Hilarious! tunneling through lime rock under Biscayne Bay: to grout or not to grout, that is the question ... by gimleteye

Oh! For Mark Twain to be alive on a day like this! A boy with a slingshot could stand on one side of the ship channel separating MacArthur Causeway, by the esteemed Miami Herald building now owned by a Malaysian gambler who paid cash, and hit the pass-through cruise ships that pay no US taxes on income. It will cost a billion dollars (borrowed) to build a tunnel under that little stretch so that big trucks serving the Port of Miami will no longer mix with frustrated condo residents in downtown trying to imagine a better future free of port traffic in a "world class city".

Now comes news that the construction company that wants to build the tunnel, wants to "grout" the lime rock under the bay before drilling, although how you do that is very much "up-in-the-air". Miami Dade commissioners are "highly suspicious". Alarm bells are going off. Thirty years ago. A "lifetime" in real life! Thirty years ago, South Florida environmentalists -- even then an "endangered species"-- threw up a lawsuit against EPA and its plan to permit a pipeline under Biscayne Bay to carry sewage to Virginia Key. They were concerned then about wrecking the aquifer under the bay.

When the plan to build a tunnel under the Port of Miami emerged as a billion dollar public works project to "create jobs", I wondered where the lawsuit was. But I "knew" the answer. South Florida environmentalists (that would include, "me"!) were too fatigued, too stressed and stretched thin. Too "old" to raise another battle, another lawsuit. And really: does anyone care about a tunnel under the bay what with Monitor lizards in the marshes, pythons in the canals, and Big Sugar billionaires extracting value from the Everglades faster than it can be drained.

But had there been a lawsuit to "stop the tunnel!", some "questions" would have been raised. Some "eyebrows" would have been raised. Someone might have even done a google search about what happens when you drill in a karst formation aquifer. Some common sense would have been discovered in depositions along the lines of: "You are going to do, what?!! You are going to "grout" the lime rock!?" "How much pressure does "grouted lime rock" have to take at the diameter of a multi-lane truck tunnel!?" "What happens if your "grouted" lime rock collapses under pressure?" "Have you ever "grouted" lime rock, before?"

Anyhow. It's Friday, dear "readers". Tears of hilarity threaten the structural integrity of my laptop keyboard.

Any dunderhead (including readers of this blog!) can grab a piece of lime rock in South Florida and have a good chuckle. Take a look. That lime rock is porous as a sponge. It includes lots of big openings called "fuggy voids" that once carried Everglades water like an underground Niagra Falls and nourished the bay and provided us free, cheap drinking water to supply developers and builders and their dreams of wealth.

“It just seems very odd to me that even before they start digging they need to change the project,” the county’s newly installed mayor, Carlos Gimenez, said during Thursday’s commission meeting, the first he attended as mayor. “I find it very interesting that after all these core samples, the company finds it has to do something else. I’m really not happy about this. I’m certainly going to fight this tooth and nail.”

Start chewing lime rock, Mr. Mayor and fine county commissioners. Break it into little pieces and put a little sugar on top. Stir in, spittle and a cocktail of polymers that are not permitted by law in drinking water aquifers. Ah Miami: too busy compounding zeroes to check the math. (click, read more, for the full Herald report)


Posted on Thu, Jul. 07, 2011
Firm building Miami tunnel seeks more money months before starting to drill

By ALFONSO CHARDY AND MARTHA BRANNIGAN
achardy@ElNuevoHerald.com

Even before they start boring the tunnel to the Port of Miami, executives of the multinational firm in charge of the project are asking for more money from an emergency reserve fund to cover the cost of what they say is needed grouting in the limestone beneath Biscayne Bay, where the $1 billion roadway will be built.
In an unexpected twist just three months before the start of excavation, Miami Access Tunnel said Thursday it will need money from the $150-million reserve fund to carry out the work in preparation for the October start of the year-long boring from Watson Island to the port.

Precisely how much will be needed will not be known until July 15, when a contractor is expected to file an estimate. But officials familiar with the project do not expect the estimate to exceed the reserve fund, which was included in the original $1 billion price tag.

While project officials do not consider the fund request a cost overrun, it was seen as a red flag by the new county mayor and county commissioners in light of cost overruns in prior megaprojects, such as the construction of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and the expansion of Miami International Airport.

“It just seems very odd to me that even before they start digging they need to change the project,” the county’s newly installed mayor, Carlos Gimenez, said during Thursday’s commission meeting, the first he attended as mayor. “I find it very interesting that after all these core samples, the company finds it has to do something else. I’m really not happy about this. I’m certainly going to fight this tooth and nail.”

Commissioners, were upset at the news that MAT wants to tap the contingency fund, which includes money from both the county and the Florida Department of Transportation.

“We want to be fair about this, but we don’t want to be taken advantage of,’’ said Commissioner Dennis Moss.

The dispute is over whether the FDOT, as project manager, will allow MAT to withdraw money from the reserve to cover the costs of grouting work.

Even if FDOT denies the request, the company plans to carry out the work by covering costs with its own money and then take the case to a dispute-resolution board that would decide who is right. Ultimately, the dispute could wind up in the courts.

In any case, officials do not expect the project to be halted because of the dispute.

Recently, FDOT denied a MAT request to disburse emergency reserve funds to cover the cost of a modification to the tunnel boring machine so it can work properly in the limestone subsoil of the bay, according to officials familiar with the project.

The $45 million tunnel boring machine, built in Germany, arrived in Miami last month in pieces aboard a cargo ship. The pieces are now being transported to the median of the MacArthur Causeway at Watson Island, where over the next three months workers will assemble the machine. The tunnel is expected to open to traffic, mainly cargo trucks, in May 2014.

The debate over whether the tunnel project will incur cost overruns began when commissioners started considering a permit application from MAT for the grouting.

According to officials familiar with the project, the tunnel boring machine operates better when it cuts through solid rock. But MAT experts say they have found the limestone under Biscayne Bay to be extremely porous, and gaps in the rock need to be filled with the grout.

MAT executives declined to comment and referred questions to FDOT.

Gus Pego, head of the FDOT office in Miami, said his agency will consider the MAT request and make the decision later. Officials who are familiar with the project said FDOT is now leaning toward denying the request based on its prior research showing that, while grouting is necessary, it may not need to be as extensive as MAT believes.

“The project is on track and is going well,” said Pego. “This is a similar to any dispute in a construction project.”



© 2011 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/07/v-print/2304438/firm-building-miami-tunnel-seeks.html#ixzz1RVfU0ZTx