Nova Scotia town chooses geosynthetic
floating covers
By Brian Fraser,
Layfield Environmental Systems Ltd.
Cover under construction.
Completed cover filled with water.
Rain water sump.
The Town of Middleton in Nova
Scotia recently completed a
project to provide a new cover
system for their existing
1,000,000-gallon potable water storage
reservoir.
The SGE Group in Halifax reviewed
various options for covering the reservoir
including rigid roof structures,
pitched timber roofs and flexible floating
synthetic covers.After determining
that a 45 mil reinforced polypropylene
flexible floating cover system was the
best choice for this project, Layfield
Environmental Systems was awarded a
contract to manufacture and install a 45
mil reinforced polypropylene floating
cover system.
The design of the cover system was
particularly challenging because rainwater
trapped on the cover needed to
be channeled to a dewatering pump system.
The floating cover system also
needed to function at various operating
levels depending on the elevation of the
water in the reservoir.
Requisite performance properties for
the floating cover membrane included:
cold temperature flexibility, NSF 61 certification,
UV resistance, and suitable
tensile strength. The polypropylene
floating cover supplied by Layfield met
all of these rigorous requirements. The
floating cover system was based on a
defined sump design and included strategically
placed attached foam floats,
sand filled ballast tubes, four air vents,
one access hatch and mechanical anchorage
around the perimeter of the
cover.
The project took approximately six
days to complete.
Municipalities across North America
are increasingly using geosynthetic
floating covers to help prevent evaporation,
reduce contamination, reduce
treatment costs and to improve overall
water quality.
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