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Dive Brief:
- The Gateway Development Commission has approved one $88 million trade order for contractor Weeks Marine to remove about 500 submerged timber piles for the Hudson Tunnel project in New York and New Jersey.
- GDC expects work associated with the change order to begin later this year and be completed before the planned start of tunnel boring under the Hudson River in 2028, Jim Starace, GDC’s head of program delivery, said during a July 8 agency board meeting.
- The removal of the remaining piles from Pier 68 and the ground stabilization work will substantially reduce the chance of TBMs encountering obstructions as they proceed through the area, according to the GDC.
Diving knowledge:
The change order, added to the Hudson River Soil Stabilization portion of the Hudson Tunnel project, proactively addresses factors that could adversely affect tunneling under the river, GDC CEO Tom Prendergast said during the meeting.
The scope of application is to first eliminate the obstructions of the route that the tunnel boring machines will travel. The construction crew will then mix lightweight concrete into the river bed soil to ensure it is firm enough for the machines to dig, according to the GDC.
“Megaprojects, especially as large and complex as the Hudson Tunnel Project, bring new challenges every day. To date, GDC has successfully delivered this project by thinking ahead, anticipating problems and taking proactive actions,” Prendergast said during the meeting. “This change order is an example of that. In all my years of project management, one of the central themes is identifying the risks you anticipate, mitigating those risks, and taking action to ensure you’ve made as many mitigations as possible.”
The scope of the original project was to prepare a specific 1,200-foot-long by 100-foot-wide section of the river bed for tunnel boring. Work began in the middle of the Hudson River in 2024 and has since been moving east toward Manhattan, according to the GDC.
“This project provided important lessons that are being applied to the change order work, including the need to work inside a coffer to protect against the strong currents of the Hudson River, the potential for some piles to break as they are pulled from the riverbed, and the need to reinforce the soil around the removed piles to account for voids,” Starace said during the meeting. “After evaluating multiple options, it was concluded that adding this work to the scope of the Hudson River Soil Stabilization Project is the most efficient and cost-effective approach.”
The change order expands the original work area about 265 feet toward Manhattan and adds additional activities to address the piles left in the riverbed after the demolition of Pier 68.
Weeks Marine, a Cranford, New Jersey-based contractor and subsidiary of Kiewit, is already mobilized in the Hudson River, Starace said. He added that the contractor has specialist knowledge in marine construction and has already removed a small number of piles in 2025 to better understand the work required to prepare this stretch of river bed for tunnel boring.
