I'll be tuning into the Captain this afternoon as well. I found another Miner connection: she's defending one of the BJ boys from Milton Academy.
You go, girl! You do Notre Dame and BC Law PROUD!
Posted on 08/11/2005 9:24:52 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
BOSTON - State police searched the offices of the Big Dig's largest concrete supplier in June and found evidence of faked records that hid the poor quality of concrete delivered for the massive highway project, Attorney General Tom Reilly said.
The state is working with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney to prosecute the case. "We got the records that we were looking for and the information we were looking for," Reilly told The Boston Globe in a story published Thursday.
Lawyers for Aggregate Industries said the company stood by the quality of the concrete it supplied.
"Aggregate Industries never delivered to a contractor that worked for the state of Massachusetts on the Central Artery or to the state directly any concrete that did not meet the specifications called for in the contract, nor was any concrete delivered to the site which failed to meet the strength specifications called for by the state," said attorney R. Robert Popeo.
Reilly said there was no reason to believe the project's structural integrity or safety was compromised. He noted that the concrete in question would have been delivered at least five years ago and any problems would probably have appeared by now.
Inspectors for the Big Dig randomly tested concrete batches at the plants, making sure the material had the right mix of stone, water, chemicals, sand and cement, and the correct consistency and strength. After trucks carried the concrete to construction sites, another inspector randomly tested material to make sure it was properly mixed and not more than 90 minutes old.
Hundreds of thousands of such deliveries were made over the 14 years of heavy construction on the Big Dig.
"The concrete on the Big Dig passed every single quality-control test," said Tracy A. Miner, another attorney for Aggregate Industries.
Reilly said the raids at Aggregate properties in Peabody, Saugus and Everett turned up evidence that the company had falsified paperwork to make it appear that old or rejected concrete had been freshly poured.
Reilly said there was no reason to suspect a connection to the hundreds of leaks discovered in the highway tunnels that take vehicles under Boston. That investigation is being conducted separately.
The allegations about concrete strength stemmed from a whistleblower suit filed in May in Suffolk Superior Court. A Suffolk County grand jury is hearing evidence in the case, and Aggregate officials have also appeared before a federal grand jury sitting in Worcester.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan declined to comment on specific allegations against Aggregate Industries, but said the office is looking into "all aspects of the Big Dig."
No evidence to date implicates project overseers Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, Reilly said.
Aggregate provided 60 percent of the concrete used to build the Big Dig, according to the highway project's Web site.
Aggregate Industries was acquired this year by Holcim Ltd., a Swiss company with U.S. headquarters in Maryland.
___
On the Net:
Big Dig: http://www.masspike.com/bigdig
Aggregate: http://www.aggregate.com
Is it too late for A(aspiring)G(governor) Reilly to return the contributions to the Big Dig contractors that gave it to him?
Front Page Monday's Herald.
> Time to drill some cores from the structures?
They've been checking the walls out since they started leaking. The concrete--as opposed to the slurry walls--who knows?
> Is it actually possible to get mixed concrete from a
plant to downtown Boston in under 90 minutes?
Sure. Aggregate's plants were evidently in Peabody, Saugus and Everett.
"Reilly said the raids at Aggregate properties in Peabody, Saugus and Everett turned up evidence that the company had falsified paperwork..."
I'll be tuning into the Captain this afternoon as well. I found another Miner connection: she's defending one of the BJ boys from Milton Academy.
You go, girl! You do Notre Dame and BC Law PROUD!
Howie will say something about how Whitey Bulger would never settle for substandard concrete.
For construction projects with high concrete demands, the general contractor often sets up a mix facility on site rather than trucking in each batch. This is cheaper and eliminates several problems (including haul time). My question is why this wasn't done for the Big Dig.
While concrete is being poured into place, the engineering inspector (who does not work for the contractor) takes some samples and runs some tests. He tests for moisture content, fluidity (called "slump") and air content at the site. He then makes several 12" x 6" cylinders for compressive strength tests at 3 days, 7 days and 28 days. If significant compressive strength failures occur from a particular batch, then the design engineers while be called in to determine how to fix the problem.
Before this is over maybe everybody will get their slice of pork. First the builders, then the lawyers, then a class action suit on behalf of the American Tax Payer so the lawyers get double and the taxpayers get a nickel. Boston gets a leaky shaft.
But we got the Rose Kennedy Park out of it. She's such a role model for our kids.
