Stayton-based Slayden Construction, a subsidiary of global firm MWH Constructors, has broken ground on a $13.9 million project to upgrade the Willow Lake Cogeneration Facility at Salem‘s wastewater treatment plant.

The existing cogeneration system, in operation since 1988, “generates power from biogas produced as a byproduct of wastewater treatment processes,” according to the city’s website. However, the system “is at the end of its useful life and is undersized,” the city states.

A new cogeneration building will be constructed to house a Peterson-Caterpillar diesel generator for burning surplus methane and producing electricity. This new system will double the power output at Willow Lake to 1.2 megawatts. It’s expected to save the city up to $300,000 annually in energy costs.

“How the process typically works is they bring in raw sewage, clean it up and run it into the digesters,” Slayden project manager Ryan Imel said. “They’re just stomachs; they live off bacteria, and when it decomposes they start to off-gas methane. It’s a dirty, wet methane, and what they’ve found is with a little bit of effort you can treat that methane and burn it.”

Construction of the plant expansion won’t be technically difficult, Imel said.

“They use large diesel generators to burn that off-gas and make electricity for the plant,” he said. “And our project is to construct a new building for the (cogeneration) system and install a new diesel engine. That will double the output of the plant, and I believe the plant is set up to consume that power, so they power their own gear with that.”

The plant improvements also will reduce the amount of pollution released into the air by an estimated 5,000 metric tons annually.

While the construction method may be orthodox, scheduling and organization pose challenges, Imel said.

“It’s definitely a puzzle,” he said. “Because while we’re doing this, everything has to remain running. You cannot interrupt service. So a lot of that puzzle that has to be figured out before we dive in and start disconnecting things.”

Construction began earlier this month and is expected to finish by mid-summer 2020. As general contractor, Slayden will handle the entire project scope and self-perform demolition, civil, concrete, mechanical and piping work.

Project funding partners include the cities of Salem and Keizer as well as Portland General Electric and the Energy Trust of Oregon.

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Stayton-based Slayden Construction Group has been purchased by a global construction firm. MWH Constructors, a subsidiary of MWH Global, confirmed its latest acquisition Friday, though the deal became effective Jan. 1.

“While the deal was effective on the first of the year, we wanted to ensure communication was given to all clients and internal operating groups before sharing the news externally,” MWH spokeswoman Faithe Gorman-Smith wrote to the Daily Journal of Commerce. “We are formally distributing the announcement this week.”

Slayden and its 140 employees will move forward as “Slayden Constructors Inc.” Additional sale terms were not disclosed.

Slayden had $67 million in gross billings in the Portland area in 2013, the last year for which figures are available. The company was founded in 1984 and has since tackled work in a variety of sectors ranging from heavy civil to environmental. However, in recent years it has focused primarily on environmental projects – specifically dam removal, fish ladders and hatcheries, and public water and wastewater projects.

Slayden and Arizona-based Sundt are teaming up to handle general contractor duties for the $307.5 million project to replace the Sellwood Bridge. The Slayden/Sundt joint venture in January 2015 filed suit against that project’s owner, Multnomah County, for allegedly providing inaccurate information resulting in cost overruns totaling $10 million.

MWH is an offshoot of MWH Global, a Broomfield, Colo.-based environmental consultancy group with around 1,000 employees based in the U.S. and 630 in the United Kingdom.

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Multnomah County engineer Ed Wortman enjoys explaining things in simple metaphors – even the process to move a 3,400-ton steel bridge down the Willamette River.

“It’s sort of like a windshield wiper on your car,” he said. “It swings through a curve, but the arm stays straight. That’s the really tricky part about this.”

Next month, the 1,100-foot truss of the Sellwood Bridge will be moved from its current piers to a group of temporary piers slightly down river. The relocated span will become a detour bridge while a new bridge is being built.

Because of the positions of the temporary east and west approaches, the truss will be moved to a skewed alignment – the east end will be moved north about 33 feet while the west end will be moved north about 66 feet.

As a result, the room for error is slim, Wortman said.

Most bridges, including most of the major ones in Portland, are made up of several segments. But the Sellwood Bridge was built as a four-span continuous truss, meaning it’s made up of one long piece of steel.

In theory, the Sellwood Bridge could be cut up into segments and moved, but that would take extensive funding and time. And it would not necessarily make the relocationeasier or safer.

So the entire structure will be moved as a single piece, using transitional beams that will stretch from the current piers to the temporary ones. Ski-shaped “skid beams,” each about 14 feet long, will sit on top of the transitional beams and will slide the truss forward.

The truss will be pushed by 10 strategically placed hydraulic jacks moving in small increments. The jacks will simultaneously push the bridge forward, and then electronically adjust themselves to prepare for the next increment. This process will be repeated several times.

