November 2024 President's Report
Christopher P. Hersey, Project Executive, Suffolk Construction
I have been around the engineering and construction industry for a good amount of time and without fail around this season I inevitably reflect on the workers that labor to put in place the designs and engineering that we contrive. Without them our ideations would not become tangible engineering assets. While we measure the safety of projects and companies through important metrics such as EMR, LTIR, TRIR, and numerous others, sometimes the individual worker’s commitment, skill, and sacrifice becomes shuffled in the numbers.
Construction is a hard business. From a safety standpoint, I look to understand our history so that we can keep innovating. In the 1930’s, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to address the hardships of that time with his New Deal, which would see the construction of mega-projects including the Hoover Dam, LaGuardia Airport, and Oakland Bay Bridge. Even before then the Golden Gate Bridge was funded in 1928 through bonds by the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District and adjacent counties, which did not include state or federal funding. The next year, Joseph B. Strauss was selected as the project’s chief engineer and construction commenced on January 5, 1933.
Joseph Strauss was a pioneer in many respects, with his steadfast advancements in safety standing out as a sea change in an era when it was a rule of thumb to gauge construction worker deaths by a simple calculation of one death per million dollars of work in place. The Golden Gate Bridge never attained this infamous death toll in great part due to Joseph Strauss’ advancements in safety. The largest of these was his costly $135k investment into a netting system hung from below the deck and cantilevered ten feet out on either side. The 19 workers saved by this net formed a group and proudly wore the epithet “Halfway to Hell Club.” A plaque at the south entrance of the sidewalk commemorates the 11 other workers that were killed on the project. Ten of these workers were killed in one incident where a scaffold tore through the net.
Joseph Strauss also implemented a number of other safety innovations, which may seem like table stakes today, but were by no means part of everyday construction in the 1930’s. These included:
- Anti-glare goggles
- Leather hard hats
- Respirators (lead paint fumes from the rivets were making the riveters sick)
- Safety belts
- Miners helmets with headlamps
- Travelers for pier construction
In comparison to the achievements on the Golden Gate Bridge, the top five deadliest projects in modern history include the Panama Canal (41% death rate), Burma Siam Railway (38.5%), Hawks Nest Tunnel (15%), White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal (9.5%), and the Transcontinental Railroad (8%). While the world has improved exponentially in safety, there are still modern construction projects such as the Quatar World Cup, where migrant workers were treated much the same as the ones on these deadliest projects. Such treatment can be attributed in part to the endless number of workers who are ready to step in where one has fallen. I offer the following chart as a reminder that these death percentages relate directly to those workers we have on our projects, each with a name, a family, and an individual story.
I want to personally wish all of you ASCE/BSCES members safe and healthy holidays. My hope is that the next time you visit a construction project you will take the time to talk with the workers, learn their names, and some of their story. I have learned that they take great pride in what they do and the projects on which they have worked. The infrastructure of our country has been built by their tenacity, strength, and aptitude. We owe them a debt of gratitude and the greatest chance of returning home every day.
The focus of this month’s newsletter is Geotechnical Practices. Jorge Fuentes, PE, senior estimating engineer at MENARD and chair of the Geo-Institute Boston Chapter provides a Geo-Institute Boston Chapter Update. We have three geotechnical-related articles in this issue.
I’d like to thank Alex Britton and Mark Careyva, PE, from Keller North America, which is a 2024-2025 BSCES Society Sponsor and the sponsor of this newsletter. They authored a great article on Combining Technology to Improve the Pawtucket CSO. Over the past thirty years, the Narragansett Bay Commission has collaborated with stakeholders to design and construct an overflow system to hold combined water and wastewater until it can be treated and safely released into the Bay. Keller has been a partner throughout all phases, including the recent third and final phase involving a 30-foot-diameter tunnel, where they assisted with drop/vent shafts and launching/receiving shafts. The project teams were able to combine technology and lean on local experience for a safe and effective solution.
Marya Gorczyca, PE, Jean Louis Locsin, PhD, PE, Damian Siebert, PE, Mary Votto, and Mark Zablocki, PE, from Haley & Aldrich, Inc. have included an article on Building Over the Massachusetts Turnpike - Foundation Design and Construction Challenges. The completion of Lyrik Back Bay – Air Rights Parcel 12, in 2024 makes it the first successful air rights project over the Massachusetts Turnpike/Interstate I-90, in 40 years since the construction of Copley Place in the 1980s. Although many other Air Rights projects were planned, they never made it to construction. One exception is Air Rights Parcel 9, Fenway Center. This article describes the project constraints, geotechnical and construction challenges, and foundation systems designed and constructed to overcome them and realize a project of this size and complexity.
Adam Coen, PE, and Quincy Pratt, PE, from Sanborn, Head & Associates, Inc. have authored an article on how Industrial Developments are Pushing Retaining Walls to New Heights. A boom in demand for industrial and logistics development has spurred developers to increasingly consider sites that require tall retaining walls to meet their facility needs. Retaining wall design for warehouse and logistics centers is a specialized task that demands a robust understanding of soil mechanics beyond what is typically performed for retaining wall design. Geotechnical engineers can use their technical knowledge to evaluate retaining walls for safety, durability, and compliance with regulations, protecting the investment of the developer and the safety of those using the site.
