Related: Boston Boiling Over
The Boston Globe's Main Story
Water Back On in Boston
"Panel to investigate cause of pipe break; Could pave way for damage suit" by Michael Levenson and Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | May 6, 2010
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority said yesterday it will establish an independent commission to determine what caused a connection to fail in a major water pipeline on Saturday, a move that could lay the groundwork for lawsuits against the companies involved....
Everything in this f***ing country ends up in court!
Pffft!
So you get ripped off on a product and now must pay to sue the looters, 'eh, taxpayers? Only in AmeriKa.
State officials are hoping to avoid passing the cost of the repairs on to customers served by the MWRA....
Sigh. Just like swallowing s*** water, ain't it?
Jan R. Schlichtmann, a prominent plaintiffs’ lawyer from Beverly, said it appeared that state officials are preparing a lawsuit to recover the still-unspecified costs of the water disruption. The 1-ton clamp that broke on the pipe was only seven years old, and Schlichtmann said state officials will undoubtedly try to determine if it was negligently designed, manufactured, or installed.
If they can ever find it.
“We’ve got to see what the facts are, of course, but [negligence] has got to be high on the index of suspicion,’’ said Schlichtmann, whose nine-year legal battle against companies accused of leaking toxic contaminants into Woburn’s drinking wells was chronicled in the book and movie “A Civil Action.’’
Legal specialists were divided on whether businesses or residents in the 30 communities affected by the interruption in water service might sue for damages.
Jeffrey A. Denner, a Boston lawyer who represented relatives of Milena Del Valle in a civil lawsuit after the Jamaica Plain woman was killed in a 2006 ceiling collapse in a Big Dig tunnel, said he doubted that businesses or residents will file suit. The cost for a coffee shop to hire an expert to testify about business lost would far outweigh the modest damages, he said.
“An inconvenience is not a disaster,’’ Denner said.
But Schlichtmann said that if numerous businesses lost modest amounts of money, they could file a class-action lawsuit.
“It certainly would not be frivolous by any stretch,’’ he said. “You’ve got such a huge group of people who suffered a substantial disruption. That’s why we have these class-action vehicles.’’
But Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said none of his 3,100 members, which include some restaurant franchises, have inquired about recovering money from a disruption in business.
And Peter Christie, president and chief executive of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, said that while business at some restaurants in the area dropped as much as 25 percent during the water crisis, he doubted any will take legal action....
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, meanwhile, reiterated yesterday that he plans to hold hearings into the cause and costs of the pipe break, which affected some 2 million people until the order the boil water was lifted Tuesday....
In an effort to pinpoint the cause of the failure, workers continued to search the Charles River in Weston yesterday for the metal clamp that broke loose from the pipe. State Police divers conducted their own search for the clamp on Tuesday but failed to find it. Today the MWRA plans to dredge the river to continue searching, officials said.
Yesterday, crews used massive earth-moving machines to begin rebuilding a hillside that was badly eroded when the clamp broke and released millions of gallons of water. They extended a 700-foot orange boom into the river to keep silt from spreading downstream.
As officials focused on the recent crisis, an obscure commission established last year by the Legislature to develop long-range plans to finance the state’s aging water infrastructure held its first meeting yesterday, under the sudden glare of the recent break....
Well, if we had not tossed our tax money away to favored corporations and into politicians pockets maybe the infrastructure could have been fixed right.
And that's government: always reacting to a problem they should have prevented and telling you what a great job they are doing the whole time.
"Clamp used in 8 other projects; MWRA checking to determine risk" by Noah Bierman and Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff | May 7, 2010
Meanwhile, workers continued dredging the Charles River for the broken clamp....
But so far they have not found it, which could hamper the investigation....
Frederick A. Laskey, executive director of the water authority, allowed a remote possibility that the clamp was buried under concrete that had been poured at the site of the failure over the weekend to restore the main water supply, but said it was more likely that it was carried by the intense flow of water that came when the pipe burst....
Then they ain't never finding it.
Laskey said workers recovered the rubber gasket that lay underneath the clamp immediately after the pipe failure, a mangled portion of which he showed off at the board meeting yesterday. The search for the missing metal clamp that encased it was proving far more complicated, involving the use of metal detectors, high-tech imaging equipment, and heavy dredging trucks....
How much is this costing taxpayers?
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"Coupling was cited in other breaks; Clamp in Weston wasn’t reinforced" by Beth Daley, Sean Murphy, and Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | May 9, 2010
WESTON — Pipes joined by clamps similar in design to the one that fractured catastrophically last weekend, disrupting Greater Boston’s drinking water supply, had previously leaked in five other locations in the region’s water system, according to a settlement agreement obtained by the Globe.
As a result of those leaks in Newton early in the past decade, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority replaced the clamps with other connectors and then negotiated with the companies that manufactured and installed them to reinforce 23 other water main joints that had the same type of Depend-O-Lok clamp, according to the MWRA and the 2005 settlement document. The water authority did not, however, require any extra fortification for a much larger Depend-O-Lok clamp holding together two massive water pipes several miles away in Weston, where last week’s rupture occurred.
