Washington Park Reservoir Tour
The boys of Redstone Robotics Incorporated were one of the few lucky invitees to a tour this morning of the Washington Park Reservoir construction project. The Portland Water Bureau is rebuilding the Washington Park reservoirs, a project that continues through 2024. Washington Park reservoirs have been in service since 1894. When completed, this project will supply water to Portland’s west side and serve more than 360,000 people, including all downtown businesses and residents, 20 schools, five hospital complexes, and more than 60 parks. This system of water conveyance and storage makes Portland a livable, and thriving community, ensuring public health and economic viability.
FUN FACTS ABOUT THE PROJECT
Over 40 full-time construction workers are employed on the project with Hoffman Construction and its subcontractors.
There are over 10 Portland Water Bureau staff.
This project will consume 3,000 truckloads of concrete for a total 30,170 cubic-yards, or 120 million pounds.
Over 35,000 truckloads of soil will be delivered and used on-site.
By the end of the project, crews will have installed 7.4 million pounds of rebar.
During the tour, we learned about how water gets to the Washington Park reservoirs from the Bull Run Watershed. We learned about a slow moving landslide in the West Hills that caused the reservoir to crack and leak, and the multi-year project in the late 1800s to drill drain holes and tunnels to relieve the hydrostatic pressure on the land and slow down its movement. And we saw that the new construction is taking the landslide very seriously by measuring movement along 100s of points at the construction site using a robotic survey tool.
Lastly, the boys were shown flip charts that showed all of the different phases of construction, where the walls were going to be, the tie-backs, the pipes that are driven into bedrock, the compressible foam layers, the flex-pipe used to connect between shifting points, the buried aqueduct itself, and the reflecting pool that goes on top of it all. The boys had a chance to ask many questions of the Portland Water Bureau and Hoffman Construction experts at the site and took notes in a lab notebook during the presentation. It was a wonderful tour and we were glad to be included in such an exclusive group of people.
Upon leaving the construction site, Price decided to show Nick and Jack how to geocache. People hide boxes that vary in size between a toolbox and a contact lens case. A website tracks the location of these hidden boxes and gives you hints on how to find them. When you find them, you are supposed to write your name on the paper that is hidden inside and the date you found it. It's a wonderful tool to explore Portland, and can keep kids busy for months if not years. Price checked the app and noticed that the nearest geocache was just up the street from the reservoirs. After tromping around for a bit, with Price holding the phone up and tracking the location on the iPhone map, the boys finally found a metal cigarbox-sized container hidden behind a concrete statue. The boys opened up the box and signed their names and the date they found the box in the notebook stored within. Jack found a watch in the box and commandeered it (I think that's allowed), which is like treasure that people put in for others to find and take. Price noticed that a second geocache was located fairly close, so we hiked up to the Rose Garden and Nick discovered a smaller box behind a large boulder and under a bush by the Japanese Gardens parking lot. There was a mechanical mouse in that one, but we left it behind for the next finder. We then hiked back to the house and the kids are now playing Knight Squad -- their favorite X-box game.
In summary, I think the kids gained a new appreciation for just how difficult it is to engineer a water storage solution that can remain safe and usable during landslides and earthquakes. Hopefully they will use what they learned this morning to come up with a great HydroDynamics project that they can further explore together as part of their FIRST Lego competition.
