Project Related – Page 30

Devil’s Slide Tunnel, Project Updates and Geotechnical Info

June 10, 2008 rockman Comments Off

Devil’s Slide is an infamous landslide along California’s Highway 1 or Pacific Coast Highway near Pacifica, just south of the San Francisco Bay area. Caltrans’ Devil’s Slide Tunnel project is an effort to bypass that slide and make the heavily traveled roadway safe for drivers and to eliminate the maintenance and traffic hassles caused by slope failures blocking the road. We first covered the project back in September of 2007 when the tunnel portion of the project commenced. In that post, you can find a Google Earth KML File showing the location of the tunnels and the new bridges associated with the project. In this post, Iâ€™ll provide you with some updated progress information as well as some background on the geotechnical and other aspects of the project. More links and videos are at the end of the post. (Photo by Kim Komenich, San Francisco Chronicle). […]

Remediation begins on Center Hill Dam, Tenn.

June 3, 2008 rockman Comments Off

LANCASTER — Months of explosive blasting are expected to begin at the site of Center Hill Dam next week as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepares to begin construction work at the aging dam in Lancaster.

[snip]

"The blasting will be to excavate a platform for construction, about 40 feet wide and will look similar to a road cut through a hill," [Corps Project Manager Linda Adcock] said. "Just the nature of how we grout, and moving equipment back and forth on the current slopes, which are as much as 40 percent and greater, is just really difficult. So for these reasons, for safety, quality, the accuracy and the consistency of the drill holes are much better done from a platform, they proposed this road cut type of a platform."

The drilling is for grouting remediation of the dam foundation. Story from Herald-Citizen, Cookeville, Tennessee.

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New Tunnel Project In Peru Through Andes

May 30, 2008 rockman 13

From ENR:

In the mountains of Peru a tunnel-boring machine named â€œPacha Mamaâ€ is grinding through the heart of the Andes under rock as deep as 6,890 ft. It is carving away at a 20.2-kilometer-long tunnel through the South American Continental Divide to deliver water to arid coastal farmland.

This is a really interesting project, known as the Los Olmos project, and a nice little article. Normally for a civil tunnel project you drill geotechnical holes beforehand to know what kind of material you’re dealing with. In this case, because of the depth, they don’t have that luxury, so all decisions will be made on the fly. The depth of the tunnel creates some very challenging rock mechanics and logistics problems as well! (Illustration by Odebrecht)

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San Vicente Dam, Lakeside, CA to be raised by 117-ft

May 13, 2008 rockman Comments Off

From ENR:

The San Diego County Water Authority board of directors last week certified the environmental impact report to raise San Vicente Dam by 117 ft.

The $568-million project, to be built on top of the existing San Vicente Dam in Lakeside, will expand the reservoir to hold an additional 52,000 acre-ft of water for use during emergencies and another 100,000 acre-ft of water to supplement imported supplies during dry periods.

The Dam will be constructed of roller compacted concrete and will reportedly be the largest dam raising ever performed in the US and the largest using roller compacted concrete in the world. (Photo by O’Connor Construction Management, Inc.)

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TBM Stuck on Pittsburgh North Short Connector Project

April 28, 2008 rockman Comments Off

ENR reports that a Tunnel Boring Machine or TBM is stuck for the second time in two weeks on Pittsburgh’s light rail expansion project dubbed the North Shore Connector Project. As we described in a previous post, the project will consist primarily of a tunnel underneath the Allegheny River. The drilling began the week of March 3 and has been progressing at a rate of 30-ft/day or 5-ft/day faster than the original goals. Read on for a location map of the project, or download the Google Earth KMZ file showing the project area. (File photo of TBM)

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Utah Company has 7 Western-US Geothermal Projects Under Development

March 8, 2008 rockman Comments Off

Utah-based Raser Technologies has started development of two additional geothermal projects which will bring the total number of projects under development to seven. There are three projects in Nevada, two in Utah, one in New Mexico, and one in Oregon. The company has initiated approximately 75 MW of geothermal projects since April of 2007. By 2011 they plan to initiate 150 MW of projects per year. Links after the break. (Photo copyright Raser Technologies, Inc.)

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The Most Important Fridge On Earth

February 26, 2008 Wolfgang Fritz 1

Today, Tuesday, February 26, 2008, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is scheduled to start operating on the remote island of Spitsbergen, Norway in the Svalbard Archipelago. The location is only about 1000km (625 miles) from the North Pole. The Global Seed Vault will house duplicates of seeds from known species of plants from all over the world in case a natural or other disaster destroys the original species. [Editor] Read on for more details. Photo by Mari Tefre/Svalbard Global Seed Vault [/Editor]

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Tunnel Proposed to Link Europe and Africa at Straits of Gibraltar

February 26, 2008 rockman Comments Off

The proposed railway tunnel will link Spain and Morroco underneath the Straits of Gibraltar. The depth of the straits ranges from 1,000-ft to nearly 3,000-ft. To put that in perspective, the English Channel is only 150-ft deep, and the Chunnel is another 130-ft below the sea floor. (Photo by chodaboy)

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New Cableway System Set For Hoover Dam Bypass

February 25, 2008 rockman Comments Off

ENR reports that the Hoover Dam Bypass construction is picking up steam again after a 2006 cableway failure. The new cableway system has been completed and is being "vetted". The piers appear to be completed based on recent photos and from my own observations driving by on my way to Vegas at Christmas time. The appear to have completed or nearly completed the skewback foundations as well. (Photo by hometowninvasion)

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Rising Costs and Delays in Seattle Area Wastewater Plant and Tunnels

February 25, 2008 rockman Comments Off

In keeping with our theme of rising costs on tunnel projects, the Brightwater sewage-treatment plant and treated waste pipeline project in King County Washington (Seattle area) is now up to at least $1.84 billion according to the lead consultant on the project. The treated waste pipeline is 13 to 14-miles long and at depths of 40 to 440-ft! It is being constructed nearly entirely by TBM. One source of delay was due to a tunneling subcontractor not being able to get parts (ball bearings?) because they were all being requisitioned by the US War Department for use in military equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan. Click through for information sources and links.

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