That break occurred in the roughly 150-foot-long section of pipe that serves as the main passage between the seven-year-old MetroWest tunnel and the much older City Tunnel that carries water from the Quabbin and Wachusett reservoirs on the last leg of its journey into Boston....
Documents obtained by the Globe and interviews with those involved in the Weston pipeline’s construction also show that the failed clamp was not the project designers’ first choice. The pipes were originally supposed to be much more rigidly connected and encased in concrete but that method couldn’t be used because, as often happens at job sites, the massive pipes to be joined didn’t align perfectly....
WTF?
Now the Globe is MAKING EXCUSES for them?
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They ain't never going to find it, folks:
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority says it plans to excavate the “hot spots’’ discovered by ground-penetrating radar in the search for the pipe coupling that failed in Weston, causing a drinking-water crisis for nearly 2 million people....
The steel coupling connecting two 10-foot-diameter water mains failed on May 1, causing a break that dumped millions of gallons of water into the nearby Charles River. The MWRA has been hunting for the coupling, hoping to learn from it what went wrong.
The areas to be excavated were scoured out by the rushing water escaping from the area where the coupling failed. They were refilled with dirt after repairs to the pipe, ending the crisis, Convery said. The pipes in that area are not buried very deeply, she said; the tops of the pipes are only about 10 feet underground.
Once workers excavate the area adjacent to the pipe, they may also be able to deploy the ground-penetrating radar to look sideways and see if the coupling has somehow come to rest underneath the pipe, which has been encased in concrete.
We were told that was unlikely.
The break in the key water main bringing water east from reservoirs in the central part of the state to the Boston area forced the authority to switch to backup water supplies. Governor Deval Patrick issued a boil-water order — ordering people in Boston and 29 other communities to boil water used for drinking or cooking — that lasted for 2 1/2 days.
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And you GET what you PAY FOR, taxpayers!
A ceiling collapse in a Big Dig tunnel kills a woman heading to the airport.
Related: The Price of a Massachusetts Life
And the reason you have no money for repairs or services is because your taxes are going to pay off interest on the debt of that monstrosity, Bay Stater.
Crumbling railroad ties threaten the daily commute for thousands on the South Shore.
Related: Tying Up the T
Nope, DO NOT MAKE 'EM like they USED TO!
A ruptured pipe connection puts 2 million residents of Greater Boston under orders to boil their drinking water.
All were recently built projects; all failed spectacularly. And while each failed for unique reasons, some still unknown, they are all vivid reminders of the vulnerability of public works projects that millions rely on to move fresh water, cars, and commuters in a seamless fashion. Even some engineers are frustrated.
“I’m just saying, can’t we do anything right anymore?’’ said Jerome J. Connor, a civil engineering professor at MIT. “Or are we a bunch of screw-ups, and that’s what’s happening?’’
Throughout American history, public works have been symbols of civic pride and the can-do American spirit — damming rivers for power, laying rail lines across the West, building the interstate highway system, and delivering electrical power to the rural South.
While old projects with decades of strain are expected to give out over time, the recent failures of projects barely a decade old raise a host of questions: Were there errors in design? Shoddy work? A lack of oversight? A focus on speed and budget at the expense of quality? Or just bad luck?
Why do all these questions need asking and why are we getting no answers from media and government?
********************
The Big Dig tunnel where ceiling panels fell in 2006 was hailed as a modern engineering marvel.
Pffft!
FLASHBACK:
"The Big Dig’s deadly ‘safety’ rails; Seven motorists have died after becoming entangled in railings that line parts of the Big Dig tunnels. Experts and a legal claim say design flaws make such tragedy all too likely" by Matt Carroll, Globe Staff | February 14, 2010
State Trooper Vincent Cila is one of seven motorists and passengers who have been killed - most of them gruesomely dismembered - when they struck the handrails lining the Big Dig tunnel system between 2005 and 2008. One other person lost an arm and survived.
The handrails have been dubbed the “ginsu guardrails,’’ after the knives advertised on TV, by some police officers called to the grisly crashes.
What a DISASTER that over-priced project has become.
Stretching along some 6 miles of the Big Dig system, the railings draw little attention from motorists focused on driving safely through the busy tunnels and highways.
Until you hit one, slice!
They sit on top of raised walkways lining the roads and were installed to prevent maintenance workers from falling into traffic....
--more--"Related: Review of tunnel handrails is urged
Not only are we in debt forever for that monstrosity, it is UNSAFE as hell.
The Old Colony railroad ties now crumbling were put into use in 1997 and the manufacturer said they would last 50 years. The 1-ton clamp that broke on the water pipe in Weston last weekend was installed only seven years ago.
More quality workmanship.
Farther afield, the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico last month, killing 11 workers and spreading a devastating slick of crude, was built in 2001 and was considered among the most technologically advanced drilling platforms in the world.
