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Entry no.29 - Infrastructure in Dresden
TakemeThere posted a City Journal entry in Pretoria Metropolitan Area
This entry will deal with infrastructure related facilities located in Dresden. City Overview (looking north) 1 - D.M Peters Water Treatment Plant Posthumously named after a former mayor of Dresden who authorized the construction of this facility. This medium sized facility is the only water treatment plant located in the South Shore borough. It provides water to Dresden's 102,000 residents plus an additional 25,000 residents from several adjacent towns. The plant was constructed in 1951 replacing a smaller plant located near the port. The facility is municipally owned and operated. Built on a man made peninsula in the south west quadrant of the city, the D.M. Peters WT facility does not require advanced filtration methods due to the Medina's Ocean's west coast current which travels south to north. There are no major industrial facilities located south of Dresden. Water is first pumped into the facility via an 1.2m intake pipe which draws water directly from the Median Ocean the inlet for which is located 2.5km's off shore. Water need not be desalinated because all of planet Azura's ocean's are freshwater! Sentiment and microorganisms are mechanically separated first in a small sedimentation basin and then the water is passed through rapid sand filters(both system inside the building). Afterwards the water is disinfected with chloramine(storage tanks located outside), which is longer lasting and safer than chlorine. Water is then finally pumped into the municipal water system. Additionally there are a dozen water towers located throughout the city(including the one seen here) which have a total storage capacity of 55,000 about enough for about one days worth of water usage. The plant is 0.7 hectares in size and the average daily water production/consumption is 62,280 cubic meters per day. This is the consumption of Dresden and is surprisingly accurate to what a city of 125,000 people would use in the real world - seems maxis got that right at least. The plant may look small but it's more or less realistic in size for it's actual production. Currently the Dresden's water system is self contained. An interconnection to Central Pretoria's much larger system is current being built under Cisco Bay in case of contingencies but won't be completed until 2020. 2 - South Shore Sewage Treatment Plant This medium sized facility is likewise the only wastewater treatment plant located in the South Shore borough. The plant is located in the north west quadrant of the city squeezed in between highway 700 and the Medina Ocean and was constructed in 1970. The facility is municipally owned and operated. Prior to this raw sewage was simply pumped into the Medina Ocean without treatment. At first this was not a significant problem as Dresden was small in size and the strong ocean currents quickly diluted the effluent. But as the city expanded so did the amount of crap that it expelled. By the 60's beaches in Central Pretoria(down current) were closed over 90% of the time due to high bacteria counts. This lead to the construction of several sewage treatment plants across the region. This facility treats water from the same catchment area as the water treatment plant(pop. 127,000). Surface runoff is not treated in Dresden. The facility has clarifiers, sedimentation & biochemical oxidation ponds and a small bio sludge incinerator. New pollution regulations which came into effect in the late 80's necessitated either the installation of advanced scrubber technology or a taller stack. This facility has a 'two in one' system. The 378ft/115m tall stack has advanced chemical reactors built directly into it(hence it's high tech appearance) to treat and capture dioxins, furans and other toxins released during the bio sludge incineration process. 3 - Cisco Bay Bridge(approach) Major bridges and tunnels can also be considered as vital pieces of infrastructure. Here lays the southern approach to the Cisco Bay Bridge, the longest bridge in the nation. The main span of the bridge is located one city to the north. I'm hoping that one day someone might gift us with an elevated RHW bridge as for now we only have the maxis bridge option. Elevated RHW is used to provide the require clearance height(180ft/55m) for large ocean going vessels to navigate underneath the bridge and access both the Port of Pretoria & the Port of Dresden. The railway line to the south is GWR's Portland subdivision, it enters into the Vandenburg tunnel in the next city over. Also(can't see it visually) the Fastraxx L & ME commuter rail lines run underneath the roadway deck. The highway is heavy congested in the rush hour carrying up 18,202 vehicles during it's peak (7AM-8AM). 4 - Port of Dresden A medium sized cargo port, but not a container port. I'll cover this facility in one final transportation related entry still to come(rails & ships). You can see it's general layout from the overview. 