Project Title: Rehabilitate Water Pumps and Motors (FFS #R1QA)

State: Oregon

Project Description: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior, has overseen the completion of a facility improvement project at the Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The project was funded using $1.14 million in stimulus dollars.

Burton Construction, Inc., a general contracting company based in Spokane, Washington, completed a rehabilitation of the Hatchery water pump and motor system, including the replacement of pumps, motors, and system control switchboards.

The old pump and motor system was replaced with a more efficient Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) system. In addition, Burton crews replaced the generator paralleling/synchronizing gear, added a harmonic filter, and performed all fabrication for the refit.

“These VFDs allow for more efficient operation due to the ability to modulate pump speed based on need,” Warm Springs Supervisor Fishery Biologist Roger Sorensen said. “This improvement has become more critical as our energy supplier has notified us our electricity rates are increasing.”

In a series final tests for the refit, the new VFDs were operated at speeds varying from 15 to 60 MHz without incident, and the new 30 hp pumps and motors were operated for 20 hours, and tested using alarms and backup generators.

“The project is complete, the site is clean to preconstruction conditions, and the punch list walk through was exceptional,” Sorensen said.

Photos:

Originally posted 11/09/2009
Updated 10/11/2010
Updated 10/21/2010
Updated 11/18/2010
Updated 01/25/2011
Page Completed 04/07/2011