Cloward H2O, an expert in aquatic design, has been working on a major project in Alabama for several years and is now ready to celebrate the opening of Montgomery Whitewater, a new outdoor lifestyle centre, set to open its doors on 8 July 2023.
A recirculating whitewater course, built to Olympic standards, will serve as the development’s focal point and enable users of all ages and skill levels to engage in challenges ranging from beginner to expert. The course also includes a standing wave surf feature, and training areas suitable for all abilities and commercial operations.
Additionally, the park will have a range of dry-side outdoor activities like climbing walls, ziplines, ropes courses, and hiking and biking routes. Numerous festivals, tournaments, and weekly activities will be held at the site. There will also be hospitality amenities, including a conference centre, cabanas, and other gathering spaces. The facility will be available for camps and team-building events, as well as swift water rescue training for first responders.
A transformative project for Montgomery
The new centre will promote economic growth, significantly improve residents’ quality of life, support ongoing tourism growth, support military missions, and increase Montgomery’s appeal to a talented workforce that places a premium on quality of life when choosing a place to live and work.
Participants can receive world-class whitewater instruction in a setting ideal for everyone from novices to experienced rafters. A 2,200-foot-long Adventure Channel that mimics a natural river is designed to deliver a Class II whitewater experience and serves as a great introduction to the activity.
Meanwhile. the 1,600-foot-long Competition Channel is an excellent playground for those with more advanced talents and is perfect for the novice rafter wishing to take on greater rapids. Both channels intersect in the lower pond to the takeout or back up the conveyor belt for another run!
Making the project a reality
Initial conversations began in 2016 with preliminary designs and a professional team formulating in 2018. Cloward H2O and other design team members finalised detailed engineering in 2020 and construction documents in 2021. This was followed by two years of construction to bring Montgomery to what it is now.
“On these big projects a major challenge is just working through the scope of the whole facility,” says Braden Steiner, project manager for Montgomery Whitewater at Cloward H2O. “This is not your typical pool; we’re talking 12,000,000 gallons of very active water, there are so many things to account for.
“There is a great team of professionals on this project figuring out how it all works, and we are honored to work with them.”
Allen Clawson, principal and managing partner at Cloward H2O, adds: “Another major challenge was Covid -19 like many projects around the world development stopped for a while, construction costs increased, including material costs and delays, labor shortages, it threw some curve balls at the team, and we are proud of the project getting to this point. It’s been a long time coming and we’re excited for it to get to the opening date!”
Innovations for easy operation and less waste
The park recently held a soft opening for the first few people to test out the river rapids, and it was a big success. The facility is well on its way to being ready for 8 July with personnel training, facility tuning, ongoing testing, and some final touches.
Innovations like RapidBlocks technology were implemented into Montgomery in over 80% of the channel, allowing unlimited tuning of flow and rapid configurations to create variations to the constructed hard wall configurations set by the concrete. Specially engineered operable gates and diversion structures allow the operator to adjust the flow characteristics of key features or operate either channel independently.
Cloward H2O designed the mechanical and filtration systems with high-rate horizontal media filters, AFM, ozone, and chlorine at 18,000 gpm total flow. In addition, five Flight Submersible Propeller pumps, 700 Hp each, 82,300 gpm at 25’ TDH for a total of over 400,000 gpm, were implemented to provide enough waterpower down the channels to create the big rapids for the centre. The total connected power comes out to over ~4 MW at 4160 VAC.
A total of more than 16,000 cubic yards of concrete was poured and shaped to form the ponds, channel system, conveyor bay, and pump station. In order to keep waste to a minimum, Cloward H2O and the design team were able to use a unique partial siphon system that reduced the operational power of the Mass Flow Pumps once a steady state flow is established.
