New Bedford’s South Terminal is taking shape above the surface

Buy This Photo

Workers prepare an area where the first bulkhead for the South Terminal will be installed in New Bedford Harbor.PETER PEREIRA/The Standard-Times

December 13, 2013 12:00 AM

NEW BEDFORD After months of underwater work, South Terminal is beginning to pop through the surface.

This week, construction crews began to form the facility's bulkhead, or retaining wall, which is a critical component of the project that New Bedford wants to make its future in staging offshore wind farms.

"Everything we've been doing has been working toward this point," said Bill White of Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, which owns the facility. "All of the underwater work we've been doing was to be able to build this bulkhead."

The bulkhead has been specifically engineered so that the facility will be able to support 4,000 tons per square foot, even at its edges near the water. Such a load capacity is necessary to hold both the hundred-ton wind turbine components expected to be on- and off-loaded from the facility, and the cranes that will help with the work.

The bulkhead's designer, Susan Nilson of Cleengineering, explained that the circular shape of the "cofferdams" that interlock to form the retaining wall "fortifies it enough that we will be able to bring cranes all the way to the quayside. The cofferdams allow the facility to have the same capacity all the way to its the edge."

The 1,000-foot long bulkhead will be composed of 25 total interlocking circles, 13 large and 12 small. Crews are just starting on the southern-most cofferdam, executing a delicate process of lining up narrow steel sheets to form a circle.

Once the sheets are aligned correctly, they will be vibrated into the harbor floor until either they cannot be pushed in further or they hit bedrock, Senior Project Manager Shawn Wyatt said.

Original post:
New Bedford's South Terminal is taking shape above the surface