What’s blocking Bertha: a long steel pipe

Seattle Times ^ | 1/3/2014 | Mike Lindblom

[djf]

A buried steel pipe is mostly to blame for stopping the giant tunnel-boring machine Bertha, which has been stuck since Dec. 6 along the Seattle waterfront near South Main Street.

The long pipe was an 8-inch diameter, 115-foot-long “well casing,” used to measure groundwater during studies in 2002 on the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project, project officials said.

Matt Preedy, the deputy project administrator for the state Department of Transportation, said he had no estimates about how much time and money is will take to remove the rest of the pipe, and to repair damaged cutting tools on the face of the machine.

Nor does the team have a strategy yet for how removal should take place. One possible method is to send tunnel-trained divers to work near the cutter face, under extreme pressures that are exerted by groundwater.

snip

[TruthWillWin]

Pipe was from 2002. Bush did it.

[Windflier]

Heh. Like I guessed last night

Yep. You win the Great Crystal Ball award of the week :-)

[SunkenCiv]

Firings to follow.

Thanks djf.