Secured Gas Facility Entrance Reconstruction

Design-assist heavy-civil reconstruction of a secured facility entrance — dual-jurisdiction permitting, a bedrock retaining wall, and wilderness environmental protocols.

Widening the road into a high-security gas facility doesn’t sound complicated until you learn the property line runs between two governments. Half the work sat in the County of Los Angeles. The other half sat in the City. Every approval and every inspection had to clear both.

Southern California Gas Company — a division of Sempra Energy — brought Athena in on a design-assist basis to renovate and reconfigure the primary entrance to one of its natural gas storage facilities, a remote site set into the hills of Los Angeles County. The work was civil and structural from the ground up, and it had to satisfy two permitting authorities at once.

Seventy-two pylons, driven seventy feet into bedrock. To widen the access road, Athena built a new retaining wall anchored by 72 pylons set into more than 70 feet of bedrock. From there the scope ran through a new guardshack with security gates and arms, dewatering and full environmental-protection protocols for work in a wilderness area, and the poured asphalt, concrete, and structural steel to tie it together — plus reconfiguring the site’s existing sewer and water-supply lines.

Athena performed all the design work and plan submissions, carried the project through both jurisdictions, and self-performed the construction.

Client: Southern California Gas Company (a division of Sempra Energy). Delivery: Design-Assist General Contractor — Athena Engineering.