Big Dig leak saga continues - Turnpike CEO says "riddled with problems"
Posted Sun, 2008-01-13 09:46
The Massachusetts Turnpike CEO Alan LeBovidge says the Turnpike has inherited a "megaproject riddled with problems" and calls project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinkerhoff's past characterization of the leak problems "questionable," according to the Boston Globe this morning.
Engineers Wiss Janney Elstner have estimated that 40% of the 2m gallons (7.6m liters) of water coming into the tunnels each month is from leaks. Another major source of water needing to be pumped is simply rainwater flowing down open ramps into the tunnels. Water is also used in cleaning walls, roadways and the like.
Perhaps unrealistic but required in construction contracts was a leak-free tunnel system. The tunnels are located in low quality fill soils below the watertable set by the nearby Boston harbor, so they are subject to strong water pressure.
Late 2005 Bechtel/PB claimed serious leaks had been reduced during the course of the year form 800 to only 3. The state DOT which took over from the Turnpike supervision of work on plugging leaks says there are now 237 serious leaks, and another 433 less than serious leaks for a total of 670 active leaks.
Robert Rooney in charge of the leak plugging effort is quoted as saying water in the tunnels is being managed and that "an incredible amount of resources" is being used to fix the leaks - mostly by closing a lane, then drilling in the vicinity and injecting grout under high pressure.
Rooney predicts all but "a couple of dozen" leaks will be fixed by the end of 2008.
$52m has been spent so far on leak plugging.
Most of the leaks are at the junction of slurry walls and the roof slab. They pose no structural threat for several decades but accelerated corrosion of rebar could reduce the life of the facility. Moreover infiltrating water can affect electrical equipment, constantly dirty up internal surfaces, waterlog insulation materials, damage fireproofing, and add to the pumping load, raising maintenance and operating costs.
The state's attorney-general is negotiating with Bechtel/PB lead engineers on the job over a several hundred million damages claim for shoddy design, negligent supervision and poor project management associated with the leaks and a ceiling collapse.
A large Bechtel/PB joint venture team were on the project working out of Turnpike offices until the turn of the year.
The Turnpike only gets tolls out of the Williams cross harbor Tunnel part of the project, which opened back in 1995, and accounts for less than a tenth of the total project cost
of $15b.
In one of the worst features of the Big Dig project costs have been carried not by motorists on I-93 benefiting from the project - and the benefits in improved travel times and accessibility are huge -Â but by federal and state taxpayers and by motorists paying tolls on the cross harbor tunnels and the east-west mainline of the Turnpike - eloquent support for French philosophe Frederick Bastiat's observation that government is the entity "by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else." ("L'Etat" Journal des Debates, Paris, 1848-09-25)
TOLLROADSnews 2008-01-13
The Massachusetts Turnpike CEO Alan LeBovidge says the Turnpike has inherited a "megaproject riddled with problems" and calls project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinkerhoff's past characterization of the leak problems "questionable," according to the Boston Globe this morning. Engineers Wiss Janney Elstner have estimated that 40% of the 2m gallons (7.6m liters) of water coming into the tunnels each month is from leaks. Another major source of water needing to be pumped is simply rainwater flowing down open ramps into the tunnels. Water is also used in cleaning walls, roadways and the like.
Perhaps unrealistic but required in construction contracts was a leak-free tunnel system. The tunnels are located in low quality fill soils below the watertable set by the nearby Boston harbor, so they are subject to strong water pressure.
Late 2005 Bechtel/PB claimed serious leaks had been reduced during the course of the year form 800 to only 3. The state DOT which took over from the Turnpike supervision of work on plugging leaks says there are now 237 serious leaks, and another 433 less than serious leaks for a total of 670 active leaks.
Robert Rooney in charge of the leak plugging effort is quoted as saying water in the tunnels is being managed and that "an incredible amount of resources" is being used to fix the leaks - mostly by closing a lane, then drilling in the vicinity and injecting grout under high pressure.
Rooney predicts all but "a couple of dozen" leaks will be fixed by the end of 2008.$52m has been spent so far on leak plugging.
Most of the leaks are at the junction of slurry walls and the roof slab. They pose no structural threat for several decades but accelerated corrosion of rebar could reduce the life of the facility. Moreover infiltrating water can affect electrical equipment, constantly dirty up internal surfaces, waterlog insulation materials, damage fireproofing, and add to the pumping load, raising maintenance and operating costs.
The state's attorney-general is negotiating with Bechtel/PB lead engineers on the job over a several hundred million damages claim for shoddy design, negligent supervision and poor project management associated with the leaks and a ceiling collapse.
A large Bechtel/PB joint venture team were on the project working out of Turnpike offices until the turn of the year.
The Turnpike only gets tolls out of the Williams cross harbor Tunnel part of the project, which opened back in 1995, and accounts for less than a tenth of the total project cost
of $15b.In one of the worst features of the Big Dig project costs have been carried not by motorists on I-93 benefiting from the project - and the benefits in improved travel times and accessibility are huge -Â but by federal and state taxpayers and by motorists paying tolls on the cross harbor tunnels and the east-west mainline of the Turnpike - eloquent support for French philosophe Frederick Bastiat's observation that government is the entity "by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else." ("L'Etat" Journal des Debates, Paris, 1848-09-25)
TOLLROADSnews 2008-01-13