The team of O’Brien & Gere, Bryant Associates, and Construction Dynamics Group (now an Arcadis company), formulated the Lead Services Replacement (LSR) Joint Venture (JV) and was awarded the LSR program from DC Water. The LSR JV is responsible for program management, planning and design of LSR construction contracts, and the associated construction management. Additional services include: public education and outreach, geotechnical/material testing, and GIS/GPS. In planning the streets and areas for LSR, major coordination is necessary with the District Department of Transportation so that LSRs can be achieved prior to planned street paving and subsequent street moratoriums. Thereafter, a systematic notification process is instituted with the homeowners prior to and during construction, including accomplishing LSR on private property through a DC Water/homeowner agreement, if requested by the homeowner. Post partial sampling at each address is no longer required and the homeowners/tenants may request a test through a Demand Sample protocol. Specialized Community Liaisons (or hotline personnel) address homeowner/tenant issues throughout the construction process. The LSR JV/DC Water LSR program agreement is for three years with two, one-year options. During this time, an estimated 15,000 additional LSRs will be accomplished through 15 construction contracts.

Restricted access into the obstructed section of the North Gorge Interceptor (NGI), together with health and safety concerns, demanded creative data collection efforts in the field by O'Brien & Gere to characterize the problem. The Firm obtained information using innovative technology, including: chemical tracers, topographic surveys, video inspection, and sub-bottom profiling sonar. The efforts led to the conclusion that, rather than a single obstruction such as a crown collapse, a long-term accumulation of debris had built up along the tunnel, severely restricting the flow of wastewater. O’Brien & Gere provided construction management and supervised construction activities. Services included: coordinating and attending periodic progress meetings, providing back-up technical direction, and maintaining communications with the City of Niagara Falls, NY and interested parties.

O’Brien & Gere provided basis of design, preliminary design, final design, permitting assistance, bid assistance, resident inspection, and startup assistance services for the development of a new 1.0 billion gallon pumped storage reservoir for the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority, NJ. The final construction cost, at $19.4M, was below the final approved budget amount for the reservoir project, and the project benefited from the Authority’s success in having approximately 800,000 cubic yards of on-site material removed from the site at virtually no cost to the Authority. Preliminary estimates had factored in a cost of $2.4M to remove this quantity of material.