Metairie, Louisiana is a census designated place that is near New Orleans on the southern coast of the state. Metairie sits adjacent to Lake Pontchartrain along with the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge that spans over 23 miles across the parallel trestle bridges to Mandeville.

Metairie is in Jefferson Parish, within the New Orleans metropolitan area. It has a population of 143,000 and is the largest community in the parish.

This city is home to amazing attractions including Lafrenière Park, Lakefront Trail at Clearview Blvd., La Salle Park, Airline Skate Center, Mike Miley Playground, Metairie Country Club, Pontiff Park Dog Park, and Lakeshore Playground.

The Gulf of Mexico sits just to the south of the New Orleans area and it occasionally produces major storms that hit the Louisiana coastline, where there are a variety of oil and gas refineries. Replacing and maintaining quality stormwater pump systems in this region is critical.

Exxon Mobil has a joint venture refinery that requires super-high flow stormwater pumping. Romtec Utilities was contacted to help replace the existing stormwater pump system at this refinery.

Exxon Mobil and Chalmette Refining, LLC possessed an existing stormwater pump station with a large rectangular concrete sump that required replacement.

The location made the excavation for a new pump station impractical and expensive.

They developed a plan to prefabricate a new concrete sump that would “fit” inside of the existing wet well. Romtec Utilities was contacted as the package lift station engineering firm with the necessary expertise to design, manufacture, and supply the complete lift station components.

To achieve maximum cost effectiveness, Romtec Utilities supplied three prefabricated concrete wet wells that were “tethered” together. Exxon Mobil and Chalmette Refining were able to then backfill the abandoned sump for a pragmatic and cost-effective stormwater solution.

To address the industrial stormwater concerns of coastal Louisiana, this large, precast concrete pump station was designed to meet super-high flows of runoff at this Exxon refinery.

Five vertical turbine pumps and three submersible pumps, capable of pumping 60,000 GPM, are spread across three large interconnected rectangular wet wells. This approach was much more affordable than a single poured-in-place sump, and the connection tubes make the functionality nearly identical. A robust steel baffle slows incoming stormwater at the inlet line to reduce turbulence and wear on the sump components.

As major storms come into the area, the updated stormwater pumping system can now handle super high flows without any problems.

Romtec Utilities was able to come up with a unique way to solve the replacement of this stormwater pump system without having to excavate the old wet well, instead we designed three prefabricated concrete wet wells that tethered together that fit within the existing wet well.

This cost savings design and operation is an example of the many ways that Romtec Utilities brings value to stormwater projects like this one at a refinery for Exxon Mobil and Chalmette Refining in Metairie, Louisiana.

Contact us today if you need help with a stormwater pump system at a refinery, for industrial process water, stormwater, or wastewater purposes.