Delivering Success Archives - Terracon

Logistics Facilities Services Newsletter

terramedia — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 20:35:20 +0000

Retrofit your warehouse space to meet current needs

As your requirements grow and evolve, our logistics professionals have a large suite of services to help take your built facility where it needs to go. Whether you’ve had your warehouse for years or just acquired a new facility, we can make that property meet your specifications. Let’s get started.

Get the full picture first

Understanding a facility’s condition before you buy it gives you peace of mind that you’ve made a sound investment. When a logistics client had questions about whether to invest in an unused warehouse, Terracon facilities experts assessed the building using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) to provide 2D and 3D models. Both methods detected deflection in the wall panels, with possible water ponding on the roof above. Providing these two data sets in the same scope of work eliminated the need (and cost) of additional testing and gave the client a holistic view of the challenges to help them make informed decisions.

Building health covered – from top to bottom

Roof Assessments. One of the biggest assets at any facility, roofing keeps the elements out while protecting everyone and everything inside. Make sure concerns about your facility’s roof won’t hang over your head. Learn more.
Structural Assessment. A facilities condition assessment (FCA) gives a clear picture of where a facility is, making it easier to develop a plan for getting it where it needs to be. Here’s how.
Pavement Solutions Pavement might be an even larger asset than the roof. Our Pavement Technology Solutions can help set up a long-term pavement maintenance plan based on data – not speculation. Find out how.

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Easing the Way for Distribution Center, Warehouse & Terminal Upgrades

terramedia — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 14:09:36 +0000

Warehouse and terminal facilities are constantly evolving to meet the changing demand of the logistics sector. New technologies such as automatic storage retrieval systems, pallet dimensioning, and robots, place new demands on existing facilities. Terracon’s expert teams can help logistics facilities managers and owners meet these challenges head-on. Adding new components to a warehouse or terminal facility may create the need for geotechnical or structural analysis services. For example, adding an automated storage retrieval system may require new footings or structural framing. Terracon works closely with clients, architects, and the engineers of record to provide professional engineering services necessary for modifying existing warehouses, distribution centers, or terminal facilities. “Involving our team during the early design phase of a ‘structure within a structure’ project, we can provide a range of services throughout the life of the project,” said Brad Urhahn (Director of Major Accounts – Logistics).

Terracon Provides

Environmental and geotechnical due diligence
Existing facility condition assessment
Structural assessment, analysis, and recommendations
Construction materials testing during construction/installation necessary to meet design and building code requirements.

How can our professionals and services keep your next logistics project on track? Let’s connect to see how we can help at every stage of the project journey.

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Power Generation Solar Services Newsletter

terramedia — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 20:27:55 +0000

Up to date: Here’s the latest on WOTUS rule amendment

The Sackett v. EPA Supreme Court decision in May altered the landscape of future Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rulings. Recent amendments, released in late August, brought a little more clarity. Our WOTUS subcommittee has been following these and other ongoing developments for more than three years. Here’s how the latest amendments could affect future solar projects. Learn more.

At the forefront of pile load testing data delivery

Accurate pile load testing (PLT) data can be the catalyst for a more sustainable and cost-effective solar project. Our new, proprietary pile load testing tripod is lighter, more transportable, and changing how we gather this critical data. How can this new PLT system benefit your next solar project? Let’s get to work.

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Data for More Sustainable Solar Energy

terramedia — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 16:27:34 +0000

Terracon’s Proprietary Pile Load Testing System Leads to Safer, More Efficient Collection of Essential Solar Foundation Data

The future of solar energy lies in the combination of sustainability and speed to market. Our latest innovation, the Terrapod 2100 pile load testing system, was inspired by that intersection. Implementing this new technology helps us give our clients a unique advantage in bringing solar projects online.

The Next Generation of Pile Load Testing Design

Pile Load Testing (PLT) is the most critical step in optimizing a solar array foundation design. The Terrapod 2100 helps our professionals bring clients this critical data quickly and efficiently. The proprietary design is lightweight, strong, and easily maneuverable by one person. At only 81 pounds, it can be quickly moved into position and can handle loads that well exceed current foundation load requirements. It also removes the need for heavy equipment in the field, saving the cost of transport and operation. A smarter solar foundation design is key for more sustainable projects. Accurate collection of PLT data using the Terrapod 2100 can be the start of more environmentally friendly projects. Lowering pile embedment depths, even by just one foot, can lead to millions of dollars saved in steel on one project and a huge reduction in the project’s carbon footprint. We have the resources to keep pace with the growing demand for solar. Our team of more than 120 trained, solar professionals currently operates our fleet of piledrivers and 30 Terrapod 2100 tripods. Terracon’s solar experts can help you get the most from your solar foundation. Let’s connect to put our expertise to work on your next project! Contact client development manager Ryan Merrell, P.E., at ryan.merrell@terracon.com to learn more about our PLT data servcies!

