Poseidon Barge
November 2010Poseidon Barge Corporation of Fort Wayne, Indiana, sells and rents portable sectional barges and accessories to the Heavy Highway, Bridge & Marine Construction industry. Our parent company Mid-America Foundation Supply known as MAFCO is a distributor of H-Pile, Sheet & Pipe piling focusing on the Pile Driving Industry. As a natural off-shoot, Poseidon Barge was created in the 90’s to better serve the piling industry with portable floating platforms. Since our units are trucked to the jobsite and pinned together on the water, Poseidon Barges can be used on many of the inland lakes and rivers that are not accessible by the larger construction crane barges often seen on wider and deeper rivers such as the Illinois River, the Mississippi River, or on coastal waters such as the Chesapeake Bay.
Poseidon Barge Corporation continues to grow in size and distribution. Recently, Poseidon began stocking barges in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to better serve the contractors of the North East, reducing freight costs and speeding up delivery to the projects. Poseidon has located local sales representation in the North East to assist in project planning and execution. Our representatives can be on-site to assist in equipment set up and to answer any questions that customer employees may have.
Recently, Carl Piedmont, northeast sales manager for Poseidon Barge was contacted by R. Zoppo Corporation of Stoughton, Massachusetts, a Utility, Environmental, Marine & Heavy Construction Contractor for the New England States, to propose a plan to float a Manitowoc 3900 Crane with 140’ of boom using a clamshell bucket, a Telescopic Boom Lift, equipment storage container, air compressor, and other miscellaneous construction equipment. Watermark Environmental, Inc of Lowell, Massachusetts, was the general contractor for the project. Work included overhauling the four tainter gates, each are 10.1’ high and 50’ in length on the Woonsocket Falls Dam. The dam is located adjacent to S Main Street on the Blackstone River in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The dam was originally constructed between 1956 and 1960. Carl was on-site during the set up to answer questions, assist in coordinating logistics, and reacting to job challenges as they arose.
Woonsocket was home to many saw mills, grist mills, and textile mills all powered by water power from the Blackstone River beginning with Samuel Slater in 1793. Slater built the first successful Textile Mill in Woonsocket. The local economy was devastated by the depression and water power was eventually phased out.
The Army Corp of Engineers took control of the city-owned dam and flood control levees in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, in 2008. The Army Corp realized that there was much need maintenance and upgrades needed to the system in order to better serve the city of Woonsocket. Expenses were to be shared between the city and the Army Corp.
R. Zoppo began preparing the site for the repairs using the Manitowoc 3900 with clamshell bucket and pumps cleaning the toe of the spillway on the upstream side of the dam to make way for a temporary cofferdam. Dive teams worked under water to make additional repairs to the dam.
Poseidon Barge is blessed to have many customers like R Zoppo Corporation. It is our desire to put the customer first in every aspect of the business. Customer service remains our number one goal. In addition to on-site sales support, Poseidon Barge also offers a top-notch engineering staff to provide design solutions and technical analysis for many different marine applications. We can provide you with static load analysis, hydrostatics, and static stability analysis for your projects. We will provide detailed reports with imparted trim and heel angles, resulting drafts, and water plane properties affecting buoyancy and stability.
Poseidon Barges offers a full line of barge accessories including 5’ and 7’ tall barges, spuds, and external mount pockets, winch units to raise and lower the spuds, wood mats, deck cleats, and barge propulsion units. With over 300 units in our rental fleet and more on the way, availability should not be an issue. You can find additional information about our company at www.poseidonbarge.com.
Feel free to contact our office toll free at 866.992.2743. Your call will be forwarded to the salesman that covers your location. Currently, we offer distribution in Indiana, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and we have a dealer in Washington State.
Mid-America Foundation Supply, Poseidon’s parent company, is a distributer for Nucor-Yamato Steel in Blytheville, Arizona. MAFCO stocks PZ-27 Sheet Pile and H-Pile with accessories such as pile points and splicers. We also offer pipe piling and accessories as well.
In addition, Enviro Media Blasting is a distributor for Sponge Jet. Sponge is environmentally friendly alternative to surface preparation for paint and industrial cleaning. Sponge is an aluminum oxide granule encased in manmade sponge. This process provides up to a 4 mil jagged edge profile on steel surfaces with only 10 percent of the dust level produced by standard sand or coal slag media. The material is recyclable and can be used six or more times depending on the type of media and surface being blasted. We use Sponge Jet to blast and paint the Poseidon Sectional Barges. ■
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