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
All hail the Emperor of Faltering America. The Titanic hasn't struck the iceberg, but it will. It must. It always does. What has happened here...very slowly...then very quickly...is that the actors on the large stage of this old turning world...have shed their costumes. They are naked. Their slavish ambitions to power and obscene wealth are laid bare for all to see...and the unwashed population thinks it's a soap opera, a video game, a Matrix sim....but no. It's as real as the the most violent and vile parts of the Old Testament We...here...now... have grown much much too comfortable. Fully Lazy and Partially Stupid. Gleefully blind. So drugged and stupefied, it makes morphine look like sparkling water. So... "We the People" now properly and professionally anesthetized can't possibly fight back. We have ever so slowly been pick pocketed and numbed...our moral outrage fully diluted. Ethics, morals and rule of law...are so yesterday...so quaint and useless. ...
I wrote this song several years after my friend, Brian Fitzpatrick died. Press play in the above Youtube video. For my friend, Brian Fitzpatrick ( Fitz) by Mike Pearson Brian's son, Sam Fitzpatrick was killed on a Kiewit corporation project in the steep mountains of Toba Inlet in 2009. Fitz and I went into battle against the giant American corporation when they refused to take any responsibility for Sam's death. Fitz fought heroically, and with dogged determination. The battles with the WorksafeBC system...The very flawed WCAT appeal process all took a toll.All the challenges were met with intelligence, good humour and the belief that we were on the right side. After years of bureaucratic struggle, Fitz finally persuaded the RCMP to lay charges against the company and two supervisors, Tim Rule and Jerry Karjala. This was a game changer...nothing like this had ever happened with a workplace death in BC. Sam Cooper's 2012 article in the Province Newspaper....this story g...
The Town and People of Beetlebottom [ images by ChatGPT and Mike Pearson ] Installment 1. These people and this town are unknowingly affected by small amounts of noxious gas emanating from a fissure in the earth. Where once upon a prehistoric time, hot volcanic fury poured out of a crack in Mother Earth...now just a silent trickle of stupid juice ( a blend of nitrous oxide, methane, carbon monoxide, radon and the gas from partially rotted dinosaur teeth) oozed out and settled about ten feet deep in the atmosphere of a small town called Beetlebottom. It took about 10, sometimes 15 years for a resident of Beetlebottom to be fully affected by the low concentrations of mind altering emissions. But for sure, after 15 years of exposure, the DNA and brain fibers of all humans in the area were forever altered...and not for the better. The residents of Beetlebottom were completely unaware of the effects. They had no clue that the long arc of increasing stupidity and dense thinking was caus...
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