Todd goes airborne at Alder Creek, Big Sur

Todd Ferryman traverses a high line at Alder Creek.  Todd is an unflappable superintendent for AIS, working on the Alder Creek slide repair for Caltrans.  AIS stabilized the slide earlier this year, and now we're installing wire mesh drapery to help keep loose rocks off Highway 1.  Todd is traversing the top anchor rope for one of the mesh panels. To give you an idea of scale, Todd is about 9 feet tall. (Actually, he's only 6'9", but that sure seems like 9 feet when you stand next to him).  Thanks to John Duffy for the photo.

Lumahai Soil Nail Wall

 AIS is working for Earthworks Pacific of Lihue to build two soil nail walls on the Kuhio Highway above Lumahai Beach, west of Hanalei, Kauai.  Here our Spyder excavator is drilling soil nail holes below the road.

Lumahai Beach is where Mitzi Gaynor "washed that man right out of her hair" in South Pacific.

 Our crew spends time working on the road, not so much time on the beach.  We have to keep one lane of the Kuhio Highway (State Route 560) open for traffic, which makes for a narrow work zone.

Our man Kevin Wiesman can load more equipment and materials on a Morooka than anyone!  The Morooka tracked dump vehicles are almost as handy and versatile as our Spyder excavators.

AIS helps fix part of New York City's Water Supply

AIS is working for Barnard-DA Collins JV on an upgrade of the 85 year-old Gilboa Dam in the Catskills.  We are doing demolition of the dam crest and downstream face, plus a few other chores.  Barnard-Collins will rebuild the dam so it's safe for another 100 years or so.

Alder Creek Slide Repair, Highway 1 south of Big Sur

AIS is fixing a large landslide south of Big Sur.  Caltrans called us in late April to help them fix the slide and get the road open again. This photo (courtesy of Caltrans) shows the slide, the highway and the ocean.  If you look carefully, you can see two of our spyder excavators and two bulldozers near the top of the slide.  You can also see a few brave souls on the toe of the slide next to the water.  Wonder how the equipment got up on that slope?  We flew 'em there with a helicopter.  This heli-repair concept should be more commonly used than it is - you can avoid the need to cut in an access road, also saving the effort needed to restore the access road at the end of the job. 

Scaling Rocks at Kalalau Beach

AIS just completed an interesting job in an exceptionally beautiful place: we scaled rocks from the cliffs above Kalalau Beach on the Napali Coast of Kauai.  All of our equipment was flown in by helicopter, and the chopper also hauled the scaled rock off the beach.  The crew camped on the beach - it was a fairly idyllic spot, although you can see that the poor guys were forced to rinse the dust off in the ocean. The beach and access trail were closed while we did the work (hikers and falling rocks are a bad combination).  The area is scheduled to reopen about November 1.  The local paper has some video of the project: 

http://thegardenisland.com/vmix_59e8093e-cdd1-11df-8b20-001cc4c03286.html

AIS helps keep Ohio drivers safe

In late July AIS scaled rocks from a slope above Route 7 along the Ohio River.  On July 21 a rockslide closed the westbound lanes of Route 7 just across the river from Huntington, West Virginia.  The Ohio Department of Transportation concluded that more rocks were in danger of coming down, so they brought in the Alan Stone Company of Cutler, Ohio to perform emergency work. AIS worked as subcontractors to Alan Stone. This photo shows our crew with some of the boulders scaled off the slope - you can see why traffic was impeded!   Here's a link to a local news report on this project: 

http://wowktv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=83192

Press coverage of the Iron Mountain cleanup project

Recently a few newspaper articles have come out on the Iron Mountain cleanup.  Here's a link to one of the shorter ones focused specifically on the dredging:
http://www.dredgingtoday.com/2010/08/25/epa-continues-cleanup-activities-at-iron-mountain-usa/

Of course, the engineers (CH2MHILL) and contractors (AIS (dredging), AHTNA Government Services (sediment conveyance system) and ERRG/Granite (the treatment facility)) would prefer that our names be plastered all over these articles.  However, we're happy the project is getting any publicity at all.  After you work on one of these things for the better part of a year, you really feel like it's your project.  In that sense, a big project like the Iron Mountain cleanup has a lot of people who feel like they own it.

Several projects in Hawaii coming up

AIS has done work in Hawaii over the past several years, and it looks like 2010 will continue that trend.  We are starting a rockfall mitigation project above Kalalau beach on the Napali coast of Hawaii.  Here's a link to a blog with more information:

http://www.napali.fr/english/kauai%E2%80%99s-napali-coast-trail-and-kalalau-valley-closing-for-two-months/

Steep slopes versus Really Steep Slopes

Spyder walking/climbing  excavators can work effectively on very steep slopes.  Frequently we do work in areas that are too steep to walk on.  This picture shows one of our spyders drilling holes in the left abutment at Big Tujunga Dam in southern California.  At this site the machine was put into place using a large crane. 

Spyder excavators are really handy.  Often we wonder why there aren't more of them around the United States.  It might have something to do with a shortage of qualified operators (the factory training programs are all in Europe).   Once you've had a spyder work on your project, you start wondering how you ever got along without one.

Scenic job sites, part two...

This photo of a spyder excavator working on a slope west of the Golden Gate Bridge is one of my favorites, and I didn't even shoot it. The project was to remove two cliff-side landfills from the Presidio of San Francisco. We used spyder excavators, conveyors and a bucket brigade of long-stick excavators to remove 73,000 tons of debris. The job was a lot of fun, although the 30 mph winds that came up nearly every afternoon made dust control an occasional problem. We uncovered all kinds of junk including several pieces of post-civil war unexploded ordnance. The possibility of lurking explosives kept everyone on their toes, lest they lose their toes, or worse. We also learned about the differences between the military's approach to ordnance disposal and the SFPD's Bomb Squad approach...but that's a post for another day.

Digging where the scenery is really nice

AIS speicalizes in difficult jobs.  The down side is the jobs are, well, difficult.  One of the upsides is that we work in a lot of scenic areas.  Here's a picture from a landslide repair we completed near Mariposa, California.  This picture shows a spyder excavator working to clear landslide debris from a slope high above Highway 49 and the Merced River.  The picture doesn't show it, but the temperature was routinely over 100 degrees in the canyon.  The cool river was very inviting, but we had a rule - no swimming until after qutting time.

It was a long haul, but worth it in the end.

AIS recently completed a big chunk of dredging work for CH2MHILL in the Spring Creek Arm of Keswick Reservoir.  Our dredge Corrin removed approximately 150,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from this tributary of the Sacramento River.  CH2MHILL and the US EPA have been working together to clean up acid mine drainage from the former Iron Mountain Mine.  AIS worked closely with AHTNA Government Services on this job.  They operated the mud treatment facility.  Dredging work goes on 24 hours a day and seven days a week, so it is very tiring.  Most of us plan to rest for about a year after this one.