By Adam Coleman

The 2006 CASE Earth Awards has recognised the innovative construction of a variety of civil construction projects around Australia, from a cliff-side road project to the rehabilitation of a disused mine.

The CASE earth awards are presented annually for excellence in environment and excellence in construction.

“All of the projects had two major aims – the completion of work needed to benefit the community and the management of the environmental impacts,” Civil Contractors Federation (CCF) national president, Robert Dahan says.

The 2006 winners featured the full range of civil contracting works, from roads and bridges to urban redevelopment.

The overall national winner in the Construction Excellence category was Wollongong’s Sea Cliff Bridge “a project which delivered not only an outstanding engineering feat, but a new Wollongong region”. The Lawrence Hargrave Drive Alliance project involved the upgrading of 1350m of road, including the 655m Sea Cliff Bridge.

The judges labelled the bridge an ‘outstanding engineering feat’ and were impressed with the Australian-first innovative design of a curved balanced cantilever bridge with an incrementally launched bridge on a curve. Judges also cited the attention placed on aesthetics and the use of ground probing radar to ensure worker safety on the project.

The overall Environmental Excellence award went to the Port River Expressway project – a 5km, four-lane link between Port Adelaide and the Salisbury Highway/South Road Connector – South Australia’s first road contract that combined design, construct and maintenance.

Constructed by Bardavcol, the judges were impressed with the company’s management of the seriously degraded and contaminated areas, which lie next to sensitive wetlands.

Both the Sea Cliff Bridge and Port River Expressway projects were selected as the overall winners on the night.

Other notable projects awarded included the rehabilitation of Coogee diversion sewer, which used world-first Australian-developed technology; the removal of the Flinders Street Overpass, which is part of the revitalisation of Melbourne’s western CBD; the Benambra Mine rehabilitation project in East Gippsland, which saw a former mine site rehabilitated to the extent that it now resembles the landscape prior to the mine existence and the Port Adelaide Waterfront Redevelopment Project to redevelop 30 hectares of waterfront land at Port Adelaide.