I realize we are less than a week away from when city council cancelled the tender award to remove the Colliery Dams this year, and instructed staff to examine short term and long term mitigation of the hazard we are told these ponds present. It would be far too early in the process to come to any decisions about the next step in this little journey, but suffice to say that given past performance, and the recent defying of a council motion by staff that anything city staff produces at this point needs viewing with a healthy dose of skepticism.
The actual process at this point has not been made public, but I understand that the city and SFN and CDPPS and other interested parties will be working together to find the best way forward. It is certainly hoped that the SFN and CDPPS will have access to some independent engineers review of this whole process, as having the engineers who produced the first studies, determine if their own studies don't need a new look given new information about the dams might be expecting too much.
What are the chances that city staff will discover that perhaps the original hazard levels presented by these two dams, holding back these two ponds might have been overstated and perhaps even exaggerated?
New Facts About The Dams
Remember back in 2010 the middle dam was thought to contain no rebar, was likely made of poor quality concrete and may not be on bedrock. In that state, it was said that a $500,000 remediation should bring it up to a 1:3,000 year standard.
It is now known that it was made from good grade concrete, does in fact contain rebar and is seated on bedrock. Given this new information, it could be possible the dam is already up to a 1:3,000 year standard without any need for remediation at all.
"What are the chances that city staff will discover that perhaps the original hazard levels presented by these two dams, holding back these two ponds might have been overstated and perhaps even exaggerated?"
ReplyDeleteperhaps they got to thinking about the location of the new tank they are presently building right next to this area and it's impact if it was struck by an earthquake!
"It is certainly hoped that the SFN and CDPPS will have access to some independent engineers review of this whole process" - Why, at this point, do we still have to rely on hope that the obvious - that a proper, correct engineer review by a reputable, INDEPENDENT company - will be carried out?
ReplyDeleteIsn't there some way this can be written into the facilitation agreement?
Otherwise, this is just an opportunity for the original engineers who deemed the dams doomed, to collect more money to uphold their original findings. Does anyone believe they will say their original review was flawed??
It's so stupid I can't stand it.