5 - The RoS(Ring of Steel) Already covered extensively in entry 21 you should check it out if you haven't already! This is the central telecommunications hub for the South Shore. Recently I switched rock textures. Unfortunately the new textures(greyish) don't mesh well with the mmp's(brownish) that I used here. I will have to come back and redo the screen slope later on. 6 - Biohazard Incorporated's Plasma Waste Gasification Plant Here comes the controversy. Located in the community of Vallyrun near the south east quadrant of the city, this facility uses the Plasma Gasification process to vaporize waste material converting organic matter into synthetic gas which is comprised mostly of Hydrogen, CO & CO2. The resulting syngas can be used to produce electricity directly but at this facility it is simply stored onsite and then transported(no power generation). This facility is privately owned and operated and is located beside to GWR's Farham rail subdivision. Plasma gasification is much cleaner and environmentally friendly in comparison to traditional waste disposal methods. Cities across the world are now adopting the process to eliminate the huge costs and environmental issues of large incineration plants and landfills. New technologies and innovations have greatly reduced the operating costs of the process. However this facilities construction was highly controversial. Although the site is zoned for industrial use and had previously been occupied by an asbestos plant which that was shut down after sale of the product was banned nationwide, the neighborhood is generally residential in nature. Local residents were hoping that a more benign industrial facility would be built here. When it was publicly announced in 2005 that Dresden city council had approved a waste processing plant it was meet with immediate protest. Residents did not believe that the process was as environmental friendly as the government hired experts claimed. Most agreed that if a waste processing plant was to be built in the city it should be built in Industrial Sector G near the port where another waste incinerator is already located. Unfortunately there were no available undeveloped sites large enough remaining in industrial Sector D to house such a facility. Many local residents started picketing the site as soon as construction was started. So they were preventing equipment and workers from entering the site. As a result construction was temporarily halted while extensive public consultations were initiated. The NIMBY's, as city council called them would not relent no matter what assurances they were given. Eventually the PRGA(Pretoria Regional Governing Authority) took over jurisdiction in the matter from Dresden's city council. PRGA's first move was to rezoned part of the site for a police station. The neighborhood had been requesting one few many years now. Though ironically this proved to be somewhat of a double edged sword as once construction on the gasification plant was restarted the DPD(Dresden Police Department) were under strict orders to enforce the law on site. Anyone who even loitered on the sidewalk next to the site for more than 5 minutes was promptly arrested for trespassing. Civil rights advocates were up in arms but ultimately there was little that they could do to stop such occurrences from happen especially after they were arrest and detained as well. The PRGA later stepped in again and all charges were withdrawn. The PRGA took several other steps to mitigate the controversy prior to the facilities construction. To placate the public the facility was extensively redesigned. Original site design One of Biohazard Inc. (BHI for short) main goals in the original concept for the site was for increased storage capacity of both garbage and syngas. This would reduce transportation costs and allow for the company to transport "goods" only at the most economical time. Two massive storage tanks were to be located on the north east corner of the site,. These tank could store up to 3,000 cubic meters of syngas. This represented 150 days at maximum production rates. One liter of syngas contains approximately half the energy of LPG(26 MJ/L). Meaning these spheres when full would contain the energy equivalent of 39 Terajoule each. This is equal to 9 kilotons of TNT! Of course energy is released far more slowly and inefficiently in a chemical reaction when compared to nuclear reactions by several orders of magnitude. Still the resulting worse case scenario was modeled by the PRGA. Should a BLEVE(which of course is an acronym for Big Loud Explosion Very Exciting... ) occur in in just one of the tanks the resulting explosion would be equivalent to the detonation of 45 tons of TNT devastating the community. The model predicted a death toll of 281. This was obviously unacceptable. And so are my photoshopping skills at the moment, I'll work on that... The PRGA mandated that BHI to draw up a new site plan with far stricter regulations than Dresden's municipal council had originally approved. The maximum amount of syngas that could be store on site was reduce from 6,000 cubic meters to a mere 600 - 15 days production. 