$3.00
Published Nationally ®
Western Edition
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded 1957.” February 11, 2012 • Vol. VIII • No. 3 • 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215/885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215/885-2910 • www.constructionequipmentguide.com
Inside
California’s Toll Bridge Program Makes ‘Seismic’ Contribution, Ensures Safety By Jennifer Rupp CEG CORRESPONDENT
World Of Concrete 2012 Opens in Las Vegas...10
Alex Lyon & Son St arts Flor ida Auctions...36
Many Americans remember the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 that caused $6 to $7 billion in damages. Research from the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that there is a 62 percent probability of another magnitude 6.7 or greater quake causing widespread damage in the Bay region of California by 2031. This realization has transportation officials and engineers working diligently to reinforce the area’s structures against a future catastrophe. The term for this reinforcement is seismic retrofitting. Over the past few decades, seismic retrofit strategies have been developed with the introduction of new seismic provisions and the availability of advanced materials like fiberreinforced polymers (FRP), fiber reinforced concrete and high strength steel.
Currently in the Bay Area the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge East Span, the Dumbarton Bridge and the Antioch Bridge are undergoing concurrent retrofits,” said Effie Milionis, public
information manager and spokesperson of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). see PROGRAM page 39
Anchorage Port Project Under New Scrutiny Kir by-Smith’s Tippett Named to AED Board...39
Table of Contents ................4 Attachment Section ....11-13 Crushing, Screening & Recycling Section ........15-20 Business Calendar ............30 Truck & Trailer Section31-34 Auction Section ..........36-43 Advertisers Index ..............42
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) The troubled Port of Anchorage expansion project is under new scrutiny with attention being given to whether the design for redoing the port is suitable. Local and state politicians have become increasingly concerned with the project at the 50-year-old port as costs have escalated and construction problems mounted. About $288 million has been spent on the port expansion project so far. The estimated price tag for the full expansion, which would replace the existing structure and create new berths for bigger ships, now tops $1 billion. That is triple the estimate in 2005. Mayor Dan Sullivan last year proposed scaling back the project. The Anchorage Daily News
reported Jan. 27 that he now wants the municipality to wait until the results of the reviews are submitted. A city engineering advisory commission has been calling for an independent review of the project since at least 2005. The project stalled after the 2009 construction season when inspections revealed that hundreds of steel sheets used to form a new dock face had bent and separated during installation. The structure’s design is known as “open cell sheet pile,” a trademark registered to the project designer, PND Engineers Inc. Instead of a traditional dock on pilings, the design calls for interlocking lengths of steel hammered into Cook Inlet to form U-shaped cells that are filled with gravel to
extend the face of the dock 400 ft. (122 m). The full project is envisioned as a 1.5-mi. (2.4 km) wall of steel. Since the problems arose in the fall of 2009, work crews have mainly been inspecting and ripping out the earlier work. Last August, a bulldozer operator was killed when his machine slid and he became trapped in gravel fill and drowned. A state investigation found he was working on an unstable slope. The contractor overseeing the construction is Integrated Concepts and Research Corp., or ICRC, which began as a subsidiary of Koniag Inc. ICRC had never managed a port redevelopment when in 2003, as an Alaska Native firm, it won a no-bid con-
tract to run the project. Koniag later sold ICRC to an engineering and technical support firm, VSE Corp., based in Alexandria, Va. ICRC held onto the port contract, hiring and monitoring the subcontractors that do the physical work. The company has earned close to $28 million over nine years, counting what it expects to receive this year, according to its figures. The latest one-year extension of its contract expires May 31. Now, the structure itself is under close examination. Plans call for a design suitability study by engineering firm CH2M Hill to determine if the open cell sheet pile design is workable, according to those involved. CH2M Hill is currently managsee PORT page 8