March 4, 1977
Page 6369
WINTER WORK IN MAINE
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, this has been a winter of cold and struggle for people across the country. In Maine, which suffered unusual cold along with most of the Nation, people long ago learned not to fight winter head on. It has been valuable knowledge this bitter year.
In the construction industry, Maine people realized that progress could not afford to await the spring thaw. So they have adapted, and work goes on despite the cold and wind.
A recent article in the Portland, Maine, Evening Express demonstrates the kinds of adjustments these men must make during a Maine winter. To share it with my colleagues, I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
IN DEEP OF WINTER THE WORK GOES ON
(By Jim Saunders)
Despite the bright afternoon sun the chill factor is near zero as a stiff north wind whips billows of snow across the Back Cove work site.
Lincoln Dennison and Norm Adams are heavily clothed, helmeted and spattered with muddy rock particles as drills churn deep into ledge, making holes for dynamite charges. The men seem oblivious to the elements and the roar of the track-mounted drilling rigs.
Nearby where a backhoe opens a trench for advancing sewer pipe, two other workmen are crouched over a small box. Other workmen and engineers clear the site.
"Fire in the hole"comes the warning cry for the blast. Then from below ground comes a sharp "KARUMP!"
Icicles hang down the black earth walls of the deep trench where Bob Dudley and Phil Lowe work behind a probing backhoe shovel. They prepare a gravel bed for the next section of the 7,200-foot sewer pipe that Cianbro Corporation is laying along the north and west shore of Back Cove.
It's deep into a Maine winter and this is winter construction, surely a test of men and machines if there ever was one: weeks of sub-zero nights and dawns, the relentless cutting north wind, deep frost, deep snow, icy footing, snow flurries, snowstorms, everything the longest season can dish out — and is dishing out.
But the work goes on.
The Portland Water District is responsible for putting a sewage treatment system into operation for Portland in two years. Four contractors, which began work last fall and summer, are building most of the system.
Cianbro Corp. of Pittsfield, one of the contractors, has the $860,000 contract for the first part of the Back Cove interceptor.
"The big storms will shut us down for a day or so, otherwise we work right along," declares bundled-up Jim Leavitt, his voice raised over the roar of a diesel engine. As job superintendent, Leavitt leads a seven man pipe laying crew. Framed by helmet and ear flaps, his face like the other men's was red with the cold but warmed with good humor.
"It's a tough season all right," said Leavitt of Kezar Falls. "The biggest thing has been the cold weather," not the storms. "We've about had our fill of it." The cold weather means bulky clothes and balky machines. Heavy machinery starts hard after sub-zero nights, though some big diesels have gasoline engines to crank them. "You have to warm them up," Leavitt says, "and it's a lot harder to avoid breakdowns.
Contractors learn to work around the cold.
Passing traffic sees only a crane and some piled supplies at the Baxter Boulevard Pumping Station. But under the shelter of a polyethelene roof is a huge room, its walls going up within a great excavated cylinder of interlocked steel sheathing.
The station is one of three being built by Seaward Construction Co. of Kittery under a $4.085 million contract.
Foreman Jim Kennard of Biddeford heads11 carpenters and laborers who are erecting and tieing heavy steel reinforcing rod for the two-story walls. The outer wood forms are in place and the inner ones will go up soon. The two-foot thick base is in place.
For a job that started Dec. 6, the big pumping station, all underground, is moving right along.
Yet winter can assist builders, too, observes Victor J. Layton, inspecting engineer for Camp Dresser & McKee system design engineers.
The deep blanket of ice and snow shields marsh areas where material from the trench is temporarily piled. In May marsh grasses will be planted in the disturbed areas.
The contractor's challenge Layton says, is knowing that work can be done profitably in the winter. An experienced contractor does not fight winter head on. Some days you just have to let Mother Nature rage.