[Mpls] "Doing" the Crown Hydro project!

[Chris Johnson]

Dan McGuire wrote:

>    Since you brought up the Eastman tunnel collapse, it might be good for those
>that aren't aware of some of the history of the falls to take a look at this
>link,  http://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/history/engineering/ .  One thing is clear
>from reading through the history,  and that is that engineers and developers
>have made mistakes and forgotten about things that later proved to drastically
>alter their plans and the falls.  So, is $10,000,000.00 enough to cover the
>things that the engineers of the current project have overlooked or don't yet
>know about ?  I'm not in the water falls reconstruction business, but it seems
>more than a little shy to me.
>Dan McGuire
>Ericsson
>  
>
I'd like to note that the Eastman tunnel collapse on October 4, 1869 
required 15 years work (1870 to 1885) and over $615,000 from the federal 
government to "repair."  The Eastman tunnel was clearly a bad idea.

I'd also like to point out another unpleasant surprise in the same 
area.  S. H. Chute excavated a tunnel on the east bank to provide water 
power but had his project end rather abruptly upon running smack into a 
large cave.  The tunnel and cave are below Main St. SE (mostly) and at 
one point in 1881, the cave collapsed taking part of Main Street above 
with it.

Today, of course, our technology is much better.  We can drill core 
samples, and do other sorts of geologic studies to figure out what's 
down there before digging.  And we don't make errors of judgement as 
they did then. 

Or do we?  Most readers probably remember the gas explosion in St. Cloud 
a few years back.  Utility workers were actually drilling in the right 
place, but hit a rock which diverted the drill and well, boom.  Or the 
building in Chaska that collapsed a few years ago and crushed and killed 
a boy?  Or the coal miners in Pennsylvania who accidentally drilled into 
an abandoned mine filled with water because their maps were not quite as 
accurate as they needed to be?

Unlikely, but probably not a risk we want to take.

Chris Johnson / Fulton