Seattle's tunnel blockage
37 2013-12-25 by [deleted]
Some of you may have heard about the problems the city of Seattle is having digging it's new traffic tunnel. It has the largest TBM ever built and has been digging for a number of months, but recently it has hit something that it can't dig though and has stopped. Here's some good information about the official story: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/us/under-seattle-a-big-object-blocks-bertha-what-is-it.html
It's been a couple of weeks now and they still don't know what is blocking the tunnel, and money seems to be on either a large bolder in loose soil (so it shifts around, preventing the cutting head from cutting it) or something from the 1850s era that sank and was buried.
Recently I heard for someone that I trust that it's much worse then that, and that the city is desperately trying to find a way to hide it because if could scuttle the whole project.
If you look at the story you can see some signs pointing to this. The biggest is the claim that they can't just get in front of the cutting head and see whats there, but TBMs are designed so you can do just that! The cutting heads need maintenance and repairs on a very regular bases. So to say they can't pull the head back and look is a flat out lie.
So what did they run into... well what I've been told that it's the worst thing possible. It's a structure, old stone workings but much older then the city of Seattle. The rough estimate is that it's a couple thousand years old and about twice the size of a mini-van.
Apparently it's some kind of Indian burial site belonging to one of the local tribes. The area has been home from a number tribes for thousands of years. The problem is that if this is made public the whole tunnel project (which has already cost a billion dollars) will be shut down for at least a decade, if not permanently.
Now the area they are digging is about 45 feet bellow street level, it's in an area made of marsh covered in back fill from when Seattle blasted one of the big hills down into the sea. In that area that back fill is about 10 feet deep, and old mash area was mud flats. It's easy to see how a large building built 2000 years ago could sink over time.
It's been whispered in the DOT that other artifact finds have been destroyed by the city because they were inconvenient. It can't be allowed to happen again.
16 comments
7 [deleted] 2013-12-25
What man-made structure, made from Native American technology, could stop a tunneling machine? And why are they hiding the indian burial site?
10 DevilWorshipper 2013-12-25
I can't answer the first question, but, I do live in Oak Harbor (60 miles north of Seattle) and three years ago, during some street renovations, workers found bones. All fucking hell broke loose. The project was delayed for months while archeologists excavated (behind 8-foot tall, blacked-out fences). Idian tribes have made claims and the city is on the hook for millions it does not have. It's still in the courts and the whole thing is a big problem for a town already having money issues.
The Seattle project is ten-million times as costly and as important as the Oak Harbor fiasco. If this is Indian-related in any way the resulting clusterfuck is unimaginable.
3 guywithcrazyideas 2013-12-25
Maybe they found gold.
1 [deleted] 2013-12-25
But the tunneling machine would cut through it. I suspect diamonds as they are the hardest naturally occurring substance.
1 phidel_kashflow 2013-12-25
I'm sure he means they found it and are making an excuse, not that it actually stalled the machine.
2 4to2 2013-12-25
The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, the Old Ones ever shall be.
1 GitEmSteveDave 2013-12-25
It is a pipe. http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/01/whats-blocking-bertha-a-huge-steel-pipe/
1 SpliffCity206 2013-12-25
Trains.
1 TheWiredWorld 2013-12-25
Nice, OP.
1 Sabremesh 2013-12-25
If there was any evidence of dense and massive structures remaining above ground which demonstrated that the native tribes constructed in this way, then the OPs theory might have some weight.
If it is a man-made object, it is likely much older or much more recent.
0 sinominous 2013-12-25
guess again
0 itsfreedomstupid 2013-12-25
That's nice and cryptic. Care to expand?
0 ayenon 2013-12-25
They prob stopped to do a side project for the local branch of the illuminati.
-1 watersign 2013-12-25
There are alot of neo liberal communist enviromentalists in seattle so i dont blame them for trying to keep it quiet.
1 TheWiredWorld 2013-12-25
.