Marine Infrastructure

RJV’s expertise in marina construction has come to the fore with this long awaited development. After more than 10 years in the planning, RJV commenced work on this prestigious project early in 2006.

The first step was to construct nearly 2km of breakwaters and seawalls stretching out into the Indian Ocean in water depths of up to 10m. The armour and core rock required for the seawalls was produced from another of RJV's sites at Landcorp's AMC development in Henderson. Specialised blasting and sorting of the rock enabled efficient placement at the breakwater location.

Some 3,000 tonnes of rock were delivered and placed per day. This was all carried out with careful environmental monitoring of the sensitive marine life in Cockburn Sound.

Following the start of the breakwater construction the marina earthworks commenced with SKM design engineers. The plan was to earthwork nearly 2 million m3 of material in a cut-to-fill operation of which over 1 million m3 was to be placed within the breakwaters, forming two reclaimed islands and northern and southern reclaimed areas adjacent to the seawalls. This process was complicated by the requirement to keep Cockburn Road - a major road running through the site - open to the public. This meant that RJV’s 50T articulated dump trucks, delivering some 7,000m3 per day, underwent significant traffic management control when crossing the road at the temporary traffic lights.

RJV’s innovative suggestion to contain the fill within Manufactured Select Fill (MSF) rock bunds for the island and reclamation works was welcomed and the reclaimed areas were filled efficiently. To obtain compaction we used the High Impact Energy Dynamic Compaction Method with all results meeting the required specification.

To set Port Coogee apart from other marina developments, the 2.25km of marina edge wall treatments were designed using precast concrete panels. Again following RJV’s recommendation to the developers, the final design allowed for the precast panels to be manufactured and installed in a two-process method: where the panels were attached to anchor blocks at an accessible level. This was imperative when dealing with the tidal movements that were experienced.

In addition to the marina construction RJV were responsible for constructing the road infrastructure, installing the services and constructing the retaining walls for some 150 lots in Stages 1 and 4A.

The Port Geographe project was one of the largest single projects undertaken by RJV in the mid nineties and proved to be a worthwhile challenge by exhibiting our expertise in marina construction.

The estate is the only residential "canal-side" development in WA with water features cut directly from the ocean. This meant the de-watering of canals and a marina area to around 4 metres below sea level and the use of surcharging blocks to consolidate the underlying marine mud and silt.

In all, 1,600 metres of canals and a 10.5 hectare marina basin were created by shifting over 2 million m3 of material. The site required more than 5,000 metres of revetment and retaining walls.

RJV provided a full subdivision service for the first five stages of the development, including roads, provision for utilities and the building of piers, boat-ramps and a refuelling jetty.

Despite starting the project in what was to become Busselton's wettest winter for 25 years, all the milestone target dates were met and the development was opened on schedule by then WA Premier, Richard Court, in January 1997.

The 2 year contract was awarded in August 2012 to produce and supply quarry material to Thiess and BEST JV for the Wheatstone Project at Onslow.

A 20km sealed access road including MRD intersection with Onslow Road was constructed by RJV within 12 weeks of mobilisation to allow timely haulage for the delivery of the quarry products to Wheatstone.

2.7 million tonnes of various quarry material was produced and delivered over the 2 year contract.

Typical rock material produced:

• Basecourse
• Subbase
• Geocell Rock
• Granular Fill
• Drainage Aggregate
• Quarter Tonne
• 1-3 Tonne
• 2-4 Tonne
• 3-6 Tonne

Team experience adds great strength and expertise in Road Construction, Quarrying, Crushing and Screening, and Haulage Management.

The first stage of this development, which saw the construction of a series of super lots including a canal waterway extension inland from the pre-existing Exmouth Marina, was awarded by Landcorp to RJV in 2002. The second stage of the development, which was constructed by RJV on behalf of Lester Group, included about 150 residential lots and further extension to the stage one water way. The total cost of both stages was over $30 million.

Project statistics across the 2 stages included:

• About 1.6 million m3 of earthworks carried out
• Blasting of hard rock below water levels, at times in a quite unusual rock conglomerate.
• Over 3km of limestone block retaining wall
• 70,000m3 of quarried rock was produced with site won rock armour
• Nearly 50,000m2 of road works
• Approximately 11.5km of sewers and stormwater drains
• About 12km of services including a vacuum sewerage pump station to pump effluent to the town treatment site.

One of the most challenging aspects of the work was the remote location – on the end of a peninsula; nothing travels past Exmouth to another destination. Another challenge was the large tidal movement: the need to excavate below sea level, immediately adjacent to the ocean, and with frequent storm surges and cyclones, meant an increased attention to the weather predictions was a requirement to ensure safety in construction.

Environmental and community considerations during these works involved the local aboriginal elders participating in the excavation through the dunes, and close monitoring of the water table during the dewatering for canal excavation to ensure level and salinity did not exceed tolerable levels. Also the closure of an old shire refuse site across the development necessitated testing of water quality to ensure impurities were not pumped into the protected waters of the Gulf, which is home to a major prawn fishing industry.