Geo-Foundations routinely develops and implements advanced technologies and techniques for use in specialty geotechnical construction. From our successful elimination of a 100-metre deep, 2,205 L/sec inflow in Missouri, to our pioneering role in establishing a strong local micropile market, to our part in the construction of the Niagara Tunnel Project, Geo-Foundations has built a reputation for innovation along with reliable and consistent on-site performance.
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Sask Power owns and operates Island Falls Generating Station, located in northern Saskatchewan, at the end of a long and lonely dirt road 3 hours’ drive northwest of Flin Flon, Manitoba. Geo-Foundations completed the construction of 107 post-tensioned multi-strand rock anchors and 228 passive rock dowels as part of a major renovation to the site’s existing concrete infrastructure. The project site was comprised of two existing dams: Main Dam, adjacent to the Powerhouse and consisting of the spillway, ice sluice and under sluice; and A-Dam, the spillway control structure. More »
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McArthur Falls Generating Station is located 120 km northeast of Winnipeg, near Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba. Construction of the 8-unit station was completed in 1954 and it has a generating capacity of 55 MW when water conditions are ideal. McArthur Falls is ranked as the station with the world’s largest hydroelectric capacity operating with the lowest head – just 7 metres waterfall. More »
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The formal opening of the new Queen’s University School of Medicine took place to great fanfare in September 2011. Sixteen months earlier, crews were putting the finishing touches on 74 high capacity rock anchors designed and constructed by Geo-Foundations. More »
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Geo-Foundations spent the fall and winter of 2009-2010 in Estevan, Saskatchewan working around the clock to construct rock anchors for a spillway remediation project at Sask Power's Boundary Dam. With a limited window available for the demolition and reconstruction of the entire spillway slab prior to the arrival of the next spring frechette, stopping the rock anchor work to avoid the bitter prairie winter weather was not an option. More »
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Originally built as a railway bridge by Canadian Pacific Railway between 1898 and 1901, Alexandra Bridge carries vehicle and pedestrian traffic over the Ottawa River between Ottawa and Hull, Quebec. Geo-Foundations’ crews spent several months of night shifts in 2009 installing high capacity rock anchors to reinforce the 5-span truss bridge structure’s resistance to seismic loading. More »
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Kelsey Generating Station (GS) is located 680 km north of Winnipeg, and was the first Manitoba Hydro generating station to be built on the Nelson River. The station was constructed between 1957 and 1961 to supply electricity to the City of Thompson and the International Nickel Company’s local mining and smelting operations. Kelsey GS has a current generating capacity of 211 MW with the potential for three additional units to be added in the future to increase capacity to 464 MW. More »
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BC Hydro's Ruskin Hydroelectric Generating Station is located in Mission, British Columbia. Constructed in 1930, the 105-megawatt station is part of the Alouette-Stave-Ruskin hydroelectric system. The first phase of the Ruskin Dam Seismic Upgrade and Powerhouse Improvement Project - seismic anchoring of the crest block - was completed by Geo-Foundations in the autumn of 2007. More »
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Brookfield Power owns and operates several hydroelectric generating facilities on the Montreal River near Wawa, Ontario. In the late summer of 2006, one of these structures, McPhail Dam, was the recipient of an upgrade that consisted of installation of post-tensioned rock anchors in each of its three spillway piers. More »
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London Street Generating Station, owned and operated by Peterborough Utilities Inc, is a 1900s era structure on the Ottanabee River just upstream of downtown Peterborough. Its spillway bays are divided from one another by 12 piers. In 2006, as part of PUI's ongoing program to upgrade its numerous generating facilities, 24 post-tensioned rock anchors - two for each of the dam's 12 piers - were installed by Geo-Foundations. More »
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Thirsk Reservoir is located in the picturesque Okanagan Lakes district, near Summerland, B.C. As part of the 2006 project to expand reservoir capacity and rehabilitate the reservoir's arch dam, Geo-Foundations constructed 166 post-tensioned, multi-strand and solid bar rock anchors amidst very challenging conditions. More »
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Laurie River Generating Stations #1 & #2 are located 60 km south of Lynn Lake in northwestern Manitoba. The two stations originally went into operation in the 1950s to supply Sherritt Gordon's mining operations in the area. Laurie River GS #2 has the capacity to generate up to five megawatts of hydroelectric power. More »
