Filling in the Gaps

Langan helps transform quarries into communities

Haze Rodgers spends a lot of time striding over 6,000 acres of quarries carved out of the countryside just southeast of Sacramento. Today, miles and miles of conveyor belts move aggregates offsite to be used as building materials. In the near future, the massive site, known as the West Jackson Master Plan, will be home to a mixed-used redevelopment consisting of homes, stores, offices, schools, and parks.

Until then, Rodgers and his team are providing geotechnical engineering consultation in support of the Environmental Impact Evaluations and planning, which are required for approval of the master plan and future development in the area. Their work includes evaluating the subsurface and existing site conditions and seismic hazards, which need to be taken into account before a single brick is laid. Langan is also evaluating the feasibility of cutting-edge ground improvement techniques to mitigate identified geo-hazards and determining the ground settlement characteristics of the soil proposed to fill the quarries.

“Our depth of understanding when it comes to the subsurface conditions of these quarries is second to none,” said Rodgers, the Associate who leads Langan’s Sacramento office. “As a result, in this case, we play a key role in turning what was once a gaping hole in the ground into a sustainable redevelopment that will drive the economy of this area upward.”

Langan has supported dozens of quarry projects around the country, often integrating environmental, site/civil, and other technical disciplines. And with “boots on the ground”… literally… in a dozen states, Langan certainly knows the challenges of working with such terrain.

To learn more about Langan’s geotechnical consulting work regarding quarries, please contact Haze Rodgers at hrodgers@langan.com.