6 smaller 50,000 liter tanks were approved of for use and relocated to the south side of the site furthest away from residential areas. Should any of these tanks BLEVE(short for Blast Leveling Everything Very Effectively...? ) the resulting casualty count was calculated to be zero this time. A flare stack was also required to be install in order to flare off excessive syngas production when storage inventories were high and in case of pressure spikes in the containment vessels. Several years latter once the PRGA was no longer directly involve in the approvals process, BHI seeked approval for and was granted permission to install an additional 300,000 litter storage tank. Technically this was allowable under the revised permit. But it was located in an underground tank on the north side of the site, something that would likely not have been approved of at an earlier date because of its closer proximity to residential buildings just north of the plant. Another one of the communities major concerns was the large open landfill storage area. Again the PRGA rescinded Dresden's permits for such. Instead the PRGA required that all waste the facility received would be either dumped into the processor or otherwise stored onsite in sealed plastic or steel containers. There were addional concerns over the increased noise and air pollution that would result from garbage and syngas transport trucks traveling through the community to and from the facility. As a measure of good faith BHI cancelled their syngas transportation contract with a trucking company, though they likely would not have done so had the contact guarantees kicked in already. And instead signed a contact with the GWR to build a rail spur off the Farham sub to transport syngas from the facility by rail. While the up front construction costs of the rail fueling spur significantly added to the projects capital budget, the long term transportation contract was much cheaper. Note; BHI applied for and were granted an interest free loan from Dresden's city council for construction of the spur. When this matter came to light several years later it was highly controversial. An independent inquiry is currently underway to determined if any untoward activity occurred during the process(i.e. bribes ). As a result of these changes, this is how the plant now looks; Dresden city council made a small good will measure of their own by construction a pedestrian bridge over the west part of the site. This however did not prevent 80% of the council from being booted out in the following election. As they say, payback's a *****! 7 - Bunsenburner Waste to Energy Incinerator(aka 'The Nasty') This facility is located on Pier 18 in Industrial sector D. It is the largest waste incinerator in the region. An average of 3300 tons of garbage is burned on a daily basis here accounting for nearly 25% of regions garbage production. Nearby residents have taken to calling it "The Nasty" for the obvious reasons. The plant is municipally owned but privately operated. Phases one & two were completed in 1973 & 74, each of which can burn up to 550 tons of trash a day with a nameplate capacity of 124MW combined. Phases three was completed in 1988 adding 2200 tones of garbage burning capacity and 248MW of power prodcution. Trash is routed by trucks directly into the large white building which contains a large internal storage area. Phase 3 has a single 480ft/146m tall multi flue smokestack which is in compliance with the federal pollution standards. Phases 1 & 2 receive trash mostly by train of a small spur that branches from GWR's Almera sub. The two units have four 266ft/81m tall stacks which are not in complacence with federal pollution standards. More advance pollution controls and/or taller stacks are required to comply with these regulation. Advance pollution controls are of course preferable since they actually reduce harmful emissions, but taller stacks are acceptable as they deposit pollution further up wind (into either the nearby mountain ranges or the Medina ocean) and away from populated areas. Because this is considered a vital government owned facility(landfills are banned in the region) it has been granted a waiver to continue operating, though only for a limited amount of hours per year - 2,200. This wavier has a term of 5 years with the expectation that more advanced controls will be installed at the end of the term. The current waiver has been extended twice already... Inside The Nasty The maximum power production of the plant at full burn is 372 MW which is routed through the Hardack hydro corridor to central Pretoria. Below is the interconnection to the grid. You'll notice Elemental Research's 'T2' laboratory was recently built next to the incinerator. This land was previously used as a landfill before phase 3 was built. 8 - Dresden Generating Station Also previously covered, extensively I might add in entry's 22 and 23. I have made a few minor improvements since then though. The circuit breakers through which power is routing from Dresden GS's switch yard onto the Hardack hydro corridor has been upgraded. A recent study indicated that the electrical grid, specifically the main transformers located in the switch yard at Dresden GS, were highly vulnerable to damage from EMP's. Any interruption to this line would leave 1.2 million people, or about half the population of Pretoria without power for an extended period of time. Needless to say would be quite devastating. Unlike in the real world() measures were immediately taken to upgrade the system with a new advanced circuit breaker and disconnected seen below Water textures defects previously seen have been corrected and other textures i.e. parking have been updated. Here's a couple of updated overhead shots of the facility as it stands today. As usual here's a couple of mosaic shots to close out the entry. That's it for the infrastructure. Dresden truly is the work horse of the region.- 22 Comments
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Entry no.17 - Transportation & Places of Interest in Lindin City pt.1
TakemeThere posted a City Journal entry in Pretoria Metropolitan Area
