![]() ![]() The 10.5-ft-tall, 13,000-lb WADs included on the Sunshine Skyway project are the largest LSSI has ever delivered, though the firm’s design for a 15-ft-tall WAD is a component of a locally preferred plan for the Army Corps of Engineers New England District’s still-pending Camp Ellis Beach Shore Damage Mitigation Project in Saco, Maine. ![]() Precise positioning of the WAD arrays was determined by the need to boost seagrass growth. A traditional breakwater with riprap, which “was going to have a bigger footprint,” and proved “cost-prohibitive” compared to the WADs, says TranSystems’ John Hartland, the project’s engineer of record.Ī main factor in determining the WAD arrays’ specific positioning and length was making sure “we’re providing enough acreage to meet that criteria for the new seagrass,” says Hartland. In addition to being more effective, the WADs-built breakwater proved less expensive and quicker to construct. The project was awarded in 2022, with construction start approved this past May. AECOM is serving as the project’s construction engineering and inspection firm. The design-build team of contractor Vecellio & Grogan and engineer TranSystems, with LSSI as a subcontractor, proved to be the lone submitter to the RFP. Models generated by University of South Florida coastal geology professor Ping Wang assessing the WADs’ effectiveness within the Tampa Bay site’s conditions back Bartkowski’s claim, noting that “the present design of the WADs array would result in wave-height reduction of at least 90% under all conditions, including cases with significant storm surge.” Bartkowski adds that the WAD devices generally achieve a minimum of 80% wave attenuation, and often top 90%.Ĭompared to more inland sections of Tampa Bay, for example, the Skyway project’s proximity to the Gulf of Mexico makes the site “kind of a unique location where you have this high exposure to wave energy,” says FDOT’s Setchell. The traditional methods of constructing breakwaters, such as with boulders and riprap, often don’t reach that bar, says Scott Bartkowski, CEO of Living Shoreline Solutions Inc. Part of FDOT’s main performance requirements-which related to such items as the structure’s stability, “resisting subsidence, overtopping or shifting” and minimizing scour-called for the breakwater to attenuate at least 70% of wave energy hitting the existing seawall. Graphic courtesy Living Shoreline SolutionsĪnother mandate required the two breakwaters to collectively foster nearly six acres of seagrass growth, thereby earning FDOT mitigation credits for use on future projects. The WADs are placed and precisely positioned in two rows in order to both attenuate wave energy and foster biomass growth within each ![]()
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