Posted on September 12, 2018
In the words of Dean Kamen, an inventor and innovator, “Every once in a while, a new technology, an old problem, and a big idea turn into an innovation.”
Arc Surveying & Mapping, Inc and Dredging & Marine Consultants, LLC (ArcDMC Sediment Solutions,LLC) has new technology to solve an old problem through innovative ideas and has introduced geophysical technology to the marine world,believing it will change the future of dredging.
Electrical resistivity tests pioneered by Arc utilizing systems developed by Demco, NV, involves locating subsurface structures such as sand, clay, gravel, rock etc., by measuring the electrical resistance (ohm value) of each structure, as a cable emits a electrical charge into the subsurface while being pulled over the seafloor behind a survey vessel. John F. Sawyer, co-founder and VP of ArcDMC, having 50 years of dredging survey experience, considers this technology, proven worldwide, will eliminate guessing of subsurface conditions by providing 100% coverage of the subsurface.
Shailesh K. Patel, founder of Dredging & Marine Consultants, LLC and President of ArcDMC has over 20 years of engineering experience on dredging and sediment remediation projects and proposes that ArcDMC geophysical surveys are great news for the engineers, designers, estimators, dredgers, local, state and federal agencies involved in both new work and environmental restoration projects, and will provide significant cost savings. Case in point: During a recent “Muck Test” survey in the Indian River Lagoon, Rockledge, Florida, ArcDMC precisely located contaminated muck in a portion of the waterway that was once thought to be covered by muck.
The ArcDMC geophysical survey reduced the muck removal dredging area by 70% saving millions of dollars of taxpayer money while providing targeted dredging of contaminants only.
Get ready for change through the use of innovative technology and an idea to resolve an old problem.
JOHN SAWYER: Arc Surveying & Mapping was formed in 1986. After 20 years of working in the field, I decided I wanted to go into business for myself. I had three sons who grew up with me in the business. They’re pretty much operating the business themselves now, and I’m doing the marketing and some consulting.
I’m very interested in dredging. As you know, we’re at the dredging conference here in Norfolk. The thing I have to offer the dredging community, in addition to my surveying services, is our new venture into geophysical surveying. With geophysical surveying, we can describe the entire subsurface to the dredging community in a four-dimensional model. So, instead of dredging blindly, where they only had a few borings, now they can look at the subsurface as easily as they can look above ground.
A resistivity survey is actually similar to a CAT scan. Similar to how you laying in the machine to get a CAT scan, we’re pulling a cable along the bottom, and we’re recording everything that’s on that bottom.
The partnership came together when I was at a dredging conference years ago. Peter was doing a presentation on a different technology—on the rheocable on navigable depths—and I was interested in his presentation. I met with him later, and we started talking about my background in dredging and my surveying experience, and his ability to provide geophysical surveys, and we thought, “Boy, if we could combine those two services and present this to engineers, dredging people, and those kinds of people involved in dredging projects, we would really have something that would be of benefit to the dredging community.” So, we tested the system on a couple of projects: one at Port Canaveral and another in the intercoastal waterway at Rockledge, Florida. We had the results of that survey tested with conventional methods. Everything worked out perfect. The people that we were doing the test for loved it, and business is booming.
Aquares is an electrical resistivity system that acquires sub-bottom data. We pull a 200-foot long cable behind our survey vessel. The system injects an electrical charge into the subsurface, and it records the resistance of different material types in ohm values. A soft sediment, for example, would have an ohm reading of 2 or 3, and clay or rock or firmer materials would have a read value, maybe, of 10. We’re able to describe the whole subsurface’s structures—any change in the bottom.
Arc Surveying & Mapping is a technology-oriented company. We’re heavily invested in technology, and one of the things that we’ve done with all the technology that we’ve purchased is we’ve always tested it very thoroughly before we bought it, because we’re responsible for a lot of the information that’s developed for these dredging contracts. So, when we first got the system, we took it to a project in the intercoastal waterway around the Melbourne area in Rockledge, Florida and we did a survey, the goal of which was to isolate contaminated muck in the intercoastal waterway. The contaminated muck in the intercoastal waterway is causing large fish kills and algae blooms. At the time that we did the survey, it was thought, from previous studies, that the entire width of the canal was contaminated with muck. We went in there with our system and did a survey, and we found that only a third of the canal had contaminated muck in it. You’re talking millions and millions of dollars in savings to people that are going to use this data because now, having isolated the muck in the canal, we can go in there and surgically dredge it; it can be dredged without dredging templates. It cuts down on dredging costs and not only that—the disposal areas that we’re treating all these contaminated sediments in, they’re limited to capacity, so having surgically dredged the contaminated muck from the canal, we’re not wasting any of the disposal area capacity. This is huge. This is going to revolutionize the way that people do these sediment remediation surveys.
We’ve worked with Shailesh Patel and Dredging & Marine Consultants for over 20 years. They’re located in Central Florida and we’re located in Jacksonville, Florida. Having done a lot of work for these guys, Shailesh does a lot of engineering for dredging projects design. He’s a geotechnical person and he’s very familiar with all the agencies and all the requirements—the things that we’re not involved with. We do the dredging and collect the data. Anyhow, we thought at the time we were doing this, that this would be a good, full-rounded business if we could involve an engineer that had local knowledge, because we’re not engineers; we’re surveyors. We invited him along on this investigation and he became so interested in it that we started talking about forming a separate corporation.
Arc alone has invested $100,000 in this one test, and we did it not knowing what the end result would be. It turned out to be much better than we anticipated. So, we applied for funding from different county and government agencies, because this is new technology and we thought that they would be very interested in it—and they are interested in it, but it’s still in its baby states with these guys, with the universities and the people that supply that kind of funding. We’ve applied for some grants and we’ll see what happens.
Anybody that has anything to do with dredging—engineers, developers, dredging contractors—they’ll all benefit from this. The cost of dredging, as everybody knows, is growing every day, so anything that we can do to minimize the amount of dredging that we have to do and the amount of material that we have to re-handle and clean in these disposal areas is big savings.
Our business model was to stay ahead of competition by providing our clients with the best in technology, and we don’t have any competition in this resistivity market, because the systems that I’ve tested in the past never worked, so we just dropped it and didn’t take it any further. We knew that resistivity was a good way to look at the subsurface, but the data that we were getting from the systems that were out there previously wasn’t working. So, I kind of gave up on it until I ran into Peter and we thought, “well, he’s bragging about his system—let’s give it a whirl and see what it does.” And unexpectedly, it turned out to be something really good.
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About Arc Surveying & Mapping, Inc.
Arc Surveying & Mapping, Inc. is a multi-disciplinary small business that specializes in land and marine surveying throughout North and South America, including the Caribbean. Incorporated in Florida during 1991, the company has offices in Jacksonville Florida, Melbourne Florida, Memphis Tennessee and Tuscaloosa Alabama. Arc Surveying & Mapping, Inc. is considered by clients and peers to be among the most technically competent and competitive surveying companies in the business of professional hydrographic and topographic surveying.
