Home / Tulane grad designs Lake Pontchartrain super pumps
Dan Grandal, a 1993 Tulane engineering graduate, surveys the work at the 17th Street Canal Pumping Station at the edge of Lake Pontchartrain. Grandal is the lead designer for the Permanent Canal Closures and Pumps project for the 17th Street and Orleans and London avenue canals pumping stations. (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)
A. Baldwin Wood, an 1899 Tulane graduate, is a legend for his invention of the Wood Screw Pump, which has been used for more than a hundred years to drain rainwater from the canals that crisscross New Orleans.
Now Dan Grandal, a 1993 Tulane graduate, is about to make his own engineering mark for work on the $690 million Permanent Canal Closures and Pumps (PCCP) project.
“This project is key to resiliency and part of the larger effort to save Louisiana’s coast.”
Dan Grandal, Tulane graduate and designer of the Permanent Canal Closures and Pumps
The pumps are indeed gigantic — five stories tall. When working at their peak capacity, the pumps can drain enough water to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in 4 seconds and the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in 89 minutes.
PCCP is the last phase of the $14.6 billion U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hurricane Storm Damage and Risk Reduction System. It’s being built under the auspices of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. Once fully functional (it’s 90 percent complete and in the testing phase for the next few months), the project will be turned over to its owner/operator, the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board.
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