Cabot Martin and his geotechnical engineering advisors are
at odds with the Minister of Environment and Conservation, Dan Crummell, on some
pretty important issues. I have briefly summarized two of them here, but
readers are offered full access to the documents via the links provided below.
The two issues mentioned are:
a) The
Minister claims Nalcor Energy has conducted a proper risk assessment of geotechnical
conditions at the North Spur. In his July 30th 2015 reply to Cabot Martin’s
Letter of July 7th 2015, Dan Crummell says Nalcor has conformed to
the Canadian Dam Association (CDA) Dam Safety Guidelines. The advice Martin received suggests that those Guidelines are applicable to “man-made” structures.
In other words, they are appropriate for the two concrete structures which
will constitute the southern portion of the dam only; not for the North Spur.
b) The dam break study which Nalcor commissioned Hatch Consultants to perform, and on
which the Minister Crummell relied, is based upon arbitrary assumptions which
Nalcor insisted the Study should contain.
Let’s look at those two issues more closely and consider a Paper by a Canadian engineering icon which offers a process to resolve them.