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Keeping You Abreast of the Latest Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) Ruling

terramedia — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 16:16:51 +0000

What the August 2023 Rule Amendment Means for Future Solar Projects

Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), including wetlands, are significant environmental considerations for new solar projects. The discussion on the final interpretation of the WOTUS rule continues, even after the U.S. Supreme Court’s May decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Terracon’s WOTUS subcommittee, a team of environmental professionals from across the country, has continuously monitored the status of WOTUS rulings for nearly three years. Here’s a breakdown of the latest updates, and what they mean for renewable energy companies, utilities, and solar project developers/owners.

Latest WOTUS Rule Amendment Loosens Federal Wetland Regulations

Amendments to the WOTUS rule were announced on August 29, to be consistent with the Supreme Court’s May Sackett v. EPA decision. (more on that decision below). The most notable amendment states that adjacent waters must have a “continuous surface connection” to be considered federally jurisdictional. The amendment may result in more developable land without the need for federal permitting in situations where a continuous surface connection between resources is not present. Information around the most recent amendment continues to trickle out, and it’s important to note that nothing is finalized yet. “Presently, approved jurisdictional waters are not being issued. They won’t start being issued again until the amendment is published in the federal register, which could happen in a matter of weeks,” said Andy Ruocco, principal and environmental department manager in Charleston, South Carolina, and WOTUS subcommittee lead. He also noted that the timeline is a best-case scenario. Potential court challenges in the coming weeks could delay the publication process.

Terracon’s wetlands services

Supreme Court Decision Sets Stage for WOTUS Future

The Sackett v. EPA decision, issued in May 2023, was a significant departure from the previous WOTUS definition that went into effect in March of 2023. The Supreme Court ruled that waters regulated by the Clean Water Act must have a “continuous surface connection” to lakes and rivers that affect interstate commerce. Furthermore, the significant nexus test and its associated requirements/parameters have been removed from the new Amendments to the “Revised Definition of ‘Waters of the United States” (Sackett decision).

Keeping You Informed of Federal and State Wetlands Regulations

Projects involving wetlands must almost always comply with federal and state requirements. In addition to the WOTUS subcommittee, Terracon has a network of environmental professionals in offices across the country who are familiar with local and state regulations and can be a trusted partner on the road to compliance. “Our experts can provide regional perspective on how this rule change will impact clients in consideration of other related state and local rules and regulations pertaining to aquatic resources,” said Ruocco. Sustainability and renewable energy are an important combination as we look to the future of power generation. Your local Terracon team can help keep your solar project compliant through ongoing regulation updates. Let’s take the next step together: contact Jeremy Hanzlik, P.E., national manager, environmental planning, at jeremy.hanzlik@terracon.com or (210) 714-2146 to learn more about how we can help.

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Teaming Up to Deliver Winning Projects

terramedia — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 20:55:18 +0000

Terracon Works Alongside A/E/C Clients to Achieve a Common Goal

The traits of the best partners go far beyond talent. Integrity, trust, the ability to work toward a common goal, and having difficult conversations when necessary are the foundation of successful partnerships. When Terracon partners with our Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (A/E/C) clients, our job is often to provide the accurate, timely data our partners need to stay on schedule. Challenges can and do arise – the world is an imperfect place. We understand issues within the industry because it’s our industry, too. In fact, our A/E/C clients accounted for nearly a third of our projects and revenue in 2022. Collaborating with our partners means bringing solutions to your projects to solve problems or avoid challenges altogether.

Resources at the Ready

Our strength lies in our numbers and the expertise and commitment of our employee-owners. With more than 6,000 scientists, engineers, and other professionals, we offer nationwide networks of expertise in several key areas, including environmental services, materials testing and laboratories, geotechnical services, industrial hygiene, facilities services, and more. The diversity of services means we can help your A/E/C project both now and in the future. Local expertise gives our clients knowledgeable partners who can help anticipate and possibly avoid challenges unique to a particular state or region. And our fleet of drill rigs, laboratories, and other resources helps cut the time needed to gather and analyze necessary data.

