Restoring A Critical Estuarine Habitat

As the first part of the Indian River Lagoon South Restoration Project and part of the greater Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the C-44 Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area Project will reverse the damaging effects of nutrient-loading and unnaturally large freshwater discharges into these ecologically vital water bodies. By travelling through a 3,400-acre, 4.5-metre-deep reservoir and 6,300 acres of stormwater treatment areas, the water will traverse constructed wetlands for sedimentation and nutrient reduction.

The C-44 Pump Station, known as S-401, is a 2,688 million litres per day capacity pump station that provides water from the St. Lucie River, also known as the C-44 Canal, to the C-44 50,600 acre-feet of storage capacity reservoir. The project was located about six kilometres north of the C-44 Canal and included design and construction of the pump station, 183 metres of the 61-metre-wide intake canal to connect to the canal constructed by others, and all the associated roads, swales, drains, instrumentation and utilities with these features.

The pump station is comprised of four 3-phase medium-voltage electric, 1,700 hp pump motor, low-head lift 560 million litres per day pumps. The other connection point for the pump station to the broader C-44 Project is to the reservoir, where four 198-centimetre discharge pipes connect are buried within the embankment to discharge flow into the reservoir.

At the start of construction, a physical model was constructed at a Hydraulics Laboratory to test the flow capability of the formed suction intakes. Additionally, prior to delivery and installation, a scaled-down version of the final pumps required a factory acceptance test. Due to the size of the pump, the actual pumps could not be tested at the factory. As an alternate, a scaled pump that was hydraulically similar to the manufactured pumps was tested at the Hydraulic Laboratory.

The pump station includes a vacuum-assisted pump priming system that was designed to be locally operated with remote monitoring by the South Florida Water Management District, and all associated equipment and controls can be operated locally.