They should check Grafton, too. A lot of the concrete we poured came from that far away.
http://www.revelation13.net/bigdig.html
Revelation 13: The Big Dig -- The Central Artery project in Massachusetts -- an astrology, prophecy, and New Age analysis -- "The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
In Boston an underground central artery roadway is being built, "The Big Dig", at a cost of billions, which has been called by some "The Road to Hell" because the cost keeps growing (current estimate 14.6 Billion $ for the 7.5 mile highway, sounds expensive, doesn't it?). And of course there is the issue of the Big Dig Route 93 Tunnel being full of leaks, and there is a concern that it could suddenly flood. But what do you expect for 14.6 billion $? Perfection? It was originally proposed in September 1983 as costing 2.2 Billion $ and to be completed in 1995, it is now supposed to be completed in 2005. Note that the cost has increased by a factor of 6.66, we will discuss the significance of that number (666- number of the Beast in Revelation 13) below. So the Big Dig has been a case of "The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions". (Note that there is another "Road to Hell" in England, a circular highway around London, that I relate to Mad Cow Disease (again, "The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions") on this page.) The elevated highway the Big Dig will replace has been called "the green monster" and once was called "The Highway in the Sky", when it first opened.
I think the Big Dig "Road to Hell" disaster is a clue, a holographic parallel event, to a real "Road to Hell" for the world that will be completed in 2007; could that mean that 2007 is the year when the world reaches "Satan", because of natural disasters, diseases, global warming and weather change, Muslim terrorism, and the Antichrist rising to power in Russia? Note that the Big Dig price tag has increased by a factor of 6.66, the Number of the Antichrist in Revelation 13. Note that the Boston area has had a large role in developing the computers and software that we rely on, and which had to be repaired for the millennium bug. And the two planes that destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11 took off from Boston, the terrorists boarding the planes there with no problem, another meaning of the "Road to Hell" begins in Boston.
An additional meaning of the "Road to Hell is paved with good intentions" in Boston is that a major Boston area university had advised Russia under Yeltsin on transforming its economy to Capitalism, with allegedly unsuccessful results, with hyperinflation in Russia in the 1990s. This allegedly caused strained Russian-American relations, and helped bring to power a more dictatorial hardliner in Russia, President Putin, who I believe is the Antichrist. The Russians claimed that they were given bad economic advice by this Boston area university's world-renowned economists, and alleged that its economic "shock treatment" was disastrous because of the hyperinflation that occurred, but a counter-argument has been made that Russia did not follow the economic advice they were given. Complicating this, allegedly two of this university's advisors to Russia on economic policy, were personally investing in Russia businesses at that time when they were advising Russia on economic policy, causing what the Russians perceived to be a conflict of interest, and allegedly damaging Russian-American relations. A civil court case in the U.S. has resulted over this issue.
And another example of the "Road to Hell" being in Boston, is that in recent years it has been revealed that allegedly a young physicist whiz kid who attended a major Boston area university, and worked at Los Alamos, was one of the Russian spies who gave away the atom bomb secrets to the Soviet Union in 1945. He allegedly may have been more important as a Soviet spy than Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs, in giving the A-bomb to the Russians. This enabled the Soviet Union to soon develop the atom bomb, resulting in the Cold War of the 1950s and 1960s. And another example of the "Road to Hell": Ho Chi Minh, the dictator of Communist North Vietnam who resulted in the Vietnam War, when young had lived in Boston for about two years around 1912-1913. And consider this Bible quote Job 2:2 (King James version): "And the Lord said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." So that sounds like an underground traffic tunnel like the Big Dig: "going to and fro in the earth". So another "Road to Hell" explanation.
On the other hand, note that Boston/Cambridge Massachusetts is called "The Hub of the Universe": the American Revolution began there, John F. Kennedy was from there, medical advances and computer technology were developed there.
