Engineering Solutions

Engineering isn't the sexiest of professions, so it often takes a behind-the-scene role, with engineers working through problems of surveying and mapping, storm-water management, site planning and other details while architects and builders get the glory. But some of the region's firms deserve some time in the spotlight. They have come up with innovative solutions to challenging projects, inspired by everything from nature to new technology.

"We don't design our projects always strictly by the book; we do think out of the box," says Mitch McKnight, vice president and principal at Naples-based WilsonMiller.

Projects often require complex solutions that will satisfy clients, neighbors-and permitting agencies. As they're involved with shopping centers, hospitals, residential communities, resorts, schools and new roads, some of the region's firms have become multifaceted, employing not only engineers but also land planners, landscape architects, ecologists, water experts, environmental specialists, transportation designers and others.

As 2006 marks milestones for three local firms-60 years for Johnson Engineering, 50 years for WilsonMiller and 40 years for Hole Montes-Gulfshore Business asked them and one other area company about projects that required their most creative solutions.

THE WORM TURNS FOR COASTAL ENGINEERING CONSULTANTS

Coastal Engineering Consultants looked to nature in designing the marina for the Windstar subdivision in Naples.

A major concern from the state Department of Environmental Protection was water quality, says David Weston, vice president and chief financial officer. Marinas are traditionally designed by carving out a chunk of land to make a basin, but that also creates dead ends, and Coastal Engineering was struggling to come up with a good design that would flush the water naturally. "We were kind of stuck," Weston says.

That is, until firm co-founder Michael Stephen was flipping through an issue of Scientific American magazine and noticed an article about tube worms. The article described how the creatures generated water movement by digging their homes, creating cones of low pressure. "These tube worms would force water to flow through a U-shaped cut to keep it flushed and clean for their habitat," Weston says.

The relationship between pressure exerted by a moving liquid and velocity stems back to Bernoulli's Principle, named after the Swiss physicist Daniel Bernoulli, who lived in the 1700s. According to the principle, an increase in velocity of moving liquid occurs simultaneously with a decrease in pressure. "Why wouldn't the same scientific principal work for a marina to keep the water nice and fresh?" Stephen and Weston asked.

"It was simple and brilliant-just like nature can be," Weston says.

So they designed a U-shaped marina to simulate the cone and create the high pressure and flushing motion of the channel. Permitting agencies were not on board at first. But after Coastal submitted the article, "they were immediately struck as well by the simplicity and uniqueness and the great functionality of it," Weston says.

The project was permitted in two weeks-

unheard of, says Weston. Creating a U-shaped marina was no more difficult than traditional marina designs, Weston says. "It was just odd," he says. "Everyone usually dug one big [channel instead of two]. Then you'd tell them, 'there's a tube-worm design.'" The marina, which is adjacent to Naples Bay, was

completed in 1994. Weston says this now is a

well-respected principle in marina design.

"You can use your slide rule until you're blue in the face. Sometimes the best solutions are in nature to be adapted," he says. "The trick is to be open to those creative solutions."

Founded: 1977

Employees: 47 full time, one part time

President and CEO: Michael Stephen

Offices: Naples, LaBelle; Baton Rouge, La.

Other notable projects: Naples Bay Mangrove Restoration, Marco Island Beach Restoration, Collier County Beach Restoration, South Pointe Yacht Club

Web site: www.coastalengineering.com

HOLE MONTES GOT SCENT-SITIVE

Hole Montes found itself in a stinky situation when it was chosen to expand one of Collier County's largest regional wastewater treatment plants, located in the Lely area. Frustrated with the odor, safety issues relating to the use of chlorine gas cylinders and lights shining in their yards, residents fought hard to stop the expansion, says Ron Benson, principal and senior vice president.

"The first thing we really needed to do was work with various homeowners associations and the county," he says. "We were going to have to go to things that were not conventional to address their concerns."

The South County Water Reclamation Facility, which is located between Warren Street and Wildflower Way south of St. Andrews Boulevard, had an open aeration basin measuring approximately 320 feet by 260 feet that was originally constructed close to homes. The firm decided the best move was to abandon part of the facility and build a high-tech facility on the same property but farther from the homes. The new, state-of-the-art, covered aeration basin measuring 75 feet by 210 feet was completed in 1998.

