The U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General released a scathing audit report on the troubled Port of Anchorage expansion project and the obscure federal agency that was supposed to be overseeing it, the Maritime Administration or MARAD. Among many problems, the original open-cell sheet-pile system was found to have significant design flaws making them vulnerable to earthquakes. The report described the agency’s lack of capability to manage a project of that size, its inability to audit it’s own numbers, a failure to verify cost figures for the over $1 billion project, and the fact that a Native corporation involved in the contracting was merely a ‘shell corporation’. [Source: Read more about the scathing audit report at ADN.com. Image: BILL ROTH — Anchorage Daily News]
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The City of Vancouver is suing a developer, excavation contractor and their consulting engineer for the costs of repairs, overtime for city employees and lost revenue from parking meters etc stemming from an apparent failure of a shoring system that formed a 30-meter sinkhole. No mention of the developer’s name or the engineer, but the contractor was Matcon Excavation and Shoring. The site will be the future home of high-rise condominiums…if the City lifts it’s stop work order.
The failure of the shoring caused a break inf a 20-cm water main ultimately flooding the site. It also necessitated the closure of the adjacent street. Of course this invites the whole chicken or the egg scenario. The defendants will probably argue that the water line failed first causing the failure of the shoring, but of course the City Engineer, Tom Timm was not shy about fingering the shoring as being deficient.
"It’s some kind of a failure of the shoring system . . . either a design issue or the way it was put in place."