This entry will deal with the transportation network and locations of interest around LC. Lindin City Street Map Transportation Highway System LC is served by no less then five! highways(700-series - interchange access only). In numerical order these are; Highways 700(6 to 8 lanes), 704(6 lanes), 705(4 lanes), 707(4 lanes) & 709(4 lanes). There are two highway interchanges in the city, the massive and sprawling Spaghetti Junction and a smaller interchange between highways 705 & 709. In addition there are 3 other interchanges in the city. Passenger Service The city is served by a Fastraxx commuter train station on the L and ME lines. There is no physical connection for trains between the lines here(there is a highspeed connection in the next city) but the stations are built next to each other allowing for passengers to interchanging between lines. The L line features all day commuter train service operating every 15 minutes in both directions. While the ME line is only served by commuter trains during the peak period - morning and afternoon rush hours, Hallmark trains, the name of the inter-regional train service(the equivalent to Amtrak) in the nation of Albion, makes frequent stops over the course of the day at the ME line station. The station, though small, is somewhat of a mini transportation hub since it serves as a crossroads for multiple transit lines and highways. Approx. 4,200 passengers use the station on both lines during the peak period, which amounts to a healthy 14.0% mode share of all traffic during the rush hour period. As with neighboring Cisco Bay, the these rail lines slice right through a downtown area on a long viaduct(s). 3,470ft(1,055m) for the ME line and 3,207ft (978m) for the L line Which makes them the second & third longest rail viaducts in the region. Though if you include rail bridges and bridges connecting to viaducts they are only forth & fifth, ICR's Guardians Gate Bridge & subsequent viaduct in neighboring Cisco Bay is third at 3,927ft (1,197m) long. The ME line enters into the 1.4km long Delhi Tunnel which takes the line underneath the community of Rockcut, Drogo Peak and the Trueno river before reemerging above ground in the city of Mayfield. Meanwhile the L line then enters into the 1.8km long San Halo Tunnel which takes the line underneath Kalahari Peak and then Cisco Bay before reemerging above ground in the City of Cisco Bay. Freight service Of the regions two major freight companies only one of them still has mainline(s) in city. ICR's(InterContinental Railway) Lakeridge subdivision(railway specific term for a mainline corridor) runs west to south and passes through Kalahari Peak through the D.Lison tunnel. While the ICR's Omaha sub. branches off northeast fromt Casanova Jct. located at mile 3.5 of the Lakeridge sub, which is just west of the aforementioned tunnel. Both lines are double tracked, signalized, fully grade separated from road traffic(in Lindin city) and quite busy as they're ICR's main corridors through the Pretoria region. A new tunnel was recently built under Kalahari Peak in 2009(the Lakeridge-Omaha connecting track) to fully connect the junction in all directions. The Fastraxx and ICR line tunnels do not intersect. ICR's line passing below the L line. The old route of ICR's mainline, now called the Lakeridge Spur, is still in place. This is the line branches off on the east side of the tunnel and goes under the Trueno river in the Las Plagus tunnel - you wouldn't want to walk through that tunnel without some biohazard protection gear . ICR uses this line to interchange freight traffic with the GWR and to access the port of Isuzu in Cisco Bay. As discussed in entry 8 GWR's(Great Western Railway) old mainline, the Midland sub.used to run east to west across the northern part of the city. This rail corridor was GWR's primary north-south rail line through the region for almost 100 years - from the time it was constructed in 1858 until the completion of Vandenburg tunnel under Cisco Bay in 1956. Afterwards the line become superfluous and was abandon. The right-of-way was quickly bought by the PRGA(Pretoria Regional Governing Authority i.e. the government) in 1957. The government promptly ripped up the tracks and used the rail right-of-way to build a portion of highway 707 the following year. Today most of the right of way is occupied by Spaghetti Junction. The line went through a 2,663ft (812m) long tunnel before emerging in Gravhenhurt east of Lindin City and crossing the Trueno river on the Rustaway bridge seen in this image from entry 12 The western tunnel entrance, seen below, was sealed up about 15 years ago when the region underwent a highway modernization program - i.e when I switched to the RHW. The east side was only sealed up last year as it was increasingly frequented by urban explores. Through the tunnel itself largely remains intact. That concludes the transportation brief of the city. Now for a closer look at the places of interest in LC. City overview: A - Highway 709/705(Comerica Parkway) Interchange B - Lealand Sewage Treatment Plant C - ICR Rail Tunnel Entrance D - Comerica Parkway/Astel Rd. Interchange E - Rockcut(neighborhood) F - Kalahari 'Peak' G - Multiple Rail Tunnels H - Downtown I - Earl Reyes memorial park J - Highway 700/West Way & East Way Interchange K - Fastraxx Lindin City Station L - Livingstone gated community M - Spaghetti Junction N - Hillsboro TS P - Lincoln(neighborhood) P - Highway 