Geotechnical News December 2011
11
CGS NEWS
G. Geoffrey Meyerhof Award:
Ryan Phillips, Principal Consultant, C-
CORE, St. John’s, Newfoundland
Thomas Roy Award:
No Award in
2011
Roger J. E. Brown Award:
Not
scheduled for 2011
John A. Franklin Award:
Peter F.
Stacey, President, Stacey Mining Geo-
technical Ltd., Vancouver, BC
Geoenvironmental Award:
Not
scheduled for 2011
Geosynthetics Award:
Not sched-
uled for 2011
Robert N. FarvoldenAward (Joint
award with IAH-CNC):
Robert N.
Betcher, Section Head, Groundwater
Management Section, Manitoba Water
Stewardship, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Graduate Student Paper Award
1st Prize:
Fathi Mohamed,
“Bear-
ing Capacity and Settlement Behaviour
of Shallow Footings in Unsaturated
Sands”
Department of Civil Engineer-
ing, University of Ottawa, Advisors;
Dr. Sai Vanapalli and Dr. Murat Saat-
cioglu
2nd Prize:
Jeffrey Oke,
“Investiga-
tion into Application of Rankine and
Coulomb Theory on Forepoles defor-
mation in Conventional Tunnelling
Methods,”
Department of Geological
Sciences and Geological Engineer-
ing, Queen’s University; Advisors, Dr.
Nicholas Vlachopoulos and Dr. Mark
Diederichs
Undergraduate Student Report
(Individual)
1st Prize:
Candice Williams,
“De-
sign of a Fluorescent Tracer Injection
Experiment to Characterize Infiltration
Patterns in Whiteman’s Creek, Ontar-
io,”
Department of Civil Engineering,
University of Waterloo; Advisor, Dr.
William K. Annable
2nd Prize:
Sarah Klassen,
“The
Impacts of Groundwater Trends and
Bioengineering on Riverbanks in Win-
nipeg,”
Department of Civil Engineer-
ing, University of Manitoba, Winni-
peg; Advisor, Dr. James Blatz
Undergraduate Student Report
(Group)
1st Prize:
Brad Copping, Sonia
Hachey, Sean Legassie, Brandon Love,
John Nichols, and Jennifer Pellerin,
“Seismic amplification and resonance
effects in Fredericton, New Brunswick:
geological origin and geotechnical
significance”
Department of Earth Sci-
ences, University of New Brunswick;
Advisors, Dr. Karl Butler and Dr. Tom
Al
2nd Prize:
Jennifer Day, Michaela
Kuuskman, and Claire MacCallum,
“Assessment of Railway Embankment
Fouling,”
Department of Geological
Sciences and Geological Engineering,
Queen’s University, Kingston; Advi-
sor, Dr. D. Jean Hutchinson
Canadian Foundation for Geo-
technique National Graduate Schol-
arship:
Adedeji Dunmola, Carleton
University
A.G. Stermac Awards
David M. Cruden, Professor Emeri-
tus, University of Alberta
Brad M. Ellingwood, Chief Geo-
technical Engineer, E2K Engineering
Ltd.
Heinrich K. Heinz, Managing Di-
rector /Geotechnical Engineer, Thurber
Engineering Ltd.
David F. Wood, David F. Wood
Consulting Ltd.
CGS R.M. Hardy Keynote Ad-
dress:
Kwan Yee Lo, Professor Emeri-
tus, University of Western Ontario.
CGS Keynote Address:
Not sched-
uled for the 2011 Pan-Am-CGS Toron-
to Conference.
Casagrande Lecture:
R. Kerry
Rowe, Professor and Vice-Principal
(Research) Queens’s University.
Canadian Geotechnical Colloqui-
um:
Craig Lake, Associate Professor,
Dalhousie University
Cross Canada Lecture Tours:
Mark Diederichs (Spring 2011), Steven
G. Vick (Fall 2011)
Awards from Engineering Insti-
tute of Canada (EIC)
La Médaille K.Y. Lo Medal:
W. D.
Liam Finn, Professor Emeritus, Uni-
versity of British Columbia
Bank and its affiliates were original ad-
dressees thereof; provided, however,
that U. S. Bank and its affiliates shall be
deemed not to be subject to or bound by
any of the obligations of any original
addressee or owner of the Property in
any agreement related to the Report....”
In essence, this wording would require
environmental professionals to commit
risk management suicide. It gives the
Bank all the benefits of being able to
rely on the report (plus a potential es-
cape from the constraints of the eco-
nomic loss doctrine) with absolutely
none of the liabilities or responsibilities
that comprised the business context
through which the report was devel-
oped. In a best-practices scenario – the
type of scenario to which, I presume,
the Bank subscribes – the client selects
a particularly qualified consultant, dis-
cusses its needs with the consultant, and
then works with the consultant to mutu-
ally establish a scope of service for the
engagement. The consultant and client
then discuss the consideration the con-
sultant needs to fulfill the scope of ser-
vice and manage the risk associated
with potentially lifelong responsibility
for the deliverable. Such consideration
includes the fee and certain risk man-
agement provisions of the contract,
such as limitation of liability.
By requiring a consultant to prepare
and sign its form letter, the Bank is stat-
ing, in essence, “We want to be able to
rely on the report indefinitely (and even
if we do not issue the financing, by the
way) without having to accept any of
your contractual safeguards, without
having to compensate you for any of
your customary, anticipated risks, and
without having to compensate you for
your new, significantly expanded risks,
especially the new risk that arises be-
cause you designed your service for
some other party, and with no knowl-
edge of the Bank’s needs and prefer-
ences, and no knowledge of the service
scope the Bank believes is best-suited to
address those needs and preferences.”
To a very real extent, Mr. Grundhofer,
this is like requiring a physician to be li-
able for your health after you decide to
follow the course of treatment the phy-
sician prescribed for your friend whose
illness (in your opinion) was kind of
like your own.
do
A
b
pi
po
