Northeast Water Purification Plant Intake Pump Station

The City of Houston’s Northeast Water Purification Plant (NEWPP) Intake Pump Station (IPS) is a 30,000 square foot raw water intake building with an access bridge construction, on piling, 1,000 feet from the shore, in the middle of Lake Houston. The project added 320 million gallons per day of drinking water for the city, substantially increasing the current 80 million gallons per day of treated water capacity. This project is one part of the larger $1.765 billion design-build NEWPP expansion project.  

McCarthy’s scope included driving 30-inch diameter steel pipe piles into water with a depth of 16 feet. In addition to the pile driving component, McCarthy was tasked with cast-in-place concrete placement over water, precast concrete erection, and a large bore mechanical process piping phase that involved installing 108-inch-diameter pipe. McCarthy drove 193 steel pipe piles in total.  Underneath the main structure of the station, piles are 128 feet long. McCarthy self-performed most work scopes, such as pile driving, process equipment installation, concrete work, misc. metal installation, and earthwork.