There are large-diameter pipeline projects in which huge and heavy sections of pipe are wrestled and fitted into place. Then there are confined-space, close-tolerance pipe-laying projects where exactness and precision are paramount engineering concerns.
The Portland Bureau of Environmental Services simultaneously undertook both. The Oregon city’s extraordinary $11 million rehab project in 2020 was a test of engineering imagination, administrative expertise and the cooperative spirit of municipal and private sector organizations.
“It was a toughy,” says BES construction manager Don Poletski. “The pipe fought us every step of the way.”
“All the way” constituted about 4,000 feet through a 100-plus-year-old brick tunnel that
