NYS Office of General Services

NYS Office of General Services

Background:

This 142 cfs (92 MGD, 14,511 m3/h) cooling water intake is located in Albany, NY and provides water to both heat and cool buildings owned and operated by the state of New York. The facility was required to install 0.75-mm slot size wedge wire screens with a through-screen velocity of no more than 0.5 fps (15 cm/s) to reduce both entrainment and impingement in accordance with NYS Commissioner Policy #52. Fish species offered protection by this screening system include river herring (Alewife and Blueback Herring), Atlantic Sturgeon, Shortnose Sturgeon, and tens of other anadromous, catadromous, and resident Hudson River fish species. This project was installed in 2022.

ISI provided four T72-84EA-R screens where each T screen unit has two 72-inch (1,829-mm) diameter, 84-inch (2,134-mm) long cylindrical wedge wire screens with 0.75-mm slot openings and a 30 percent open area. The screens surface area provided by this system results in a through-screen velocity of 0.45 fps at the design capacity of 142 cfs (92 MGD, 14,511 m3/h). The screens are retractable T screens with slide gates integrated into the retrieval tracks. ISI also provided large bypass gates which will allow the facility to withdraw Hudson River water without use of the T screens during winter operation.

Benefit of ISI System

ISI's retrievable brush-cleaned cylindrical screen system was selected as the project's preferred alternative as it provided the following key advantages: The brush cleaning system ensures that the screen surface will remain free of debris and fouling organisms and therefore maintain compliance with through-screen velocity requirements and reliably source water to the facility; The on-river design keeps fish in the river rather than subject them to collection or conveyance which would have occurred under a retrofit of the existing traveling screens for fish protection; The cylindrical screen design provides the necessary screen surface area with a reduced facility footprint compared to other concepts; The retrievable screen with gate design allows the screens to be raised out of the river when entrainment and impingement are documented to be very low and avoid potential interactions with surface and frazil ice which have been documented to occur at the site; The submerged screen design allows withdrawals to occur over tidal and seasonal river stage fluctuations; The retrievable screen design allows inspection and maintenance of individual screen units without shutting down facility operations.

Owner:

NYS Office of General Services

Engineer(s):

HDR

General Contractor:

D.A. Collins

Location:

Hudson River, Albany, NY