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In 2005, Geo-Foundations spent nine months at BC Hydro's Blind Slough Dam drilling and installing over 3,600 dowels rock anchors. The major component of this rehabilitation and seismic retrofit project was the construction of 71 large, deep, rock anchors. More »
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Minden Generating Station is a four-megawatt hydroelectric generation facility located at the old Workman' Falls site in Minden, Ontario. The station was built in the late 1930s, and is owned and operated by Orillia Power Generation Corporation. In early 2002, Geo-Foundations was awarded a two-year contract to rehabilitate the dam structure as part of Orillia Power's strong ongoing commitment to safety. More »
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Over a 13-month period spanning most of 2002 and into 2003, Geo-Foundations completed its second large anchoring project at the 90-year-old Pointe du Bois Generating Station. This $3.5M project involved anchoring the East Forebay Wall and Spillway Bays 121 through 133. More »
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Pine Falls Generating Station, owned by Manitoba Hydro, includes amongst its structures a gravity wall that connects the powerhouse to the spillway. In 2001, an upgrade repair project was designed and tendered that prescribed the installation of 39 solid bar rock anchors, each to design load 633 kN. More »
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Over a five-month period at the end of 2000, Geo-Foundations successfully completed a complex project that included the installation and stressing of high capacity strand anchors to tie down the 90-year old powerhouse structure at Pointe du Bois Generating Station in eastern Manitoba. More »
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The city of Wabush, in Labrador, is a bustling hub fuelled by the mining and pulp & paper industries, and traffic jams during rush hour are not uncommon. As part of the infrastructure expansion required to keep up with the town’s growth, a grade separation was constructed in 2011 to create a 2-lane underpass for NL Route 500, with the Wabush Mines / loom Lake Railway passing above. More »
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Nova Scotia’s Highway 104 is the main artery for vehicular traffic connecting Cape Breton with Truro and all points in between. As part of their mandate, Nova Scotia Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (TIR) is methodically converting the original 2-lane right of way into 4 lanes of divided highway. One of the last few stretches of Hwy 104 not yet expanded is located near Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and includes the West River Bridge. More »
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Toronto’s historic Union Station covers an entire downtown city block and is one of the busiest commuter rail terminals in North America. An ambitious renovation and expansion of the facility began in 2010 with completion scheduled for 2015. A key element of the project is the construction of a new retail concourse below the existing railway viaduct structure. The viaduct is to remain in full service during the project. More »
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Home to the world famous Polar Bear Express, the Ontario Northland Railway (ONR) passes through several hundred kilometres of wild and pristine northern landscape, extending all the way north to Moosonee, on the shore of James Bay. Near Smooth Rock Falls, at Mile 36.0 of the ONR's Island Falls Subdivision, is Trappers' Creek Bridge, a 1920's vintage, 7-span steel structure. Prior to a major repair designed by Hatch and undertaken in 2010, the bridge's southernmost bent was supported by 2 shallow-founded concrete pedestals that had settled and rotated out of plumb. These pedestals were replaced with 3 new pile caps supported on micropiles constructed by Geo-Foundations under subcontract to Sema Inc. More »
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In contemplating foundation options for the twinning of Highway 7 over the Scugog River, Ontario's Ministry of Transport (MTO) had for years struggled with a dilemma: shallow foundations, that would not jeopardize the existing bridge footings, would not suffice to meet stringent new design codes (particularly with respect to scour), and a conventional deep foundation, while meeting code, would almost certainly disturb or damage the existing structure. More »
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Prior to 2008, Toronto’s Morningside Avenue was restricted by a decades-old, single lane underpass at its crossing of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). A grade separation to create a six-lane subway beneath the CPR necessitated construction of seven new, deep-founded structures: 2 abutments, 1 pier and 4 retaining walls. These structures are all supported by micropile foundations designed and constructed by Geo–Foundations.
