Upgrades to one of Adelaide’s most renowned retail routes, a century-old waste dump site and one of the city’s most heavily trafficked rail intersections have dominated the winners’ list at the 2020 South Australian Earth Awards.

The honours represent excellence in civil construction across the State and were achieved this year despite the unprecedented challenges for the sector imposed by COVID restrictions on contractors’ movements and supply chain disruptions.

The Awards were announced at a ceremony in Adelaide last night (Friday 16 Oct).

Civil Contractors Federation (South Australia) Chief Executive, Mr Phil Sutherland, said the outperformance evident across the project winners is testimony to the skillsets retained within the sector and now on offer to drive Australia and South Australia’s post-COVID economic resurgence.

“At every political level, shovel-ready infrastructure works are being seen as a cornerstone for the pace and scope at which regional and state economies recover from the lingering impacts of COVID,” Mr Sutherland said.

“In SA, where the CCF (SA) has lobbied hard for higher State and Federal funding for priority projects, we have an opportunity to employ hundreds of additional people over the next 12-18 months.

“The Earth Awards mirror how good this sector is in SA – now it is time to capitalise on the richness of this immediately available resource within our broad civil construction community.”

This year’s winners, and a brief project description of each, are as follows:

EARTH AWARDS 2020 WINNERS            

CATEGORY             COMPANY                                   PROJECT NAME

UP TO $2M              DOWNER EDI Works                  Mangrove Street Rail Upgrade

$2M - $5M               Coleman Rail Pty Ltd,                Port River Rail Bridge Pile Remediation

Department for Planning,

Transport and Infrastructure,

Quakewrap Pty Ltd,

Concrete Remedi8 Pty Ltd        

                   

$5M - $10M              McMahon Services Australia     Hamilton Hill Stages 1, 2, 3A, 3C and 4

                                                                                     Remediation Earthworks                  

                   

CATEGORY             COMPANY                                   PROJECT NAME    (continued…)

$10M - $30M            BMD Constructions                     King William Road Upgrade

$30M TO $75M        Department for Environment    SARFIIP – Katarapko Floodplain

and Water, SA Water, Fulton     Inundation Measures

Hogan Construction                                      

                   

Over $75M              PTPA (Public Transport             Oaklands Crossing Grade Separation

Project Alliance)                                                                                                          Department for Infrastructure

and Transport, McConnell

Dowell, Mott Macdonald,

Arup   

Mangrove Street Rail Upgrade - Salisbury

The Mangrove St Rail Upgrade at Salisbury upgraded exhausted road-pavement, poor drainage and an at-risk section of railway track traversing through Mangrove St. The City of Salisbury, Downer and WGA went through a vigorous design process to come up with an innovative and sustainable solution that met all design objectives and budgetary requirements. The pavement design differed from traditional construction methods, building up the road level by utilising the existing pavement as a base and constructing on-top new kerb and gutter and asphalt layers enhanced with pavement reinforcing technologies. The rail design consisted of a re-alignment of the track to increase the safety of the bend through the level crossing.

King William Road Upgrade - Unley

The transformation of the iconic King William Road, saw BMD preserve the precinct’s unique village identity while delivering a flexible and functional streetscape. The popular retail and restaurant precinct has more than 240 stakeholders including 109 traders, and hosts up to 5,000 visitors, and close to 15,000 vehicles within the precinct each day. Strategies to minimise inconvenience were integral to both planning and delivery. BMD constructed the project in four stages, involving complex service relocations, intersection upgrade works, new segment paver traffic lanes with deep lift asphalt base courses, new roll kerbs and segmental paver shared use areas, landscaping, street furniture, electrical works and smart lighting.

Katarapko Floodplain Inundation Measures - Riverland

The South Australian Riverland Floodplains Integrated Infrastructure Program (SARFIIP) is a Commonwealth-funded program consisting of a number of priority construction projects involving infrastructure at the Pike and Katarapko floodplains between Loxton and Renmark in the Riverland. The projects were managed by the South Australian Department for Environment and Water (DEW) and delivered in partnership with SA Water, with Fulton Hogan as lead contractor. The works improved the area’s ecological health by maintaining a more natural pattern of flooding frequency, facilitating targeted management of surface water for environmental outcomes, reducing floodplain salinisation and managing salinity impacts on the River.

Port River Rail Bridge - Ethelton

The Department for Infrastructure and Transport engaged Coleman Rail to undertake the remediation of 144 square concrete piles supporting the Port River Rail Bridge originally constructed in 1910 and adjacent Bower Road at Ethelton. This was a challenging and complex project requiring works over water and a sensitive dolphin sanctuary and under the live Outer Harbor rail line with no disruption to train services. Works included inspection and verification of the required repairs, water blasting of the piles, engineering of a suitable remediation system that would provide the piles with an additional 50 years of design life, and development of a suitable system to access the worksite, which required working over and in a tidal waterway.

Oaklands Crossing Grade Separation – Oaklands Park

The Oaklands Crossing Grade Separation project grade separated the road and rail networks to improve operation and safety of the traffic and rail network and public transport and passenger access. The project was designed and constructed by the Public Transport Projects Alliance, PTPA, comprising McConnell Dowell, Arup, Mott MacDonald and Department for Infrastructure and Transport. Project delivery within a compressed 16 month timeframe incorporated an offline construction methodology minimising road and rail disruption and showcasing the successful integration of urban greening, people connectivity and sustainability within a typically hard engineered infrastructure project, for a safer and more inviting station precinct.

Hamilton Hill - Woodforde

The project transformed a 100-year-old waste dump into a new master planned community in Adelaide’s foothills. McMahon Services in partnership with environmental and geotechnical consultants, developed an achievable and realistic construction management plan and a detailed profile and map of all the waste across the site. These thorough and upfront investigations allowed McMahon Services to develop programs, staging and methodologies that mitigated or managed onsite risks, and allowed for a delivery schedule that effectively eliminated double-handling of materials. The Company crushed, sorted and segregated 500,000 tonnes in waste streams within the old dump site so that they could be repurposed and reused as geotechnically suitable materials to allow the bulk earthworks and reshaping of Hamilton Hill to make it suitable for residential construction.