Taylors Contracting is in the running for a global award for its Challies Island Bridge project. The International Erosion Control Association (IECA) Award for Innovation or Education to the Erosion and Sediment Control Industry will be presented in April in Virginia, USA.
This follows the project winning the category award presented by the Australasian Chapter of the IECA at its annual conference in Queenstown last month.
Taylors Contracting’s award-winning entry involved the construction of a 30-metre moveable bridge across the Waimea River at Challies Island in Tasman.
The bridge, which was manufactured by Eastbridge, allows 80-tonne, laden, rigid dump trucks to cross the river and transport extracted gravel from a nearby Fulton Hogan quarry site, without vehicles coming into contact with the water, thus eliminating sediment discharge. The bridge can be removed in 48 hours if a major flood is predicted.
IECA’s Australasian chapter award judges praised Taylors’ entry for its “very good use of a collaborative approach between parties for mutually beneficial outcome”, its ability to “not only use the bridge as a model, but to re-use the bridge at the next project”, and the way that the project demonstrated “good innovation and the ability to reuse materials whilst minimising the disturbance to undertake the activity.”
The IECA Awards programme’s mission is to recognise outstanding achievements in erosion and sediment control and to celebrate these with the wider community. The organisation has a strong focus on encouraging innovative solutions that effectively halt the spread of sediment, safeguarding our environment and ensuring sustainable land and water management practices.
IECA Australasian chapter members have gone on to win at the global IECA awards in the past.
“We are very proud to have won the award,” says Taylors Contracting CEO Charlie Taylor. “This project exemplifies the thinking and innovation that goes into designing solutions that meet the needs of our communities and our environment, while enabling us to access the resources we need to keep vital infrastructure projects moving forward.
“We were particularly proud to have the strong endorsement of our project partners Fulton Hogan and the Tasman District Council. For them to see us as raising the bar for contractors in our sector generally means a great deal to us.”
Parting words from Jeremy Sole- a final column