snaked for several blocks through West Nanticoke parallel to state Route 11.

Daniel Rickard, PAW’s manager for the project, said the tunneling method is cheaper and less damaging than “damming” the river and blasting through the riverbed, but he noted the process also has inherent risks. The project ran over schedule, he said, because a drill piece that broke had to be backed out of the hole and a replacement shipped in. “It’s specialized equipment, so when you break something, it’s not like you can just go to Lowe’s and buy it. Everything they needed came from Wisconsin,” he said.

Carter said he would keep the drill hooked up until this morning in case the pipe expanded during installation and contracted overnight.

Within a month, the new pipe will be on line, Rickard said.

To see additional photos, visit www.times

leader.com