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Meno-Ya-Win Health Centre is a new hospital development situated in Sioux Lookout, Ontario. When completed in 2010, the new hospital will service northwest Ontario with 60 beds accompanied by emergency, surgery and other acute care facilities. The new hospital structure is framed by cast-in-place concrete founded partly on spread footings on rock and partly on drilled, rock-socketed piles. More »
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The Art Gallery of Ontario's various galleries, collection vaults, and administrative offices are housed within a mix of structures dating from the 1910's, 1920's, 1970's and 1990's. The AGO's most recent major renovation, Transformation AGO, designed by famed architect Frank Gehry, required structural modifications to and within structures from each of the AGO's past periods of construction. More »
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During six weeks of extremely hot weather in the summer of 2005, Geo-Foundations installed a total of 70 micropiles to support and tie down the new Pembroke Courthouse. More »
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Canadian Pacific Railway's Nipigon River Bridge, located 125 km east of Thunder Bay on one of Canada's principal east-west rail corridors, is a 24-metre high structure built in the late 19th century and founded on timber piles. With the continued reliability of the original foundations in question, CPR tendered a contract in 2004 that included construction of 100 micropiles to permanently support the bridge's three piers. More »
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Opened for business early in 2006, the mixed use Bay Dundas Development in Toronto, which includes a Canadian Tire retail store and the Ryerson School of Business, is supported by a deep foundation system consisting partially of micropiles designed and constructed by Geo-Foundations. More »
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The new Hot Zone exhibit at the Ontario Science Centre is designed to be the hub of a $12M expansion at the famous education-themed Toronto attraction. The renovation required to accommodate this expansion includes new structural steel framing within and above an existing interior space. More »
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The AHL's Toronto Marlboros play their home games on the grounds of the CNE at Ricoh Coliseum, a 1920s-era covered arena converted over a span of just 10 months in 2003 by a $38M refit into a state-of-the-art 10,000-seat entertainment complex. More »
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The former Tip Top Tailors building on Lakeshore Road is a classic example of art-deco architecture, and one of the most recognized heritage structures in all of Toronto. The circa-1929 building was converted, starting in 2003, into luxury condominium units known as "tip top lofts". More »
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Geo-Foundations, as design-builder, has constructed an innovative slope stabilization scheme for rail operator CN at a site south of St. Catharines, Ontario. At Mile 10.74 of CN's Grimsby Subdivision, just below grade on the south slope of a 15-metre high earth embankment, there now exists a 62-metre long reinforced concrete beam. More »
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Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga, Ontario will soon enjoy three new levels of parking built on top of the existing 3-level P1 elevated parking structure. The foundation reinforcing necessary for this vertical expansion was completed by Geo-Foundations during six weeks of work between 2003 and 2004. More »
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A former electrical sub-station in the Junction District of West Toronto underwent site remediation for PCB and hydrocarbon contamination in order to permit re-development. The Remediation Plan called for installation of a braced interlocking (secant) caisson wall excavation support system around the site perimeter, followed by excavation of contaminated soils to a depth of 6 m below grade. In the course of identifying and removing abandoned subsurface utilities prior to caisson drilling, the remediation contractor, Priestly Demolition Inc. (PDI) discovered a live electrical duct bank within the site footprint. The duct bank serviced an adjacent heritage building and could not be taken out of service or relocated. The caisson wall alignment had to be modified to avoid damaging the duct bank thus leaving a zone of contaminated soil below the duct bank. In order to satisfy Ontario Ministry of Environment requirements, an alternative means of remediating this contaminated zone was required. More »
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Geo-Foundations constructed a set of jet grouted soil-cement columns to form a portion of an environmental barrier wall at a large remediation project in Toronto in 2008. The project as a whole was undertaken to remove contaminated soils above the water table, to treat impacted soils below the water table and to construct a deep perimeter containment structure in order to immobilize remnant contamination and eliminate future migration of contaminants. More »
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The York District Sanitary Sewer Interceptor in Richmond Hill, Ontario, is a tunnel, at some places 28 metres below surface, constructed by McNally Construction Inc. The tunnel was excavated using a tunnel boring machine and has six deep shafts over its 4.3 km length. Soils surrounding two of the six shafts were treated by Geo-Foundations with double fluid jet grouting. More »
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Geo-Foundations was contracted by CN Rail in 2006 to create a system for rapidly installing grout-flushed soil nails into an existing embankment supporting a twin railroad overlooking Sunfish Pond in Burlington, Ontario. The soil nailing was a key component in the design for upgrading and stabilizing the embankment prior to its being expanded to host a third rail. More »
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A 250-metre long section of the CN Rail line near Dundas, Ontario was stabilized by Geo-Foundations using a soil nailing system designed for CN by Alston Associates. More »