707/Trafalgar Rd Interchange A - Highway 709/705(Comerica Parkway) Interchange The smaller of the two major highway interchange in the city. The original 705-709 interchange was built in 1961-63, this interchange connected the downtown area of Lindin City to the rest of the Middle East borough via the eastern stub section of highway 705, later renamed the Comerica Parkway as it was built on land originally occupied by the now defunct Comerica Rail line. This is the first version of the interchange, made back in 2006. Just a weed bit dangerous to use eh? The issues with it were quite obvious. All 3 ramps merging onto highway 709 had no acceleration lanes once so ever. Users were forced to merge on as quickly as possible from the ramps off the 705. Reconstruction of the interchange necessitated the demolition of all previously built bridges and ramps. This would require staged construction. One bridge was demolished at a time, north followed by south, and traffic in both directions would share the remaining bridge. Construction was further complicated by the Hardac Hydro corridor which ran directly over the interchange. All of which pushed construction costs upward. All secondary ramps(local access) were removed to increase safety and to simplify the interchange for users, while the primary ramps were all rebuilt. Initially I tried to rebuild the 705-709 interchange small enough to keep most of the surrounding development in place. But the ramps could connect coming off the bridge Building RHW interchanges in relatively small spaces is like putting a puzzle together. Which makes it all the more satisfying when it finally does come together. The highway had to be shifted a couple of spaces away from the river to get everything to fit and by that point there was no space left for any development behind the interchange. Which was no big loss, it looked much cleaner and realistic this way. The current configuration mosaic of the area, from entry 2 Interchange rank of the "BIG 9" Size in terms of total space - 8 of 9 Size in terms of ramps - (4) tied 8 of 9 Size in terms of entry lanes - (12) tied 8 of 9 Overall its the second smallest of the big 9 interchanges ahead of only the 700/709 interchange in Cisco Bay seen in Entry 9. The evolution of the freeway interchange The highway bridge over the Trueno river is called the Higg's Boson bridge. The original spans were built in 1962-63 but by 2001 it had severely deteriorated and was in need of major rehabilitation or outright replacement. It was decided that the bridge would be replaced with a new and more durable span. The cost would be greater up front but much less over time considering rehabilitation would just be delaying the inevitable. The northern(WB) span was replaced first. During construction EB & WB traffic were routed onto the southern bridge each using one lane. After the northern span was completed, EB & WB traffic were routed onto the new span until the southern one was completed. Aside from the two railway viaducts, It is the longest bridge in LC. Bridge stat Waterbody - Trueno river Type - Box Girder Built in - 2001-04 Design Life - 100 years Roadway - Highway 705 Total Length - 2x 735ft (224m) Longest Span - 2x 498ft (152m) Clearance - 110ft (33.7m) Average daily traffic - 38,100 (2014) Cost - $115 million (2014 dollars) B - Lealand Sewage Treatment Plant Lealand STP is one of two fudge factories that deal with all the s*** coming from the people of the Middle East borough. It's the slightly larger of the two and has the capacity to deal with 150,000 people's worth of crap. The plant has 3 large sewage digester tanks, the third tank was added in 1981 increasing the plant's capacity by 50%. There is a single(multi-flue) 220ft(67m) tall smokestack on site built to vent gases from the incineration of a small amount of bio sludge. However new pollution regulations have come into effect requiring either advanced scrubber technology and/or a taller stack. Considering the small amount of sludge that was incinerated it wasn't worth the cost to implement either measure. Thus all bio sludge incineration actives have ceased and the stack is currently only used to vent some very foul odors. Thankfully the area is largely industrial in nature. C & D - ICR Rail Tunnel Entrance and the Comerica Parkway(highway 705)/Astel Rd. Interchange As seen in the last entry this is a diagonal rail tunnel entrance, specifically for ICR's Lakeridge sub eastern entrance to the D.Lison tunnel. Meanwhile the interchange connects the neighborhood of Rockcut and a nearby industrial area with the Comerica Parkway(highway 705). The original version of the 705/Astal Rd interchange Much like the 705/709 interchange, it was in dire need of modernization. Today's configuration B&A mosaics E - Rockcut(neighborhood) Rockcut is the last community to be built in LC. As its namesake would lead one to believe, the area was flatten out to make way for development over time. The community started off as little more than a single road with a small number of houses in the 1940's. It has expanded dramatically in the post-recession period. I'll stop here for now and complete the tour of LC in the next entry. Thanks for dropping by! Area covered so far Closeups of the riverbank can be seen in [url=http://community.simtropolis.com/journal/5253/entry-25468-entry-no2-hillsboro-ts-transmission-substation/]Entry 2- 6 Comments
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