Yadkin River Water Supply – Norwood Pump Station and Water Intake

As part of the Union County Yadkin River Water Supply project, the Norwood Pump Station and Raw Water Intake at Lake Tillery were designed to provide a long-term, sustainable water supply for the Yadkin River Water Supply Basin. This project included the construction of the new pump station, a wet well, and the raw water intake, which draws up to 23.3-million-gallons-per-day (MGD) of raw water from Lake Tillery. To support construction of these critical elements, F&R conducted a subsurface investigation and geotechnical engineering consulting program.

The geotechnical subsurface exploration program included soil borings, rock coring, wet well borings, soil testing, and a seismic soil site classification. F&R met overwater drilling challenges by utilizing a barge to mobilize the drill rig to locations on the lake. F&R’s geotechnical engineers provided design recommendations for secant piles, auger cast piles, H-Piles, soil anchors, and lateral earth pressures.

This project was a design-build effort with the Garney-Hazen team; F&R was part of the design team led by Hazen & Sawyer. Because this was a design-build project, F&R remained engaged in onsite activities throughout construction, which started in 2020. While the F&R team collaborated on several crucial project elements, providing everything from GeoEnvironmental soil recommendations to small retaining wall designs, the most significant effort was focused on construction of the intake pile support system. F&R provided full-time onsite personnel to review the pile installations and evaluate their capacity based on actual field data. F&R worked closely with the structural designer to keep this project’s schedule moving forward toward its successful completion.

The existing pump station remained operational during construction activities, but was demolished once the new station became fully functional.