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CN's Fairchild Creek Viaduct, which fords a valley with a creek at its base, is founded on groups of piers on spread foundations. The pier groups ascend the valley slopes on both sides of the creek. Creek bank erosion over many decades had decreased the factor of safety of the pier foundations on the south slope below acceptable limits. More »
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The original village centre on Wilson Street of historic, Ancaster, Ontario, is filled with trendy boutiques, cafes, and shops housed in 1850’s era stone and wood structures. The 249 Wilson St. W. site slopes toward the Dundas Valley with a 7 metre elevation variation from the highest to lowest point. A proposed expansion of the existing commercial space featured construction of a multi-story building and parking garage at the rear of the site. Excavation depths up to 10 metres below street grade and 5 metres below existing foundations were required, and the proposed excavation extended to within 2 metres of an adjacent property. More »
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Mississauga's City Centre neighbourhood includes City Hall, Square One shopping centre and more than 30 residential towers. A new addition to the concentration of condominium buildings in the neighbourhood is The Conservatory Group’s Widesuites Condominiums, located one block south of Burnhamthorpe Avenue on Hurontario Street and constructed with the aid of anchored shotcrete excavation support by Geo-Foundations. More »
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The new Lowe's of York at Caledonia and Castlefield is the anchor store of a new, multi-outlet retail complex in the heart of Toronto's interior design district. A 206-metre long, varying height, anchored shotcrete wall constructed by Geo-Foundations separates the grades between the rear laneway behind Lowe's and the neighboring properties to the north and east. More »
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Toronto Western Hospital's complex at Bathurst and Dundas Streets includes a new 10-storey wing on a site recently occupied by a courtyard and subterranean service tunnel. Geo-Foundations constructed a 5-metre deep anchored shotcrete wall to underpin a gridline of spread footings supporting an existing 8-storey wing of the hospital and to shore the balance of the deep excavation required for the construction of a stairwell out from the original underground parking garage, up and into the new tower's ground floor. More »
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The University of Western Ontario's new animal research facility is a 5,000 square metre, 2-storey structure built into the side of a hill. The building's construction was made possible by a 6-metre high, 600 square metre face permanent anchored shotcrete wall constructed by Geo-Foundations. More »
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The Renaissance ROM project, featuring the new Michael Lee Chin Chrystal designed by architect Daniel Liebskind, rises above Bloor Street in Toronto in dramatic fashion. Part of the excavation required to construct this new addition to the 90-year old ROM was made possible by permanent anchored shotcrete underpinning constructed by Geo-Foundations. More »
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Expansion in 2001 of an existing assembly line at Toyota's Cambridge, Ontario automobile manufacturing plant required the construction of a new 3-metre deep pit within the midst of the engine dress up line. An aggressive shutdown schedule, coupled with restricted access and unknown sub-surface conditions highlighted the numerous challenges of this design- build excavation shoring project. More »
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Toronto's Pearson International Airport was the recipient of a multi-year, multi-billion dollar redevelopment of the entire airport infrastructure during the two half decades book-ending the end of the twentieth century. The area's comprehensive network of stormwater interceptor reservoirs includes Aeroquay Stormwater Management Facility that lies hidden underground beneath busy Aeroquay Crescent. More »
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The most distinct feature of Lonestar's Cape Girardeau property is its 300-foot deep quarry where limestone is mined and conveyed a short distance to the plant where it is used in the manufacture of cement. More »
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In December of 1998, Geo-Foundations concluded the seventh phase of hot bitumen grouting at a very challenging inflow reduction project at a limestone aggregate quarry in West Virginia. Before commencement of grouting work in late 1997, the underground water flow from a nearby river into the quarry was estimated to be as great as 2,800 L/sec (45,000 USGPM). Upon conclusion of the project, the quarry inflow from the river source was completely eliminated. More »
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At Bruce Nuclear Generating Station near Tiverton, Ontario, the construction of a deep geologic repository (DGR) is being considered by Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) for the long term storage of low and medium level radioactive water. As part of the feasibility study for the DGR, Geo-Foundations was busy from June through October 2011 working day and night performing drilling and grouting of 200-metre deep holes for Phase 1 of a deep grouting trial being executed to determine parameters for the pre-treatment of the underlying rock formation prior to excavation of the proposed DGR shafts. More »
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In late summer of 2008 Geo-Foundations mobilized to northern Saskatchewan to undertake a trial grouting program at the McLean Lake Uranium Mine. The mine, operated by multinational Areva Resources, is located 830 km north of Saskatoon and is home to a permanent dry camp to accommodate mine workers and contractors. The McLean Lake site includes several open pit mines, but some of the known resource is located at depths that are more suitable to traditional underground mining. More »
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Ongoing strong demand for clean, renewable electricity in Ontario, Canada resulted in the creation of the Niagara Tunnel Project. Due to be commissioned in 2013, the new 10.4 kilometre long, 14-metre diameter Niagara Tunnel was built with the help of the world's largest hard rock tunnel boring machine, "Big Becky". The tunnel was advanced from downstream to upstream. When Big Becky broke through in 2010 into the tunnel's 45-metre deep intake shaft in the middle of the river just upstream from Niagara Falls, conditions were suitably dry for its safe dismantling and extraction thanks to the presence of a grout curtain designed and constructed in 2007 by Geo-Foundations. More »
