Signal Hill City officials invited the Long Beach City Manager’s office, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board Chair and officials from the County of Los Angeles Flood Control. Members of the construction crew, engineers and airport representatives were present during the ceremony.
The project, spearheaded by Mike Bubalo Construction Company, is primarily being built to capture zinc and copper fragments in an effort to prevent the metals from spilling into the Los Cerritos channel. The construction of the facility is broken off into three phases. The first phase is being funded by an $11-million CalTrans grant. As construction continues and more funds are collected, additional phases will be added on, according to Signal Hill Public Works Director Steve Myrter.
Most of the project will take place deep inside a 20-foot crevasse underground and out of sight of the public. The facility is designed to collect 120 acre-feet of storm and rain water.
The total cost to finish the project is $50 million.
To start off the ceremony, Signal Hill Mayor Lori Woods delivered a speech to those in attendance congratulating the efforts that everyone involved has put into the project.
Woods said most people will be asking themselves what the airport is doing with so much construction material by the landing strips.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Screen-Shot-2016-12-15-at-1.59.01-PM.png” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”Signal Hill City officials dig up dirt during a groundbreaking ceremony signifying the commencement of the Los Cerritos Channel Sub-Basin 4 Storm Water Capture project on Dec. 12.” captionposition=”right” revealfx=”off”] “People might expect a huge tower or some sort of building to be built,” she said. “But only those who inquire or are part of all this will know the massive thing that is under here.”
During the event, Signal Hill Public Works Director Steve Myrter said there are six similar projects in the region all aimed at preventing harmful materials from entering waterways.
He also said that, by the summer of next year, the construction will start to move closer to the channel itself. That specific section of the project will install a pre-treatment best-management practices system for urban run-off.
While heavy construction equipment and materials traverse the build site, the airport is carrying on with its normal flight operations.
Stephanie Gunawan, LGB airport civil engineer, was present during the ceremony.
After the event, she told the Signal Tribune that the main priority is security for both the contractor’s crew and incoming and outgoing flights.
“One of the challenges [of the project] is to be clear of the safety areas of the airport,” Gunawan said. “For the contractor to work inside the airport, it calls for an escort and clearance for everyone. That includes badges and security.”
However, a large portion of the construction has been temporarily fenced off and is considered a land site, which means escorts are not required to enter that location.
Gunawan said there is a vertical clearance the contractor has to abide by.
“There’s a lot of procedures that has to take place before they have to bring the equipment in,” she explained. “You have to file a notice stating how tall the equipment is or how tall the stockpiles are because it can interfere with operations in the airport.”
She added that if something is tall enough to penetrate the flight surface, then the contractor will be asked to reconsider lowering the equipment’s height, or to work on a specific operation at night.
The reason for working at night is that the landing strip that runs east and west closes at night.
“There is a noise ordinance that we have to abide by,” Gunawan said. “That is largely part of the reason why planes can’t use the east-west runway.”
Even as officials of the project gathered to don ceremonial hard hats and grab shovels to signify the start of the project, off in the distance, bulldozers and excavators could be seen working on digging the large hole.
By June, phase one of the projected is expected to be 60-percent complete.
