Environmental Challenges During Tower 2 Construction

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Memphis Campus
As part of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital campus master plan to
ensure there is no interruption in St. Jude’s ability to leverage the most
advanced tools and top scientific and medical talent in pursuing its
mission of discovering treatments and cures for children with lifethreatening diseases like cancer, Tower 2 is currently being constructed
and the estimated completion date is September 2014. New programs
planned for Tower 2 include proton beam radiation therapy, a
department of computational biology and a Global Education and
Collaboration Center. Surgery will be relocated to the new building,
enabling an additional surgery site and other enhancements. The
building will also include an expanded intensive care unit configured
for new technology coming online.
There were many challenges associated with the construction of
Tower 2. The St. Jude campus is within the original floodplain area of
the Mississippi River. Driftwood, hundreds of glass bottles, sediments,
etc. were excavated during construction.
Also, the area around the St. Jude property has a long history
including the location of yellow fever epidemic during the late 1800s
which killed thousands of Memphians, and the original St. Joseph’s
hospital.
Tower 2 is within 200 feet of a State of Tennessee brownfields site
where petroleum and chlorinated solvent contamination had been
identified. This brownfields site is the first site entered into the
program in the entire state of Tennessee.
Next is a series of historical pictures from previous site uses in and
around the St. Jude campus and the northern part of downtown
Memphis.
St. Jude location
The yellow fever outbreak of the late 1800s was originally thought to stem from
several causes including unsanitary conditions, bacterial infections, and bodily fluids
contacts. After several thousand deaths had occurred, research from doctors like
Walter Reed, James Carroll, and John Shaw Billings in a small village near Havana,
Cuba, determined the actual cause of yellow fever to be mosquitos.
Quotes from several sources:
1. Yellow Fever became the most dreaded disease in North America for 200 years.
2. In the South, where slavery became deeply entrenched, yellow fever found it’s
lifeblood.
3. By the end of 1878, Memphis would suffer losses greater than the Chicago Fire,
San Francisco Earthquake, and Johnstown Flood combined.
4. To no other nation of the earth is yellow fever so calamitous as to the USA.
5. 1878 remains the last great epidemic of the American Plague on North American
soil.
A ship (the Emily B. Sounder), which carried several item including sugar, steamed it’s
way from Havana, Cuba towards New Orleans, LA. The ship just happened to be in the
same Havana port with trade ships from West Africa, which unfortunately carried the
mosquito Aedes Aegypti. This mosquito traveled up the Mississippi River onboard the
Emily B. Sounder to the Port of Memphis, where the first cases of Yellow Fever were
recorded in the downtown Memphis, just a few block west of the St. Jude campus.
Now that we have your attention, and you’ve been given a bit of history
of the story of Memphis where over 30,000 Memphians lost their lives,
and the city of Memphis’s charter was actually revoked by the
Tennessee State legislature, we can continue our presentation of the
environmental challenges of the Tower 2 Construction at the St. Jude
Campus.
Tru-Tagg
Solid Waste Site
Highlighted sites were of environmental concern in St. Jude’s expansion plan.
National Guard Products
VoAP Site
Spic N Span
DCERP Site
Z-Mart
Petroleum Site
The Tower 2 construction area has a shallow water table, less than 10
feet below ground surface. The Tower 2 footprint required constant
dewatering with many pumping wells to lower the zone of influence
within the excavation area.
Within the excavation footprint were two 25,000-gallon underground
storage tanks (USTs) containing heating oil (low-grade diesel). These
double-walled fiberglass USTs were regulated by Tennessee
Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), Division of
Underground Storage Tanks (DUST), and were removed in accordance
with current TDEC DUST standards. These USTs (known as “dual
usage”) supplied heating oil fuel for several boilers and backup
emergency generators on the campus. Before the two USTs were
removed, three 25,000-gallon USTs were installed outside the footprint
and the product lines were switched to the newly-installed USTs to
ensure uninterrupted access to the fuel.
During the excavation for deep foundation placement, one 5,000gallon unregistered UST was also encountered about 100 feet west
of the registered USTs placement. This unregistered UST was singlewalled steel construction. Research indicated that the UST likely
supplied heating oil to the former Saint Joseph’s Hospital, erected
in 1885 and demolished in 2001. The tank was removed during the
same mobilization.
To recap, there were several environmental challenges during the
construction phases of this project, which included:
1. Historical past usages of the project area including a low-lying
river area, with a past open cut stormwater/sanitary sewer
ditch.
2. High water table.
3. Two 25,000-gallon capacity USTs within the project footprint.
4. One 5,000-gallon capacity UST within the project area.
5. Brownfields site on same property and within 200’ of the site.
Any Questions?