Making More Informed Decisions Through Technology

Technology is transforming the A/E/C industry. At Terracon, we use several technological innovations to maximize the value of the data our clients entrust us to gather. We enhance our consulting services through data-driven decision-making and provide software-as-a-service solutions to put the power of technology into our clients’ hands. We offer two technology solutions that help streamline the site selection process for our A/E/C clients on a wide variety of projects. We can work with clients remotely and our innovative platform unlocks powerful, site-specific data and anticipated subsurface conditions allowing for a quick advance into planning and preliminary designs and budgets without setting foot on the proposed project site. We have a software-as-a-service offering delivering location-based intelligence to clients performing preliminary siting and routing solutions for renewable energy and other large linear projects. We’ve also developed technology tools to simplify searching for specific testing results on large projects. Our GIS-based platform puts testing results right on the project site map. Finding a particular test result is as easy as clicking on the area where the test was taken, providing a better understanding of the critical nature of any specific test on the overall project. In many ways, data is our business. We’re committed to continually innovating to help our clients find new ways to maximize the data we gather.

Resiliency Services that Benefit Companies as well as the Environment

Sustainability is as important to us as it is to our A/E/C clients. Our cultural and natural resource professionals, NEPA planners, scientists, and landscape architects excel at providing the services needed to navigate the complexity of environmental regulations. We can help identify and clearly walk you through each step of the permitting requirements specific to your project needs, allowing you to prioritize and stay ahead of potential hurdles. Whether we’re helping to protect people and natural resources, enhance ecosystem services, or extend the life of facilities, we bring a sustainability and resiliency mindset to our projects that go beyond the obvious needs to find opportunities that champion the stewardship legacy of our projects. We’re also intently focused on sustainability in our own business practices. We understand the challenges involved because we leverage the same services ourselves that we provide to our clients to continually improve and make a positive impact in the communities where we live and work.

Welcoming the Opportunity to Overcome Challenges

Good planning is important. So is adaptability when plans change. We are in the business of not only providing data and answers that are good news, but also on occasion when it is not. “We’re going to be there to tell you when things aren’t what you want to hear,” Laura Campa, P.E., materials assistant service line director said. “But we’re also going to partner with you to come to a solution and figure out how to get those items corrected.” Good news or bad, we have the solutions to help at every step of the project journey.

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Power Generation Sustainability Services Newsletter

terramedia — Mon, 22 May 2023 19:14:27 +0000

Bringing sustainability to renewable energy projects

Making renewable energy structures more sustainable to construct reduces project costs as well as environmental impacts. Sustainability was the primary focus when developing our GripTerra wind turbine foundations, solar foundations, and other solutions for pipelines and various linear projects. The resulting products require less materials and excavation, saving time and money. We’re here to help you lead the way to meet current and future energy needs. Learn more.

Let’s connect in New Orleans at CLEANPOWER 2023

Renewable energy is essential to meet current and future demand, and our team is ready for the challenge. Join us at CLEANPOWER 2023 in booth 2241 to learn more about our innovative GripTerra wind foundations, solar foundations, and other services designed to meet project and sustainability goals. See you there.

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Sustainability with Intent

terramedia — Tue, 16 May 2023 18:16:23 +0000

Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Renewable Energy Projects

Continuous, improved performance doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a focused, intentional effort to achieve results. Terracon’s foundation practice, serving the U.S. power generation market has made sustainable design a priority. Design optimization in solar and electrical transmission tower foundations, and Terracon’s innovative suite of GripTerra wind foundation designs all share a common theme: reduction in materials and resources during construction. Reduced materials and less effort of construction equipment results in lower carbon emissions. Renewable resources are essential in meeting our country’s energy demand, but doing so at the cost of sustainability and stewardship for our planet would be irresponsible. Therefore, we believe that an eye on sustainability sets us apart from our industry peers.

