GPRS Project Managers get emotionally invested in every job they undertake, because they are dedicated to keeping you and your projects on time, on budget, and most importantly, safe.
But few jobs get as personal as GPRS Project Manager, Daniel Sperduti’s utility locating and mapping at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Sperduti used electromagnetic (EM) locating and ground penetrating radar (GPR) scanning to locate and map all utilities inside and around the 82-year-old ballpark, which has sat vacant since the Boston Red Sox’s Triple-A affiliate moved to Worcester in 2020.
The stadium will soon be demolished to make way for Pawtucket’s new high school.
Sperduti, like countless other Pawtucket natives, has decades of memories inside McCoy Stadium.
“As a kid, I used to go there all the time with my friends,” he said. “You could get a cheap ticket, just like a general admission ticket and go get something to eat and drink, and it was just a cool place to go with friends. My mom actually, every year, would get like box seats right on the field near the dugout for her work. So, I’d always look forward to going as a kid there, and you could get signatures from players, and they’d sign a ball or stuff like that, and yeah… Just had a lot of fun memories and stuff like that there.”
It was a surreal experience for Sperduti to find himself locating buried utilities in the park’s abandoned center field.
“I went out in the field and just walked around,” he said. “Said my goodbyes.”
Nostalgia aside, Sperduti had a job to do. The existing as-built documents for the stadium were not accurate or complete – which is common with a facility this old.
As the city prepares to demolish the stadium and erect its new school, knowing what’s underground will be critical to mitigating the risk of costly and potentially dangerous subsurface damage. While everything above ground will soon meet the wrecking ball, what’s below can still lead to tens of thousands of dollars in damage, and dangerous consequences such as sinkholes and gas or water main breaks.
“They just wanted to have an idea where things are coming in and leaving the stadium, just for when they tear that down and build [the high school],” Sperduti said. “Now they’ll have a good idea, a good map of where everything is.”
EM locators detect the electromagnetic signals radiating from metallic pipes and cables. These signals can be created by the locator’s transmitter applying current to the pipe, or from current flow in a live electrical cable. They can also result from a conductive pipe acting as an antenna and re-radiating signals from stray electrical fields (detected by the EM locator functioning in Power Mode) and communications transmissions (Radio Mode).
Signals are created by the current flowing from the transmitter which travels along the conductor (line/cable/pipe) and back to the transmitter. The current typically uses a ground to complete the current. A ground stake is used to complete the circuit through the ground.
GPRS deploys ground penetrating radar to compliment EM locating. GPR scanners emit radio waves into the ground or a concrete surface, and then detect the interactions between those waves and any buried objects like conduit, post tension cable, or rebar. These interactions are displayed in a GPR readout as a series of hyperbolas varying in size and shape depending on what type of material has been located.
GPRS Project Managers are specially trained to interpret the data provided by EM locators and GPR scanners to provide you with 99.8%+ accurate utility maps.
To locate and map McCoy’s wastewater infrastructure, GPRS utilized remote-controlled sewer inspection rovers equipped with sondes: instrument probes that are detectable from the surface using EM locating.
“There were 10-foot sewer lines that go right underneath the baseball field,” Sperduti said. “So, we used the camera to go inside those lines and find those.”
We created SiteMap® (patent pending) to make sure you and your entire team have 24/7, secure access to all this field-verified data. This facility and project management application provides existing conditions documentation to protect your assets and people, and is accessible from any computer, tablet, or smartphone.
“This client, I’ve worked with them before and they actually do have surveyors that come out and they map everything out also,” Sperduti said. “But they definitely use our maps, our KMZs and SiteMap® for future planning and projects. So even if a different company comes in to build the school or something like that, we can work with them through SiteMap® and they can use that map too, so they know where things are when they’re about to build. That might be a few years down the road, but whenever that is, they’ll still have access to that info.”
From skyscrapers to sewer lines, GPRS Intelligently Visualizes The Built World® to keep your projects on time, on budget, and safe.
What can we help you visualize?
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Benefits of Underground Utility Mapping?
Having an updated and accurate map of your subsurface infrastructure reduces accidents, budget overruns, change orders, and project downtime caused by dangerous and costly subsurface damage.
How does SiteMap® assist with Utility Mapping?
SiteMap®, powered by GPRS, is the industry-leading infrastructure management program. It is a single source of truth, housing the 99.8%+ accurate utility locating, concrete scanning, video pipe inspection, leak detection, and 3D laser scanning data our Project Managers collect on your job site. And the best part is you get a complimentary SiteMap® Personal Subscription when GPRS performs a utility locate for you.
Does SiteMap® Work with my Existing GIS Platform?
SiteMap® allows for exporting of data to SHP, GeoJSON, GeoPackage, and DXF directly from any user’s account that either owns or has a job shared to their account. All these file formats can be imported and utilized by other GIS packages if manually imported by the user. More information can be found at SiteMap.com.