The best way to understand how the jacks operate, Wortman said, is to compare it to pushing a large cardboard box. You exert force to push the box a certain distance, and then you adjust your position to push it again.

This sliding strategy is commonly used in new bridge projects, Wortman said. It was used four years ago on the Sauvie Island Bridge replacement project, and it’s been used several times by Slayden Construction Group, the project’s general contractor.

Throughout the whole process, a series of safety, equipment and seismic checks will be done. The plan is to move the truss only a few inches at a time first. Eventually, the truss will be moved in three-foot or four-foot increments. The county and Slayden expect the move to take about 10 hours.

“It’s a bit of a guess of how long it will take, but the hope is to get it done in one day,” Wortman said. “(There will be) probably more time being devoted to checking things than there will be actual moving.”

Even with the safety checks, things could still go wrong. The truss, which was fabricated in 1924, could be severally damaged in the process by even with the simplest slip up – a hasty push or an incorrect placement on a beam, for example.

“(It) requires a lot of thought, particularly for an older and spindly truss,” said Chris Higgins, a civil-and-construction engineering professor at Oregon State University who is serving as a project consultant for Slayden Construction. “The tricky part it to make sure you maintain the geometry and don’t induce stresses into the structure for which it was not intended.”

Weather could also impact the move. If it’s too windy or rainy, the workers monitoring the move might be at risk. As a result, the transaction would have to be rescheduled.

Wortman said the chances of the bridge sliding off track or crumbling as a whole are slim; the jacks will prevent it from rolling. If any structural damage occurs, it would most likely be found as part of the safety checks.

“It’s like a big log across a creek … with rocks under its middle to support it,” Wortman said. “It’s not like it’s sliding down hill. Once it moves, it’s not going to take off on its own. It really can’t go too far or too fast.”

The bridge will be closed from Jan. 17 through Jan. 24 for the transaction. After it is relocated, more tests will be conducted to make sure the truss was not damaged during the move.

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A private investment group, consisting of a mother and her two sons, has purchased a 65-unit apartment building in Salem for $5.7 million.

Built in 2009, the Wellesley Apartments feature 37 two-bedroom and 28 three-bedroom units, which range in size from 994 to 1,180 square feet. Grayson Pounder of in Portland, who brokered the deal for both the buyers and sellers, said the three investors were looking for newer construction in the Portland area to help consolidate existing assets.

“It was a well designed, clean property close to Chemeketa and other areas in which they think they can draw a good tenant base,” Pounder said.

Pounder said roughly 20 percent of the building’s existing tenants are students at Chemeketa Community College, which is nearly adjacent to the property. He said that would be a good draw for future tenants.

Pounder said the sellers were and Moyer Construction Co.

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As construction on the Sellwood Bridge kicks off, project prime contractor Slayden/Sundt is aiming to fulfill a minimum goal for subcontracting to Disadvantaged Minority, Women and Emerging Small Businesses for the $268 million project. The construction team and Multnomah County are hosting a workshop to help minority firms with their bids on the project.

Slayden/Sundt agreed to a goal of subcontracting 20 percent of the Sellwood Bridge’s construction project to DMWESB firms—which will reach about $32 million. To help find qualified firms to fit that goal, the team is hosting a free marketing workshop that will be facilitated by .

At the workshop, employees of Slayden/Sundt will be involved in helping small businesses with their marketing pitches. The workshop will be held Jan. 9 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs, at 4134 N. Vancouver Ave. Pre-registration is required, according to the county, and can be achieved by e-mailing lois@loisdcohen.com.

“We want to let local firms know the top qualities that prime contractors look for in the sub-contractors they hire,” said Lois Cohen in a release.

Construction of a detour bridge for the Sellwood Bridge replacement began this month, and construction of a new bridge is slated to begin in January 2012.

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Multnomah County’s Sellwood Bridge replacement project will begin in full next week, as crews prepare to build the detour bridge that will hold traffic until the new bridge opens in 2015.

Crews from – will be installing river piers in December and January that will hold the detour bridge, which will use the span of the current Sellwood Bridge to hold traffic while the new bridge is being constructed, according to a press release from the county. Crews will “slide” the existing bridge span onto the new piers next summer. Construction on the new bridge will start in July 2012.

In the coming weeks, crews will make preparations for the upcoming years of construction.  Those preparations will include closing an access road to the former Staff Jennings boat store, which was acquired for the project, and the Powers Marine Park parking area, which will be replaced by the end of the project.

The $268.8 million Sellwood Bridge project is still has a $22.7 million budget gap, which the project team hopes to fill with a federal TIGER grant of that exact amount. Multnomah County will know if the project wins that grant by the end of the year.

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