Our team at Port Nelson’s Main North Wharf Replacement Project in New Zealand’s South Island, had a welcome visit from a pod of orcas who dropped by our work site while chasing stingray. Orca are regular visitors to Nelson and Tasman region.

We take our responsibilities to marine wildlife seriously and follow stringent protocol when working in sensitive marine environments. The project team’s priority was to ensure the safety of the orca while they were visiting the port and we will have a dedicated marine mammal observer to ensure the protection of marine mammals as we move to the next phase of the project.

This is an exciting project for McConnell Dowell, Port Nelson and the Nelson-Tasman-Marlborough region. The century-old 2400sqm Main Wharf North had not been used since 2016 and once demolished will be replaced with a new concrete and steel berthing facility that will be operational by late 2020.

To read more about the project click here 

We are pleased to announce that we have been named a finalist in the Health and Safety Initiative Category for the 2019 Minerals Sector Awards. The entry covers our Rockfall Risk Management on the Sumner Road Rebuild project. The winning entry with the strongest overall demonstration in excellence in a health and safety initiative, will be announced at the Minerals Forum Gala Dinner, in Dunedin at the end of May 2019.

Sumner Road, a vital link between the Lyttelton and Sumner communities and Lyttelton Port and Christchurch, was left impassable due to significant rockfall during the 2011 earthquakes. Christchurch City Council and the NZ Transport Agency engaged McConnell Dowell to undertake geotechnical remediation works to reopen the road.

Working 300m above sea level and within the Port Hill’s rugged landscape, this project required careful logistics planning and vigilant attention to safety. As a team we developed a methodology to take the guesswork out of rockfall events and triggers enabling us to manage the risk more confidently and significantly reduce risk to workers and lost time to programme.

 “The Rockfall Observation Register and Rockfall Response Decision Matrix gave us more confidence around our decision making. We continually calibrated and refined the response model to ensure that our responses to trigger events were as appropriate as possible. Since the model also recorded each response decision, we were also defining response precedents that could be referred back to in the future. In the beginning, we were more reactive. With the Rockfall Response Decision Matrix, we could quantitatively analyse the risk before sending our people out to work.” Sumner Road Contractor’s Representative Marianne Rogers

 Sumner Road Remediation Project

MATES in Construction is a charity seeking to address and improve awareness of the significant over-representation of construction workers in suicide statistics. 
McConnell Dowell has been rolling out suicide awareness training across all its projects, with the aim to reduce the stigma around mental health in the workplace, educate the workers and connect them to the best available help and support.

There are many factors that contribute to suicide risk in the industry, including work-related stress, long hours, job insecurity and factors outside of work like relationship breakdowns, grief, children and financial problems. However, one of the biggest factors is a culture of not discussing problems with someone like family members, friends or mates, and not seeking help.

McConnell Dowell offers this training to all employees of all levels in the hierarchy. This programme informs the staff of the importance of being supportive to your colleagues within the workplace/industry and to provide an environment that encourages positive wellbeing.

For more information about MATES in Construction go to https://mates.net.nz/

We are pleased to announce that Section 11 of the Hūnua 4 watermain project awarded by Watercare to McConnell Dowell in October last year is well underway and on programme to begin tunnelling in mid-2019.

McConnell Dowell was engaged to design and build the final section of the pipeline, Section 11, from Manukau Road to the Khyber Pass Reservoir.  We will use state-of-the art trenchless tunnelling technology to install the majority of the 3.5km, 1.6m diameter pipe, significantly reducing impacts to the surrounding community. 

McConnell Dowell Managing Director for New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, Fraser Wyllie says that “the pipeline was designed so 80 per cent of the alignment can be tunnelled rather than trenched which will minimise disruption to traffic and property access. We are always looking for ways we can challenge our team and use our unique capabilities to our client’s advantage. On Hūnua 4 this will mean delivering the longest ever pipejack completed in New Zealand”.

The works consist of:

• Three trenched sections at the beginning, middle and end of the route. Only 50 to 75 metres of trench will be open for construction at one time to reduce impacts and better manage traffic and access.
• A 55 tonne Herrenkenecht Tunnelling Boring Machine (TBM) will be used to construct the tunnel, which at the deepest sections will run almost 30 m below ground
• The 3 m OD diameter pipeline will be tunnelled via six jacking and reception shafts
• The 1575 mm OD, spiral-welded, cement-lined steel pipe will be installed in 12 m sections and welded together in situ.

The two-year project will be completed at the end of 2020.