Underground Construction Technology International Conference & Exhibition

Waste from the Mead-Johnson (MJ) Plant near downtown Evansville, IN, is discarded and dumped at the Laubscher Meadows Landfill (LML) owned by Allied Waste. The boilers at the steam plant were designed to consume natural gas transported via pipeline by a local utility. The landfill produces landfill gas, which is a mixture of methane and carbon, created as waste decomposes. In October 2005, CPL contracted with Bernardin, Lochmueller & Associates Inc. of Evansville to prepare preliminary plans and specifications for a unique approach: build a pipeline to capture the landfill gas and transport it back to the plant to use in lieu of natural gas. In May 2008, Miller Pipeline Corporation was awarded the contract to construct the 27,000' pipeline. Miller installed 19,850' by the HDD and 6,500' of pipe by the open-cut method. The project included two railroad crossings (by bore and jack method), four river crossings (HDD), and two state highway crossings (HDD).