My last
post on the Uncle Gnarley Blog - entitled Premier Needs Quebec Judge's Help On Forensic Audit - was about possible criminal activity on the Muskrat
project and the need for a forensic audit.
The
previous piece I authored - back in May - was called Of Deceit, Emera and Muskrat Madness. It described a possible action of civil deceit
against Emera with respect to their very burdensome Muskrat contracts with Nalcor.
Both very
important issues.
But as my
good friend Con O’Brien is quick to point out, over-riding all is the North
Spur.
Muskrat must
be halted for that reason alone – Now.
But that
issue sometimes (all the time?) gets lost in the Muskrat shuffle.
So let’s
go through it yet one more time.
(1) There are many ways the North Spur
can fail.
(2) The start of a Quick Clay landslide is
unpredictable and can involve relatively small amounts of energy.
Look at
this excellent, very frightening, Norwegian video on the 1978 Rissa Quick Clay
landslide;
Notice at
the very start how simply digging out a small amount of fill to extend a barn
basement caused a slide that extended some 12 km on the flat.
So, small
initiating event – big impact.
(3) Next warning point –
A
progressive downhill slide can be initiated by the reactivation of an old slump;
can move at a fast rate; slides can happen in two stages.
A classic
instance of a two-phase slide is the deadly 2014 Oso Slide in Washington State
Here is
an aerial view shortly after the slide.
Here is a
link to one of the innumerable articles on the Oso slide.
To put it
simply, the Oso Slide started upslope on one side of the river, rushed as a mass
of liquified mud across the river, through a subdivision at 60 miles per hour, across
the river valley and upslope on the other side of the river.
Muskrat
is a combination of Rissa (Quick Clay) and Oso (steep slope hovering over a
flat river valley).
The image below is a
Google Earth shot of the North Spur area; the river is flowing from left to
right; north is at the top.
Notice
how it naturally dams the river and makes it flow around Spirit Mountain and
over the two falls that together make up Muskrat Falls. The power house and
general construction site are on the southside of the river.
Quick
clay is to be found throughout the area south of the white line which
represents the Trans Labrador Highway. It is a big area; the Spur itself alone
is 1 km long.
The North Spur together with all this North Spur rip rap and cut off walls would be (as Dr. Bernander has said) “ swept away like matchsticks” if a Downhill Progressive Landslide is initiating up slope anywhere up to the Trans Labrador Highway.
The Spur
is set to come down – indeed at any moment the whole hillside can turn into a
catastrophic flood of liquid clay that would bury the work site and all on it.
How this
can happen is simple:
(1) There is a relatively small-scale
slump up towards the Trans Labrador Highway.
(2)The weight of the slump area in
motion is big enough to set the lower portion of the area in motion liquifying
it.
(3)The whole hill liquifies racing at 60
miles an hour across, first the river, then the spillway/ powerhouse area,
covering it and everyone in the area with 30 or 40 feet of liquid mud.
(4)Then races up the other side of the
river valley until gravity takes over and the liquid clay settles back into
it’s path of destruction.
(5)This landslide/ liquefaction event
would for a while seal off the Lower Churchill River
But not
for long - for it truly is a mighty river.
(6) With the North Spur gone the river is
now free to seek out its old channel north of Spirit Mountain - the channel
used before the North Spur was created.
(7) The downstream toe of the North Spur
is presently at tidewater – elevation zero; solid rock is down another 800 or so feet.
(8) Once
the river starts cutting down it will not stop till it gets to
basement rock – I am informed by a reliable/experienced/qualified source that
given the depth of clay and sand to solid rock upstream the downcutting can be
assumed to extend in a deep trench some 35 miles upstream to the foot of the
Gull Island rapids.
The
immediate impact on the Muskrat site is that it would be a devastated site, permanently completely useless and the location of death.
It would
be the greatest civil disaster in Canadian history.
It is astounding that project participants –
from SNC Lavalin to Nalcor to the Labor Unions – not to mention the Minister
responsible for Dam Safety – have learnt to live with their studied ignorance
in this matter.
And it’s
not like a major downhill slide hasn’t happened before in the North Spur area.
Here is a
blow-up of the lower left-hand corner of the image immediately above. The brook
on the right is Lower Brook. There is a pull off & Lookout with picnic tables
just before the sharp road bend to the north.
From here you can see Spirit Mountain and the North Spur.
The area
on the north side of the road is solid rock – harder than the Hobs of Hell.
The area
on the south side of the road drops quick over a cliff.
Note the
jumbled pattern in the vegetation between the bottom of the cliff and the
river.
This was,
within living memory, the scene of a major slide – certainly large enough to
take out the North Spur.
Sometime
back in the late thirties or early forties, some trappers were spending the
night in their cabin in the area between Lower Brook and what was to become the
slide edge.
They told
their friends they heard an incredible noise in the middle of the night rush
down the slope like a freight train going real fast.
When
daylight came, they realized the slide, that had started up slope, had just missed
them.
Yet
Nalcor has instructed all it’s consultants to assume that such down hill slides
cannot occur in the Muskrat Falls area.
Tell it
to the Judge.