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A 1950's era, six storey office tower in midtown Toronto, supported on spread footings and damaged by the action of a deep excavation on a neighbouring lot, was the subject of a major soil permeation grouting contract undertaken by Geo-Foundations in 2009. Although close to half of the grouting work was staged from outside the building using angled holes to target the soils beneath four of the undermined/ potentially jeopardized footings, the majority of the work had to take place inside the cramped quarters of the mechanical room deep in the bowels of the building's basement. More »
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One component of the City of Ottawa's ongoing strategy to upgrade its critical infrastructure is the improvement of several overflow chambers making up part of the City's combined storm/sanitary sewer system. More »
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Geo-Foundations, in joint venture with Soletanche Inc., completed a $1.6M contract for soil permeation grouting as part of the Edmonton South LRT extension in 2003. Grouting was incorporated into the tunnel construction scheme to consolidate deposits of outwash sands prior to their intersection by the tunnel excavation. More »
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When the perimeter spread footing of a 1970's era mid-rise located in midtown Toronto were undermined by a neighbour's deep excavation, the options for remediation came down to micropiles or compaction grouting. Due to the cohesionless character of the foundation soils (compaction grouting works best in self-draining soils) and the relatively shallow zone of disturbance, compaction grouting was chosen for its expeditiousness and cost effectiveness, and Geo-Foundations was selected to carry out the compaction grouting on a unit rate contract basis. More »
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Toronto's news media outlets were abuzz one afternoon in the summer of 2006 after a garbage truck was partially swallowed by a large sinkhole that developed in a back alley laneway in midtown Toronto. The laneway dates to the 19th century and in the weeks following the drama, investigations determined that the sinkhole was caused by a combination of poor initial construction, layers of organic soils underlying the surface paving and, most predominantly, a leaky sewer. More »
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The intersection of Jane & Highway 7 in Vaughan was closed from February to May of 2006 after a manhole within the intersection collapsed and caused a water main to break. The eventually vast scope of repairs at this site, which included multiple deep excavations and several completely reconstructed sewers, included compaction grouting by Geo-Foundations to restore density and stiffness to a disturbed soil layer beneath the intersection. More »
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During the jack-and-bore excavation of a tunnel beneath an existing railway, extremely challenging soil and groundwater conditions led to the over-excavation of soil. Several months after the sewer tunnel had been constructed, subsidence of the rails was detected. After more months of monitoring the settlement, it was determined that remedial intervention measures would have to be undertaken to arrest the settlement. Compaction grouting was chosen as the method best suited to affecting the desired improvement while accommodating ongoing daily passenger rail service. More »
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The intersection of Jane & Highway 7 in Vaughan was closed from February to May of 2006 after a manhole within the intersection collapsed and caused a water main to break. The eventually vast scope of repairs at this site, which included multiple deep excavations and several completely reconstructed sewers, included compaction grouting by Geo-Foundations to restore density and stiffness to a disturbed soil layer beneath the intersection. More »
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In Northern Ontario's picturesque Ouimet Canyon, work is now complete at the 43-turbine Greenwich Lake Wind project. Working for project developer Renewable Engergy Systems, Geo-Foundations’ crews spent the fall and winter of 2010-2011 drilling, installing, grouting and post-tensioning 688 multi-strand rock anchors to act as the key components of the turbine foundations. More »
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Deep at the bottom of Lake Ontario sits the foundation for Toronto Hydro Energy Services’ research anemometer tower. The tower’s principal foundation feature consists of post-tensioned rock anchors constructed from atop a temporary platform during a brief calm weather period in March 2010 by Geo-Foundations Contractors Inc. More »
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The view looking across Lake Ontario towards Wolfe Island from the campus of Queen’s University in Kingston, ON, changed considerably starting in the spring of 2009 when 86 wind turbines began to be erected atop foundations built during the previous fall and winter. More »
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Canada's Library of Parliament, located on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, has been designated by Public Works as the country's foremost heritage structure. More »
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The wharf at Britt Harbour, located at the mouth of the Magnetawan River on Georgian Bay, receives tanker ships from the Great Lakes to supply CP Rail's Britt fueling bunkers. The existing wooden wharf, destroyed by fire in 2003, was replaced in the summer of 2004 by McNally Construction of Hamilton. The new wharf is founded on 37 rock-socketed, 406 diameter pipe piles, installed by McNally and Geo-Foundations. More »
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The Maid of the Mist Steamboat Company has operated continuously, in one form or another, since 1876, providing tourists with unparalleled closeup views of Niagara Falls. In 2002, the company installed new winches on the Canadian side of the Niagara Gorge for transferring their six-boat fleet into and out of the river. More »