In the old process, a rotating horizontal brush would cause a mist of odors. "When the air would blow in the right direction, it would just blow in someone's back yard," Benson says. "Part of the process was kind of spraying this material up in the air in such a way that it would tend to blow."

In an unusual move, Hole Montes decided to cover the aeration basin with aluminum, and the air was passed through a two-stage chemical scrubber to remove the odor-causing compounds. That involves blowing a mist of chemicals through to rid the air of the smell.

Both phases of the project, which concluded with expanding the facility, cost a total of $60 million. It began in 1995 and took nearly a decade to complete. "It's a facility that has gone beyond the norm as far as being neighbor-friendly for odor control," says Benson.

Founded: 1966

Employees: 135

President: Thomas Taylor

Offices: Naples, Fort Myers, Venice

Notable projects: Coconut Pointe, TECO (now Germain) Arena, Vineyards, Pelican Sound, Useppa Island, Boca Bay

Web site: www.holemontes.com

WILSONMILLER CALMED TROUBLED WATERS

WilsonMiller needed to find a way to keep homes along Phillippi Creek in Sarasota County from flooding again. In November 1997, 106 homes were damaged in the Bahia Vista Street-Lockwood Ridge Road area-the largest concentration of homes prone to flooding in the county. Some residents living at low elevations had suffered from flooding three times since 1992.

A year after the 1997 flood, the county asked WilsonMiller to recommend a solution to alleviate flooding impacts. The firm had to demonstrate through hydrologic models that it wouldn't increase flood stages greater than 0.01 feet and could develop a practical solution in one of the county's most urban areas.

Computer models of the 56-square-mile drainage basin took 24 hours to run and took into account things like rainfall distribution and frequency. Vice president Mitch McKnight says they continually had to tweak design elements, run the program overnight and wait for the results. "We did it over 100 times in the course of the year," he says.

In its design of the Phillippi Creek levee, WilsonMiller integrated a half-mile-long earthen berm, a new gravity storm-water system, a five-acre pond, referred to as a "parallel storage facility," a large-scale pump station, and expansion and incorporation of ponds on a vacant nine-acre parcel. It took the acquisition and demolition of 31 homes on the northwest side of Phillippi Creek to construct the 2,600-foot-long levee.

Adding to the project's complexity were environmentally sensitive lands and the residential density, which allowed little open land for an oversized pump station and associated pond storage.

New storm sewers around the perimeter of the residential area were designed to divert run-off by gravity. Automatic flap gates prevent flood levels from backing up into the low-lying area. Run-off that cannot drain by gravity through the levee is diverted to the storm-water pump station to be pumped over the berm and back into the creek to prevent flooding around the low-lying houses. The storage facility holds additional water so that flood levels don't increase downstream.

The $5.1 million project was tested within two months of completion when a storm brought rainfall reaching a 100-year flood level in June 2003. Nobody was flooded.

"It worked," McKnight says. "They were ecstatic. It's a very complex drainage system. Everybody had their doubts about whether it would truly work, and it did."

In addition, the project has helped raise property values. The company reports that one resident stated that her property value increased by $40,000 in a year's time, according to records from the Sarasota County Property Appraiser's Office.

Founded: 1956

Employees: 570

CEO and chairman: Alan D. Reynolds

President: Fermin A. Diaz

Offices: Naples, Fort Myers, Port Charlotte, Destin, Panama City Beach, Tallahassee, Tampa, Sarasota, north Tampa/Pasco, LaBelle

Notable projects: Collier County Rural Land Stewardship Area overlay, Florida Lakewood Ranch (Manatee County), Florida RiverCamps on Crooked Creek (Bay County), Florida Lemon Avenue improvements (Sarasota County)

Web site: www.wilsonmiller.com

JOHNSON ENGINEERING TAMED WATER-AND BIRDS

In competing to win the job of designing the drainage system at the new Midfield Terminal at Southwest Florida International Airport, Johnson Engineering already had a compelling, unique idea. The plan was to design a drainage system-tied to the large bridge on I-75 between Daniels and Alico roads-that would lower the peak flood level brought by big storms by two feet or more below current levels. The design promised to save millions of dollars.