CORCO Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Reaches New Milestone

By: Hans X. Figueroa-Sweet

The CORCO Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant (IWTP) project team completed a major milestone, the concrete pour of the mat foundation floor for the entire project. As with most ambitious construction projects, reaching this point required substantial effort, the intervention of several key resources at CSA, and many resources from other stakeholders. While this project component may only represent 10% of the total project cost, the remainder of this $5M investment will be supported by this foundation floor slab. Needless to say, for CORCO (the Owner), this project is very important, as it represents the possibility of providing treatment to fire suppression waters collected after petroleum wells were set on fire during the Gulf War. Yes, this IWTP will treat residual water transported from Kuwait to Puerto Rico more than 25 years ago, which is stored and waiting for its proper treatment and prior to disposal, in an environmentally responsible manner and in compliance with applicable regulations.

Notable to this achievement was the tireless intervention of Yolanda Delgado, as Construction Manager of the project. Yolanda took to heart the mission of ensuring that this accomplishment came to fruition. She had the challenging role of meticulously reviewing and coordinating the proper execution of numerous details (excavations, rebar, submittals, RFIs, inspections, etc.) to identify issues that may put at risk the success of this task. Yolanda took each issue with enthusiasm and disengaged until it was resolved.

The lead designer of this structure, Victor Figueroa with the assistance from several of his staff have been working on this design since 2016 when CSA started providing services in the project with a value engineering study of the foundation which produced significant costs savings to CORCO. Victor was also instrumental during the pre-pouring tasks by performing periodic field visits and alerting the Owner about geotechnical issues, rebar placement issues, and adjusting the design to field conditions and equipment changes. Edith Calzadilla also had an important role in protecting the integrity and intent of the design, and in assisting the structural and construction management effort.

A notable mention was the ever-present guidance of the environmental/permitting team, including Ruben Rivera and several of his staff. Jose Luis Menendez also collaborated on this project by setting up a very helpful IT tool that allowed all stakeholders (internal and external) to share key project information.

We are proud to communicate that our client NewFields and the Owner’s Representative Rodolfo Seda/CORCO were satisfied with the outcome.  As you can see, CSA is supported by some of the best-in-the-industry resources, proving that we are ready to handle very challenging projects to reach our growth objectives.

Go Team CSA!

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