My recent Uncle Gnarley posts have dealt with Emera and Civil Deceit (May 15)
SNC Lavalin and Criminal Deceit ( September 14)
and the risk of catastrophic failure of the hillside above
the North Spur (September 28)
They are all connected; all part of the grand scheme.
That September 28th post more or less described the time bomb
that Nalcor has constructed at the North Spur.
Today I’d like to go back to look at some of the design steps
that got them there.
For background, the keeners amongst you can check out a long
but well illustrated powerpoint on the North Spur issue on my muskratinfowebsite –
Please restrain yourself until you are through reading this
present much shorter Uncle Gnarley piece.
The real keeners can also afterwards move on to an even longer
powerpoint on the same site at http://muskratinfo.ca/northspur2.pdf
And the true fanatics should definitely check out my report on
Dr Bernander’s North Spur field trip –
Now that’s a scary one – especially if you remember the Rissa Slide video from my last post. On the trip by foot, boat and helicopter, we saw
Quick Clay and Quick Clay landslides up and down the Lower Churchill Valley -
all over the place in fact.
Dr Bernander was amazed – most “active” ground he has seen
anywhere except for Saudi sand hills in a rare violent rainstorm.
The helicopter shots of the 2010 Edwards Island Quick Clay
Slide alone will, I assure you, rock your socks (see slides 79 to 87) -
yes it’s long but hang on, it’s only pictures for God’s sake.
Slow down and smell the putrid carcass that is Muskrat – lest
it be us.
So there, I’ve plugged everything except my spring 2014 book
“Muskrat Madness” – still available for a pittance at Afterwords Bookstore on
Duckworth Street.
But all that is for the keeners – back to the Coles Notes.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Best place to start for these purposes is back in the spring
of 2011.
Nalcor was under heavy duty fire from the Geological Survey of
Canada (GSC) which had been picked by the Federal Provincial Joint Review Panel
as their prime geotechnical advisers.
The GSC peppered Nalcor with a series of focused written
questions requiring written answers about Nalcor’s inadequate geotechnical
information and lack of real review of North Spur geology in particular.
Had lots of questions Nalcor wouldn’t or couldn’t answer.
In apparent exasperation, on March 9, 2011, the GSC gave an
impressive presentation at a Federal Provincial Joint Review Panel public
hearing in Happy Valley/Goose Bay.
They pointed out a lot of technical gaps and their worries in
vivid detail. Said Nalcor’s work was inadequate. Even gave the Rissa
presentation in point form.
Word was Ottawa grew “concerned”; the reaction in the
Confederation Building must have absolutely smoked and Danny – well you
know Danny.
And the Nalcor reaction?
“What me worry?” was the battle cry. What could possibly turn
up that great big globs of ratepayers/taxpayers money could not fix?
On with the party. Get her started.
Within the month, the chastened GSC was saying that Nalcor’s
bland reassurances were fine with them; true there were those unanswered
questions but what the hell – in fact everything was fine. The lion had
regressed to pussy cat.
Now one of Nalcor’s key assurances to the GSC was that they
would be doing this super-duper North Spur geotechnical program and they were
confident that everything would turn out fine.
Behind the scenes Nalcor was trying to get the Provincial
Government to sanction the Muskrat Falls project by June of 2012 – before the
promised North Spur geotechnical program was to be conducted in the summer of
2012.
But something went wrong – someone must have said - Hang on we
are not ready to sanction; we have to put sanction off till at least the Fall –
and it was.
And suddenly, the wonderful Nalcor geotechnical program
promised to the GSC and to the Joint Review Panel for the summer of 2012 was
moved to the summer of 2013 – which of course turned out to be after sanction
in December 2012.
And surprise, surprise, after even the decidedly inadequate
2013 summer geotechnical program , it was found that the sanctioned
“stabilization” plan, touted as safe at sanction, would not work because the
North Spur would still be too unstable.
No sir, we need to do more Nalcor said– but don’t worry – this
time we’ll get it right - if we just add a couple of cut-off walls everything
will be ok – and the party can go on.
The fact that they then had and still have a very inadequate
number of core holes and resulting data on the Spur – didn’t matter.
The fact that there are many square kilometers of Quick Clay
infested area upslope from the Spur where Nalcor does not have a single drill
hole – didn’t matter.
The fact that every summer the Department of Highways has to
clean out the slumping clay from the Trans Labrador Highway ditches up above
the North Spur --- didn’t matter -- even though as one highway worker said –
“Sure this whole hill side is moving.”
The fact that they have torn up and shifted vast amounts of
ground without any apparent concern that they are setting up an Oso slide
situation – didn’t matter.
All that mattered, and still matters, is that the party must
go on.
Ah yes – a Big Scheme is made up of many smaller schemes – and
this has been one of them.
Of course, all this goes to show how complex the Judicial
Inquiry’s work will be.
And that it must include answering the question -- Were proper
geo-technical, engineering and project management procedures followed on the
North Spur?
Yes, the Judicial Inquiry will be busy, busy, busy.
PS: Just one more thing –
In my last post I used the deadly 2014 Oso slide in Washington
State to demonstrate how a two stage slide initiated upslope from the North
Spur could set in motion a Downhill Progressive Slide that would literally wipe
out the North Spur and bury the existing construction site.
This sort of event is apart from a breach in the North Spur
first (say from increased hydraulic pressure from raised water levels). Such an
event would itself bring down the unstable upslope area.
This is a case where the small may well begat the big -- just
like those few loads of fill from a barn basement triggered the 1978 Rissa
slide in Norway.
Nalcor has been shifting sand, gravel and clay around upslope
from the North Spur like there was no tomorrow.
Here are a few recent photos of one of their hillside workings
along the North Spur access road.
This ordinary looking hillside could be an Oso type trigger if
it lets go.
Of course, the contractors and workers are beavering away and
don’t look at it that way.
Is this blindness some sort of socio-political fatalism that
nothing can change?
Does anyone really put any faith in Nalcor’s mantra (included
in instructions to the so-called Independent Engineer) that Progressive
Downhill Landslides like the ones Dr. Bernander worries so much about simply do
not – cannot- exist in the Churchill River Valley.
After a detailed examination by helicopter, Dr Bernander said
the 2010 Edwards Island Quick Clay slide upriver was a “classic” example of a
Downhill Progressive Landslide – but what would he know, he is just the world’s
leading expert in the field.
Is this failure to own up to the North Spur problem just
another part of our general Muskrat fever?
If so, what could shake us out of it – what could be our “The
Emperor has no clothes” moment?
Maybe when the Inquiry brings out more and more areas of
defect – like when we all notice that all of Nalcor’s Dam Break studies for
Muskrat are for summertime conditions only; river ice is not taken into
account.
That’s right - like Downhill Progressive Landslides, Nalcor
doesn’t believe in river ice -- & what it can do downstream once in motion --
either.
Poor Happy Valley/Goose Bay and Mud Lake.
Poor all of us.
