Hi, I'm looking for a ballpark estimate to scrape a channel into an existing creek, lowering the bed 3 meters, to create a venue for rowing. 2 kilometers by 60 meters wide. Grade change over the reach of venue undetermined at this point. Bottom would need to be level so that water would not spill over downstream end. Trying to store water without installing a dam or berm at downstream side. Rough guess: 360,000 cubic meters for the basic receptacle, maybe add another 50% to make it horizontal, ie, lower the upstream end more than the downstream end. 500,000 total? Current stream flow could be diverted through a smaller channel dug adjacent to site. Dig would probably expose ground water, don't know how much at this point. How big a problem would wet dirt be? (Please tell me mud is easier to remove, thank you!) Probably not a lot of large boulders, this site is a few miles east of the foothills. There are train tracks adjacent where spoil might be loaded into railcars for removal to dump site. From a different website, I calculated roughly 8 million if using an excavator alone. Aren't scrapers cheaper than excavators for removing a lot of material? Could use excavator, loader to clean up edges, dig diversion ditch, and load spoil into railcars. I appreciate your input.
First off, where is this going to be located? If anywhere in the continental US you’re going to have a nightmare of permiting and red tape to wade through before you ever move the first yard of dirt. For certain you’ll have to deal with the Army Corps of Engineers, DEQ, DNR, and so on... As to the project itself, scrapers need a solid footing and the right type of dirt to be productive, definitely not mud. From the sounds of it excavators may be the best choice, possibly teamed up with dozers. You are going to need a fleet of off road dump trucks to haul the spoils away. The only time train cars are used for that sort of work would be on large scale civil projects of years gone by. Even then it would have been a special dedicated track with a tipping station to dump them, not your local passenger/freight railroad. I’m not going to even venture into a ballpark cost, but you are correct to assume in the 7 figures, assume you can ever get it approved.
Thank you for your input. This would be on Fountain Creek near Ft. Carson, a large military base on the south side of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Hopefully, a number of soldiers would want to train there. Plus, civilian residents of the area. You're absolutely right about the red tape! But here, I'm just trying to find out what is doable. After I posted my inquiry, I remembered working with a grader operator last summer who almost got himself stuck in some mud. It's possible that there's a lot of sand and gravel in the creek bed that could provide traction, even if wet. There's a large sand quarry just a few miles upstream, so maybe the terrain is similar here. This area used to be at the bottom of a sea that got isolated as tectonic plates moved. Who knew the middle of Colorado used to be an ocean?!! But, I've found fossils in the area of shelled creatures that look like clams. So, maybe there's enough sand. Probably should drill a core sample. But, equipment with tracks would probably be essential, bulldozers and tracked skid steers. Some big front loaders as well, to scoop up what the tracked vehicles pile up. So, I'll have to relocate this post to a different section of this forum. However, a lot of you operators are multi-platform functional, so maybe I'll leave it posted here as well. The railcar suggestion is included because last summer I worked across the street from a gravel company that shipped in their material by rail (Rock and Rail, out of Canon City, Colorado. Think "The Royal Gorge!"!) I never actually went into their yard to see how they unloaded their stuff. I'd bet there's a pit under the tracks where they belly dump, because I don't think they've got a locomotive to move cars to a tipping table. I guess that's a job for tomorrow morning. It'll get me out of bed!! Thanks. I've sent a request to Union Pacific about loading on the tracks at the site. There are two sets, so maybe one track can be held vacant during loading. That would require logistical planning with UP. They sent me a form to fill out, but I'll have to get some details from the State officials at a meeting on Friday. I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row a little bit first.
Can a permit even be gotten for this. Seems like a big dep or whatever agency is in charge of running water problem
You need to know the basic things, permitting as Tyler mentioned, and not knowing the elevation over 2 kilometers makes any meaningful input impossible.
Corp of engineers
please post only 1 thread, don't post the same thing all over.
I didn't know if operators only looked at the thread for the type of equipment they specialize in.
Yeah. What he said. I've deleted the duplicate threads, consolidated the replies here, and moved the whole thing to General Industry Questions. Shouldn't have to work so hard first thing in the morning.... But welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums anyway.
Google will get you a close enough estimate of grade change over 2K. The other big issue is the creek will fill that pool in continually with silt and rapidly in floods. Maybe irrelevant in the scheme of the total cost of this plan? Making the pool parallel to the stream, but not connected would eliminate most of the siltation and massively ease the permitting process.
^ what he said. Settling pond and control structures in and out.