At a time when the federal government is spending billions in stimulus funds to restore crumbling infrastructure and build new roads, bridges, and high-speed rail lines, questions about the recent failures have become especially urgent....
TOO BAD you let Congress spend all your tax loot on wars and banks, America.
Some observers, reflecting on the recent failures in Boston and beyond, wondered if enduring works of infrastructure, such as the Brooklyn Bridge, are possible in a political culture that demands that anything done by government be done as cheaply and quickly as possible.
Oh, NOW the paper is WONDERING ABOUT PROBLEMS after PEOPLE LIKE ME have been COMPLAINING about NEGLECT for YEARS!!
And SOMEHOW it is YOUR FAULT, public!!
Hey, what is ONE MORE INSULT from the agenda-pushing paper, huh?
“I’m part of this problem,’’ said Douglas B. MacDonald, a former secretary of transportation for Washington state and a former director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. “We in the infrastructure business have been trying to convince the American public that we can be good stewards of money if we deliver projects on time and on budget.’’
Then quit! And SINCE WHEN are they coming in ON TIME and ON BUDGET?
I think you DRANK TOO MUCH SEWER WATER, guy!!!
But, ultimately, “what you really need is a common-sense proposition, down the middle, that takes into account price but realizes a cheap price for a bad job is no bargain,’’ MacDonald said....
Why i$ EVERYONE trying to RIP YOU OFF in AmeriKa?
Of course, neither the $15 billion Big Dig nor the $728 million water tunnel that ruptured would be considered cheap.
Right!
Even so....
Sigh! F*** YOU, Globe!
Of course, building a pipe or tunnel is a human endeavor, and some amount of error is inevitable.
How mamy more apologies you going to make for them?
Public works projects almost always involve multiple entities, from contractors and subcontractors to project management firms and government agencies.
Civil engineers emphasize that the recent failures represent only a tiny fraction of the projects built. The vast majority work as designed: New waste-water treatment plants and tunnels have made Boston Harbor cleaner; Big Dig tunnels have made it easier to drive through the city while creating downtown parks.
When projects do fail, it is usually after years of wear, or relatively early in their lives, when first put under stress, said Robert S. Stephens, president of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers.
“From that standpoint, it’s not a surprise to me that this would be uncovered,’’ he said of the recent failures.
Oh, so WHATEVER YOU BUY expect it to be CRAP, America -- and DON'T COMPLAIN!!
“There are no perfect engineers in the world. Mistakes get made. And there are no perfect contractors in the world. Things do go wrong in projects.’’
You mean like WTC towers collapsing in their own footprints because of fire, that kind of thing?
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"Officials studying alewife deaths; About 5,000 found in tunnel" by Kathy McCabe, Globe Staff | May 9, 2010
Weymouth officials have asked the state to investigate the deaths of thousands of alewives, a protected species in Massachusetts, found floating inside a flood control tunnel along the Back River herring run.
An estimated 5,000 were found last week inside the three-quarter-mile tunnel, where a gate designed to keep fish out was opened during late March storms by water rushing from swollen Whitman’s Pond, the herring spawning habitat, town officials said.
“The general consensus at the moment is they died from a lack of oxygen,’’ said George M. Loring, the town’s volunteer herring warden. “The fish got to an area where they are not supposed to. It’s terrible.’’
About 70,000 fish trapped inside the pipe that survived were released into the river Friday, officials said.
Mary Ellen Schloss, the town’s conservation administrator, said she has not ruled out the possibility that the dead alewives may have been poisoned, from sediment contained in runoff from a sewer pipe repair or a substance intentionally dumped into the Back River....
WHAT is WITH STATE OFFICIALS and their BULLSHIT?
Although state tests conducted last week turned up no evidence of poison, Schloss is not convinced. “Did somebody pour something into the vents of the flood control system up at Iron Hill?’’ she asked.
She is a CONSPIRACY THEORIST!!!!
Oxygen levels conducted last week by the state Division of Marine Fisheries were normal, according to Schloss. “They didn’t show anything outstanding . . . We’re not sure of the reason . . . We know that thousands of fish have died,’’ she said....
Oh, I THINK I HAVE a PRETTY GOOD IDEA!
All those fish trapped in a small space breathing.
YOU FIGURE IT OUT!
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Really, readers, what is with the KNEE-JERK REFLEX and LYING when it comes to GOVERNMENT in AmeriKa!?
At least some fish were freed:
"Herring freed from tunnel in Weymouth" by David Abel, Globe Staff | May 13, 2010
WEYMOUTH — The snub-nosed, silver-colored fish had become the latest victims of recent statewide floods, during which rushing water and debris forced open a gate designed to prevent the herring, known as alewives, from entering the flood-control tunnel.
In the past week, thousands of fish followed the current into the wrong tunnel, became trapped in shallow water, and began dying, apparently from lack of oxygen....
But the TOWN PUKE says they were POISONED!!!
Every year, about 200,000 herring journey from the Atlantic Ocean to Whitman’s Pond, where they spawn....
Yes, the WONDERS of LIFE!!!!!!
