Welcome to Miami

Miami has the sun, the sand, the surf and the sunsets. But beyond the natural landscape and scenery, city leaders have forged a progressive trenchless program to take care of the city’s rarely seen but vitally important underground utilities.

It is this proactive and extensive use of trenchless technology that makes the City of Miami in Dade County such an ideal location to host the final Trenchless Road Show (TRS) of 2007. The TRS program in 2007 made stops in Charlotte, N.C., St. Louis, Niagara Falls and, most recently, New Orleans.
Miami hosts the TRS, Nov. 13-14 at the Radisson Hotel Miami, marking the first time that the TRS program has visited Miami and Dade County. More than 40 exhibitors of trenchless products and technology will be on hand to lead discussions and live demonstrations of their wares.
 
The TRS is the premier trenchless education program in the United States, bringing together industry experts with public works, engineering and contractors in a regional setting to discuss and promote the trenchless industry.

“Miami is the perfect place to end this year’s TRS program, as the amount of trenchless work going on there is tremendous,” says Michael Levick, conference manager for Benjamin Media Inc., which organizes the program. “Trenchless technology is important to the continued upgrading and rehabilitation of Miami’s and all of Dade County’s underground utilities. Having our TRS program in Miami-Dade gives the county the opportunity to present the work they are doing to a wider audience.”

The TRS pairs top-notch educational seminar sessions and interactive exhibits and demos to provide a well-rounded trenchless industry experience for those attending. New and existing products and technologies will be presented to attendees, with classroom topics designed to tap into the region’s “hot button” areas.
“Each TRS city has a different need for trenchless technology and the TRS format allows us to design classroom instruction to showcase those needs and how trenchless methods are utilized to address them,” Levick says.

Trenchless technology has been an asset in Miami’s water and sewer rehabilitation program since the 1990s, with Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department (MDSWD) leaders having the foresight to implement the new technology, specifically TV inspection and chemical grouting.

Miami-Dade County is the home to the fifth largest utility in the United States, in terms of miles of service and customers. MDWSD, with 440 sq miles of service area, maintains 7,100 miles of water lines and 3,600 miles of sewer lines, which serve approximately 2.4 million customers and includes 11 wholesale municipalities. The average age of the sewer and water lines are 40 and 60-plus years old, respectively, with some sewer lines dating as far back as 1919.
 
Trenchless methods made their appearance in the county in the early 1990s when fold-and-form (F/F) was used to rehab aging sewer lines. A few years later, F/F was replaced by the more cost-effective cured-in-place pipe (CIPP). To date this year, 40,600 ft of CIPP work has been done. The department’s trenchless program encompasses a gamut of methods such as CIPP, pipe bursting, horizontal directional drilling, sliplining, TV inspection, sectional and point repairs and chemical grouting of joints.

In the mid-1990s, Miami-Dade touted as one of the largest TV inspection and grouting programs in the country. The program proved to be invaluable to the MDWSD in terms of infiltration-and-inflow (I/I) reduction but also in the knowledge gained by the staff involved. The TV inspection and grouting program was the core of its rehab program in the 1990s. Today, MDWSD is concentrating on two areas that involve trenchless methods: CIPP and laterals. With the laterals, MDWSD recently completed two lateral pilot programs that inspected and rehabbed more than 1,600 laterals.

It’s areas such as these that will be a part of the Miami TRS agenda. Keynote presentations will be featured on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings in the exhibit hall. Four sessions will take place on the first day, focusing on trenchless construction methods (replacement and installation) and QA/QC. The individual sessions will delve deeper into the topics by exploring the various practices and technologies associated with the methods.
 
Seminars will touch on pipe bursting applications, HDD technology, pipeline root control systems and CIPP. In addition, pneumatic moles, bypass pumping, cross-bores and manhole rehabilitation will be presented.
When attendees are not in the seminar sessions, they can visit the exhibit hall. The hall will give attendees the opportunity to meet with company representatives and ask questions about their products and technologies — real one-on-one time.

A popular draw to the TRS program is the live outdoor demonstrations. Here, attendees will get to experience the latest trenchless technologies in action. The up-close demos give the chance for event participants to witness the products firsthand and ask questions. In Miami, demo topics include pipe bursting, laterals, manhole coating, point repair and infiltration control and corrosion management.
Besides the knowledge gained through the seminars, participants can also gain Continuing Educational Units (CEUs) and Professional Development Hours (PDHs) for the sessions they complete.

NASSCO will be on hand to offer its PACP and MACP training. The two-day program is set for Nov. 14-15. The training in these programs focuses on pipeline and manhole assessments.

A Hospitality Night Reception is also planned for attendees and exhibitors on Tuesday, Nov. 13, following the afternoon’s live demos. Here over food and drink, attendees can network with fellow public works officials, swap war stories and meet informally with industry leaders.

For more information about the Miami Trenchless Road Show, you can visit www.trenchlessroadshow.com or call Benjamin Media at (330) 467-7588.

Sharon M. Bueno is managing editor of Trenchless Technology.