| 
| 
Seattle Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel: Judge finds that tunnel contractors threw away pipe fragments that Bertha hit
A judge investigating the $624 million cost-overrun lawsuit against the state of Washington finds out that the evidence has been thrown out.
The 17,5m diameter Bertha (produced by Japan's Hitachi Zosen) had hit a steel pipe in 2013. It was an 8-inch steel pipe that was previously used (and left there) to measure groundwater in 2002 around the Alaskan Way Viaduct. A 64-feet section of the pipe has mangled into the cutter head of the Bertha. Initial thought was that it had damaged a number of cutters (Bertha used mostly knives) on the cutter head. But a later assessment has revealed that revealed that portions of the main bearing seal system were damaged, which caused the bearing to overheat during operation.
It took 2 years to dig a recovery shaft from the surface in order to access and lift the machine's cutterhead for repair and partial replacement in 2015.
Now the judge says the builders of the tunnel should have kept the discarded parts of the pipe as evidence. But apparently the contractors have discarded away the pieces to recycling.
Interesting news from Seattle times:
So much for appreciation for tunnellers. I mean, the tunnellers are busting their a**es there for building an important piece of infrastructure, which is being hampered by an unsurveyed pipe which creates a lot of damage and additional work to solve it. And what happens at the end? The judge asks for the parts of the pipe...
In judges mind, no pipe pieces hence no pipe... Then how was the TBM damaged? Crazy.
cover tunnel photo by: Matt Brown from London, England / CC BY
.jpg){kind=link}
Copyright 2019-2024 TunnelContact.com
most strange. If the issue is proving that the pipe was indeed there, there must still be a part of it left between the tunnel ceiling and the surface. Or have they cleaned up everything?
Even so, there must have been some offıcial documents pertaining to that vertical pipe laid down, no?