Another meaning of the "Road to Hell" being in Boston is that Cambridge, across the river, is a center for biological engineering, biotech including genetic emgineering. This could include engineering new kinds of plants and animals, such as giant fish that would help feed the world. There is also underway the identification of all the human genetic structure. If all the human genes were identified then good uses such as treating hereditary diseases would be possible. Abuse could also occur, such as Saddam Hussein producing clones of himself, and clones grown for spare body parts. Creating new kinds of plants or animals could upset the balance of nature. Super-intelligent people might be engineered, and those with genetic defects might be tracked in a database, their future limited by this genetic test. A new super-human race could even be engineered. A really scary Brave New World could result. Go see the movie "The Boys from Brazil", where Hitler clones are grown by Nazis, to see one scary possibility with cloning technology. Hitler would have loved genetic engineering, I can see him trying to perfect his mythical super-race with it. Note that in January 2001 it was announced that the first genetically modified monkey had been created in the U.S., it had a jellyfish gene inserted into its DNA. That shows that the technology is now available to genetically modify humans. And in December 2002 it was announced that a human clone had been born, and others are on the way. Here is a question: could someone try to create a Hitler clone, as in "The Boys from Brazil", if any of Hitler's DNA is still in existence (it might be-- supposedly the Russians may have stored some body organs, skull, or some tissue from Hitler). Or genetic engineering of humans could even result in a new human sub-species, superior and more intelligent than human. The old humans would still be kept around, however, to work in assembly lines and pick up the trash. But a new human+ subspecies might be engineered that would have consistent genius I.Q., good looks, and perfect health. The fragmentation of the human species could result, and is in fact likely over time with genetic engineering, with humans becoming eventually slaves to human+. The wealthy could order tailor-made human+ children for themselves, possibly by having their own DNA modified into human+.
Also, another "Road to Hell" application of Genetic Engineering is that evil Muslim wackos such as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden might use genetic engineering for bio-warfare purposes, such as creating a more lethal Smallpox virus that vaccines cannot stop. This has been a real concern because it is believed that Saddam Hussein had been tinkering with Smallpox in his biolabs in Iraq; I discuss this on this page on Iraq. An unstoppable Smallpox, created by modifying the genes in Smallpox, could be a doomsday plague for the world to wipe out humanity. If Osama could create a vaccine to make himself, his followers, immune to it, then he is crazy enough to turn a doomsday bug loose on the world. This is a major reason why the U.S. needed to invade Iraq, to stop these Muslim crazies from getting bioweapons.
There is only one contract that I know of on the Big Dig that used an on-site batch plant. Because we rarely had enough room on site for the equipment to do the work, there was no way a batch plant would fit.
Also, most of the pours I was involved with were pouring over 100 cy/hour. Not many batch plants can keep that up with enough feed material Bardon had 3 relatively close plants to the project and was about 80% of the time able to provide reasonable service, and could switch from one plant to another when trafic got bad.
I know they sent old concrete with new slips. As a contractor, if the Artery geeks accepted it, there was nothing we could do but try to work with it. Several times, I had mixes so hot (Setting up as the concreete came out of the truck) that I couldn't put my face near the tremie pipe, and the concrete was nearly set before it got where I needed it.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
So how do you feel about being part of one of the biggest boondoggles in tax payer fleecing in US history?
What? Graft, political pandering and coverup, cheating, stealing, featherbedding, crime and corruption, cost overruns and an out of control government project in Ted Kennedy's backyard? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!!
As told to me many years ago by an insider.
Piro accepted the bribe.
After the undercover Fed left, Piro was joined by a friend who had seen Piro and the Fed together. Piro's friend had gone to high school with the undercover Fed and tipped off Piro as to what his real name was and that he worked for the Federal Govt.
Piro gave the money back just in time.
and there were guilt-by-association whispers about his link, early in his career, with Vincent J. Piro, the Somerville lawmaker who took $5,000 in cash from an undercover FBI agent but returned the money before he was indicted and beat an extortion rap in 1985.
Yep follow the money. Somebody pocketed a bunch and I bet several have a bid "D" right behind their name.
I am very proud of the work I did and what I learned. Sure, there are problems, but I know there are not nor will there ever be any defects in the work I did.
It was hard, dirty, challenging, long hours and a lot of headaches. However, by the end of my involvement, I knew I was one of the most knowledgeable people in the USA at what I did. I was heavily recruited and received several very lucrative job offers.
A project as complex as this one, using cutting edge techniques is a rare occurrence. Yes, there are management flaws, design flaws and cnstruction flaws. Even God didn't get it right making us, or we would have no disease, etc.
Sure, I could have played it safe, and went into doing little wussy jobs, but where's the challenge in that.
I wonder how many Boston politicians and bureaucrats will get jail time out of this (I'm guessing 0 or at most one lowly clerk someplace)
Cann't help wonder what politicians Aggregate Industries has donated to for the past 20 yeas.
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