Stepping in to help protect a St. Louis neighborhood from nature's destructive forces
When nature’s destructive forces threatened to wash away vital infrastructure and damage homes, we stepped in to help protect a St. Louis neighborhood. This project involved 625’ of creek that meanders through a neighborhood. Storm events caused retaining walls to fail, washed away the concrete channel bottom and eroded the downstream banks of a failed concrete trapezoidal channel. Erosion impacted the properties of homeowners located as close as 50’ from the channel.
Our design hardened the concrete channel reaches and incorporated vegetation around the plantable block that replaced the failed walls. Articulating concrete block mats in the channel bottom allowed water to filter through and plants to grow while protecting the channel from high velocity rainfall events. The failed channel bottom was replaced and an underdrain to relieve water pressure under the slab was installed. USACE found our designs environmentally acceptable and approved the 404 permit without requiring mitigation credits.
This project came in 31% under budget while incorporating green elements, minimizing maintenance costs and protecting property from erosion problems for years to come.
At a Glance
- Offices
- Partners
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- Pangea Engineering and Surveying
- Vector Communications Corporation
- TSI Engineering
- Award
- ACEC/MO's 2014 Engineering Excellence Award, Grand Award, Small Projects
Bob Welsch, Senior Principal, Practice Leader
Our most basic goal as engineers is to solve problems in order to protect the public safety. That’s what we strive to do every day.
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