BDI was retained by Destin Water Users (DWU), under a continuing services contract, to provide engineering services for the design, permitting, and construction of improvements adjacent to the Florida Department of Transportation’s roadway widening program.
The high volume of traffic that occurs daily on US Highway 98 was the main challenge that the BDI team faced going into this project. Because the Highway 98 corridor is highly utilized, available space for relocations was minimal and would require extensive coordination between BDI, DWU, other utilities, FDOT, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
BDI worked with DWU to determine the best available routing for their relocated utilities. For road crossings, the team determined that directional drilling would be the best approach to ensure traffic could continue to flow without interruption and that the replaced utilities would be protected from damage during roadway construction. This approach allowed DWU to avoid utility disruptions to their customers.
As part of the upgrades, BDI and DWU worked together to determine additional looping that could be created within their system, which allows for greater redundancy and system reliability. Our partnership identified several locations where upsizing of piping was warranted for future expansion, and “clean up” was performed on areas of their system where older connections and limited valves reduced their ability to remove portions of their system for maintenance. The project was successful and remained on schedule with minimal unforeseen conflicts.