GripTerra Wind Foundations Do More with Much Less Materials and Labor

The future of wind turbine foundations lies in superior geodesign, not more concrete and steel. Our GripTerra wind foundations not only use less concrete, steel, and require less earthwork than traditional spread foot foundations, they’re also built with the forward-looking expectation of repowering. Our foundations are designed so that they can be utilized to support a larger wind turbine generator in the future. The pier and anchor foundations lend themselves to a wide variety of soil types, and each has distinct sustainability benefits: Pier foundation Anchor foundation 60% less concrete 60% less concrete 40% less steel 70% less steel 80% less earthwork No earthwork required Translation: on a project of 100 turbines, GripTerra foundations remove more than 64 million tons of carbon and require only 1.7 million cubic yards of concrete to produce 4 billion kilowatt-hours of energy (as opposed to 6 million cubic yards for spread foot foundations). The benefits of GripTerra foundations are immediate and far-reaching.

Every Inch Matters in Solar Pile Installation

The key to a more sustainable solar foundation can be less than 12 inches. Reducing foundation embedment depths by 1 foot on a 250-megawatt solar project saves millions in steel costs alone. The sustainability impacts are even more profound considering everything it takes to produce that steel – from mining the iron ore, converting it to iron, then steel, its transportation during the manufacture and delivery process, and the hundreds of hours of labor to install thousands of piles. All told, that 1 foot reduction could reduce the carbon footprint by as much as 3 million tons of carbon dioxide. We also implement new technology to better meet project needs while keeping a focus on sustainability. Our friction piledriver uses a proprietary analytical program to install piles with no soil disturbance, drilling, or excavation. And it only takes a three-person crew to operate. All these factors combine to decrease the carbon footprint.

Dedicated to Sustainability in All Energy Projects

Our focus on sustainability extends to transmission line projects, battery storage facilities, and other power generation pursuits. Our teams use tools including non-invasive geophysics and predictive analytics to explore project locations, reduce borings and groundwork, and allowing us to be more intentional about reducing effort (i.e., CO2) as well as minimizing environmental impacts while meeting our clients’ project goals. Renewable energy will be at the forefront of meeting growing energy demand in the future. We’re dedicated to helping you deliver these essential projects in the most sustainable way possible.

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Transportation Alternate Delivery Group Newsletter

terramedia — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 14:30:22 +0000

Accelerating success on alternate delivery transportation projects

Alternate delivery transportation projects require precision timing, meticulous coordination, and good, old-fashioned experience to keep on schedule – that’s nothing new. So what is new? We’ve created an Alternate Delivery Group of professionals solely focused on making sure these complex projects succeed. From Los Angeles to Charlotte and Minneapolis to San Antonio, you get a consistent partner on every project, every time. Learn more.

Creating solid, stable ground for a major port project

Massive upgrades to one of the largest shipping container ports in the country weren’t going to happen unless major geotechnical issues were addressed. We were part of the team that helped get this groundbreaking project across the finish line. What geotechnical challenges can we help you solve? Read more.

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Show Up and Keep Up

terramedia — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 17:40:25 +0000

Alternate Delivery Group Ready to Meet the Needs of Dynamic Transportation Projects

Fast is the pace at which design-build, public-private partnership (P3), and other alternate-delivery transportation projects move. Consistency in leadership, processes, and deliverables are essential to keeping each unique project on schedule. This was the inspiration behind Terracon creating a new alternate delivery group. While no two alternate delivery projects are alike, our clients can expect a consistent and reliable experience from project to project, no matter where it’s located.

Meeting the Unique Demands of Alternate Delivery

Being a trusted partner requires meeting clients where they’re at. This mindset led to the creation of the alternate delivery group, so our services to transportation clients could evolve alongside changes in the industry. “We created the alternate delivery group out of our transportation and infrastructure sector to get laser-focused on consistency in the pursuit, execution, and delivery of transportation projects,” Chief Growth Officer Michael O’Grady said. “Today there is a tremendous number of transportation projects going into alternate delivery, whether it be design-build or P3. It takes a certain amount of expertise to understand how to manage those projects and deliver to our clients, so we felt we needed a group to focus strictly on that part of the transportation market.” Alternate delivery projects have their own rhythm. As the emphasis on timing and scheduling increases, so does the need for experienced professionals who can manage the challenges at hand, with the foresight to anticipate and plan for any potential future issues. “The alt-delivery structure allows us to narrow in on the needs of our clients as well as the risk associated with these projects. At the same time, we will manage those risks to effectively meet project needs and schedules,” O’Grady said. Alternate delivery projects will become more streamlined as their numbers continue to grow. The experienced professionals in Terracon’s alternate delivery group have the specialized skills and experience to partner with you every step of the way. Let’s get to work on your next project.

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