PAG rock and the Porteau Cove Rock Slide on the Sea to Sky Job

PAG means "potentially acid generating"....I won't go into the deep details, but some kinds of rock interact with water to produce an acid tainted environment. This isn't the stuff that might burn you hands, but it will eat at reinforcing steel over time. It is generally considered to be an environmental problem in large mines where water run-off can poison the downstream areas and oceans ( see Britannia mine site history )

On the Sea to Sky highway job, the PAG sites were identified by engineers and geo-techs and flagged for removal from the site.

All of the ID'd PAG material was trucked to this site at Porteau Cove, and loaded onto this barge. I have no clue where it was shipped to, or whether it was dumped in one of the government approved ocean dumping grounds ( yes, we actually have those...there is an active one just off Point Grey)

These are photos from the fly-overs and photo shoots during the construction of the new highway

Metro Blasting rockslide video is at the bottom of the page

Long view of the Porteau area and the barge set up to accept PAG material from the S2S job. The rock bluff on the left... collapsed and buried the highway for several days in 2008.

I have to imagine that someone was getting a pretty good buck for stand by time

The PAG rock was dug out by the road construction contractor and hauled by private dump trucks instead of company trucks

The Royal Hudson steam train runs right by Porteau Cove

The Excavator looks a little worse for wear

Nice work if you can get it...I wonder how the money factor worked out in the end?

The Royal Hudson tourist train steaming past Porteau Cove in the 90's

News coverage of the 2008 Porteau Cove rock slide

 

And a private video just after the road was cleared

Cool video is here...  from the Metro Blasting website. Gary Anderson and Mike Dickinson are friends and mentors of mine the blasting world...experts in dealing with steep BC rock conditions.http://www.metroblasting.com/videos.html