Barnhart transports water runner; completes six-year project

Barnhart Crane and Rigging recently transported its sixth water runner bound for a hydroelectric power plant in Michigan, completing a project begun in 2013.

Barnhart’s scope of work included transporting the components from the Port of New Orleans to the final destination, where Barnhart personnel staged them for replacement. The company transported one water runner per year from 2013 to 2018.

Each water runner weighed 300 tons and measured 28 feet in diameter and 16 feet high. Each also was accompanied by a wearing ring measuring 24 feet in diameter and 3 feet high. Arriving by heavy lift vessel from their port of origin in Shanghai, China, the water runners and wearing rings were offloaded by ship’s gear to a hopper barge for transport to the Port of Chicago. Barnhart used the hopper barge for movement from New Orleans to Chicago due to a 19-feet-above-water-level cargo height restriction at the Lemont Bridge on Illinois’ Des Plaines River.

Utilizing a Demag TC3000 truck crane with 138-foot main boom and full superlift, the cargo was transloaded to a Barnhart deck barge at Chicago (the company maintains its own fleet of barges). Barnhart then transported the deck barge up Lake Michigan directly to the pumped storage power plant site. The components were rolled off using a 14-line single-wide PSTe Goldhofer for movement through the plant to a 410-ton gantry crane, where they were offloaded and staged for replacement.

The job was overseen by Barnhart’s branch office in Monroe, MI.