RC109 NovDec 2023 - Magazine - Page 15
NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA
NSW: TFNSW, RUSUMO: RUSUMO NELSAP
PACIFIC HIGHWAY
THE 155-KILOMETRE WOOLGOOLGA to Ballina Pacific Highway upgrade
was the final link in the Pacific Highway, between Hexham and the
Queensland border, to be upgraded to four lanes.
Partnering with Transport for NSW and Laing O’Rouke in a joint venture
as delivery partner, WSP managed the delivery of the 129-km Glenugie
to Ballina bypass section of the upgrade. The joint venture (Pacific Complete) had overall responsibility for providing planning, programming,
design management, procurement, and construction management services who, in turn, managed the contractors building the infrastructure.
The project has been delivered under a delivery partner model that
was based largely on the delivery approach used for the construction of
the London Olympics infrastructure. This was the first time the Delivery
Partner Model was used for a major Australian infrastructure project.
The Woolgoolga to Ballina upgrade project crossed some of the
most diverse and challenging environments including two major river
catchments, floodplains, significant areas of soft soil, threatened species
habitat, and sensitive heritage areas.
Potential environmental impacts on various ecosystems and several
threatened species were considered, and the team developed 37 specific
environmental management plans to protect fauna and flora. Other
design initiatives reduced the land required for the project, saving 127
hectares of vegetation.
The project was committed to hiring local Indigenous people and
achieved higher-than-promised Aboriginal employment rates, with 300
people employed at the project peak and 1 million hours worked. There
were high levels of community engagement, Aboriginal heritage was
protected and celebrated, and a range of local Aboriginal businesses
became suppliers.
Innovative digital engineering systems were developed, such as the
web-enabled Geographic Information System (GIS). It provided instant
access to the current real-time data and information on one accessible
system for all the users, wherever they were. The teams could quickly
access data on site to identify and resolve any design, construction, community, or environmental compliance issue, saving time and money.
The project team built 155 bridges along 129 kilometres between
Glenugie and Ballina, including over the big Northern NSW Rivers: the
Clarence River at Harwood and the Richmond River at Broadwater. This
work included more than 8,900 precast elements which required a
standardised approach to enable program certainty, risk management,
economies of scale, logistics and simple interfaces between bridge and
civil contractors.
Despite major events such as bushfires, flood events and the COVID19 pandemic the project team opened the final link of the Pacific Highway to traffic in December 2020.
RENEWCANADA.NET
BURUNDI/RWANDA/TANZANIA, AFRICA
REGIONAL RUSUMO FALLS
HYDROELECTRIC PROJECT
RUSUMO FALLS is located on the Kagera River between Rwanda and Tanzania, approximately 25 kilometres downstream of the Burundi, Rwanda,
and Tanzania common border point. The Kagera River Basin, an area of
about 60,000 square kilometres, is shared by Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania,
and Uganda. It is the most remote headstream of the River Nile and the
largest tributary to Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest freshwater
lake.
Rusumo Falls was originally identified as an area for hydropower generation in the 1970s to address inadequate energy—a major socio-economic challenge facing Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania. The shortage of
electricity in these countries led to an underdeveloped manufacturing
sector, limiting opportunities to reduce poverty and modernize critical
infrastructure like water supply, healthcare, and social infrastructure.
Most households in the region rely on wood for their cooking and heating
needs, leading to extensive deforestation and soil erosion.
Following previous attempts, funding for the Regional Rusumo Falls
Hydroelectric Project (RRFHP) was eventually jointly secured from the
World Bank by the three countries. They subsequently formed the Rusumo
Power Company Limited which mandated the Nile Basin Initiative to
proceed with the project through its subsidiary the Nile Equatorial Lakes
Subsidiary Action Program (NELSAP).
The RRFHP involves the construction of a dam on the Kagera River and
a power plant on the Rwanda and Tanzania border. It also includes a runof-river scheme on the Kagera River at the Rwanda and Tanzania border
and a surface powerhouse equipped with three Kaplan turbines.
As the lead of the owner’s engineer joint venture, AECOM is responsible for the inception report, detailed design, procurement documents,
contract management, construction management, commissioning supervision, post-construction services and project close-out.
“NELSAP’s mission to contribute to the eradication of poverty, promotion of economic growth, and reversal of environmental degradation
aligns entirely with our Sustainable Legacies strategy,” said Joe Salim,
senior vice president with AECOM. “We believe we all leave a legacy; our
goal is to create positive lasting impacts on people and our planet.”
With an expected completion date of December 2023, the RRFHP,
once operational, will bring 80 MW of renewable, clean, equally shared,
and relatively low-cost power to the national grids of Burundi, Rwanda
and Tanzania for generations to come.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 – RENEW CANADA 15
