Life in West Virginia: THE BIG LEAK . . .aka THE BIG MONEY PIT

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

THE BIG LEAK . . .aka THE BIG MONEY PIT

Well, after years of excessive cost over-runs, poor workmanship, possibly some corruption (there is always so sort of corruption involved) the project which has become a "tick" project, rather than a "pet" project to the Senators, who have both been involved in the project since 1982 when Kerry was Lt. Governor and Teddy had been in the Senate for 20 years, along with former Gov. Dukakis and former Transportation Secretary Salvucci has killed a civilian.

In the early 80's lobbying continued, environmental studies where undertaken (1983), Kerry was elected to the Senate (1985) and a bill was passed (1987) which Regan vetoed it, calling it too expensive. Congress overrode the veto and the project was underway by 1991. The project was beleaguered from time of it's passage to this very day. The first problems arose in the early 90's, when the contractors ran into sunken ships, buried homes and displaced the rat population. Lawsuits and objections ensued from every possible direction, including the city of Cambridge over many of the projects details, like, bridges. LOL By this time, the original cost had tripled due to "inflation" (um, thought there was little inflation from the late 80's to the mid-90's).

The "BIG DIG" has been plagued by "leaks" from the Charles River and it's various water tables since 2004. I am not sure how the Chunnel was built UNDER THE ENGLISH CHANNEL but just MAYBE, engineers should have consulted with those builders to insure that the 3.5 mile tunnel not leak, I mean a Swiss engineer designed the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, why not ask the Europeans for other tips?!?!

The latest sad news of the newlywed woman being killed by failure of a steel tie-back, which caused 4 three ton sections of concrete to collapse from the ceiling onto the car in which she was riding with her husband should be the breaking point . . . but it won't be. More federal money will be spent to shore up the tunnel, lawsuits and criminal charges will be filed, tax-payers will also have to pay for investigations into the companies involved and the single-largest highway project which should have been abandoned years ago, with some other way to siphon traffic through the city, will continue to add billions of dollars to the hole in the ground in Boston.

It is sad that after almost 15 BILLION dollars have been spent on a 3.5 mile stretch of highway, along with all of the various "tie-ins" a woman is STILL killed by a faulty steel tie-back.