Geotechnical News • June 2012
45
ASFE NEWS
representative would have known that
test results need to be acted upon,
especially when they indicate unsafe
conditions, statements like “It doesn’t
really matter,” “Just this once,” and
“You’re going to get us behind sched-
ule and cost us a fortune,” notwith-
standing.
The next headline? “
Legal Settlement
To Force Completion of Chicago’s
Deep Tunnel
.”
Were the issues just
legal? Read the following quote:
Most of the settlement adds legal
teeth to the Metropolitan Water
Reclamation District’s latest
construction schedule for the
Deep Tunnel, which has been
repeatedly delayed by funding
woes and engineering hurdles.
Officials broke ground on one
of the nation’s most expensive
public works projects nearly 40
years ago.
While the water reclamation
district keeps working on two
massive flood-control reservoirs,
it will also be required to invest
in more small-scale “green
infrastructure” projects that
allow storm runoff to seep into
the ground rather than drain into
sewers.
was the third
headline. The story focused mostly on
cooling-water filtration systems, which
is not really a geoprofessional issue.
“Definitely not geoprofessional”
would be an accurate assessment
of the story behind headline four:
”
But not so with headline five:
”
A quick read indicated that questions
exist about the adequacy of post-con-
struction bridge inspection – CoMET
QA services – and the manner in
which they were reported.
Headline six –
– seemed to involve nothing
geoprofessional, until we read the
article. The following excerpt is tell-
ing:
The final design detailing the
structural concrete for the
Pretreatment Facility at the
Hanford vitrification plant has
been completed. The drawing
represents the completion of the
facility’s concrete floors and
results from more than 15,000
pages of calculations and 500
drawings. These calculations and
drawings provide the details that
enable crews to construct the
massive concrete structure.
was the seventh
headline. The story focused on the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commis-
sion’s likely approval of the West-
inghouse AP1000, a standard nuclear
power plant design that is already in
use outside the U.S. Clearly, using a
preapproved standard design has ben-
efits compared to developing a unique
design each time. What the story failed
to mention, however, was the need for
effective site selection and founda-
tion design no matter what design is
required, and, of course, the high-level
CoMET services needed to ensure that
what’s designed is what’s built. And
who will provide those essential site-
specific services? Aha!
Headline 8 – “
– discussed oil leaking from an
off-shore well and the environmental
damage being caused. Geoprofessional
all the way.
Headline 9 – “
– involved a worker who fell
from a roof as opposed to what we
feared: a worker caught in a trench
cave-in, a far more common occur-
rence. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
data show that, from 2000 through
2006, 271 workers died in trenching or
excavation cave-ins.)
The final listing –
” – was a video that showed
structural engineers dispatched by
ASCE checking building wreckage
to learn what happened. Foundation
deformation was a critical issue.
So, judge, what’s your count? The way
we see it, at least half of the headlined
stories center on or at least involve
geoprofessional issues; more-detailed
reportage would have raised that
number to eight. That’s not too bad,
especially considering that legal or
regulatory issues were involved or
alluded to in “only” six.
A Votre Santé
No matter what language you prefer,
it’s bound to have an expression used
to toast to one’s health, because – let’s
face it – without your health, just
about everything else is meaningless.
And it’s no different for businesses,
no matter what their size or specialty:
Without health, they’re doomed. And
just as with people, by doing the right
things to stay healthy, it’s far more
likely that you will, and for a long
time, too. But take your health for
granted, and who knows what can
happen, often suddenly, without warn-
ing.
For ASFE-Member Firms, staying
healthy is a challenge. But there’s one
step you can take to meet that chal-
lenge, if you have not done so already:
Peer Review. It’s like a business
physical. You get checked out from
top to tail by a team of dedicated,
experienced peers who use their own
reviews and input from client repre-
sentatives and staff to make an assess-
ment. Then they tell you what they’ve
found and what they recommend.
Think you know about everything
that’s going on in your “outfit”? Think
everyone is telling you the plain,
unvarnished truth as they see it? Think
your firm cannot be any better than it
already is? Think the Moon is made of
green cheese?
What are you waiting for? Learn what
others’ experiences have been by ask-
