Tunnel-filling crews get going at border

[maddezmom]

Source: signonsandiego.com

OTAY MESA – A massive effort to fill in at least seven cross-border tunnels started yesterday as workers poured a concrete and sand mixture into a 2,400-foot passageway found in January 2006.

“We've never approached anything this monumental when it comes to filling a tunnel,” said Hector Montalvo, director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Laguna Niguel facilities.

The Otay Mesa tunnel is one of seven along the U.S.-Mexico border to be filled over the next two months, according to authorities. The tunnel is the longest found along the southern border, and U.S. authorities have linked it to the Arellano Félix drug cartel.

The tunnel, as deep as 85 feet, runs from a Tijuana industrial building to a 50,000-square-foot San Diego warehouse. It had electricity, ventilation and a pump system to prevent ground water from flooding the tunnel.

The tunnel-filling budget is $2.7 million. The cost to load the big Otay Mesa tunnel with 800 to 1,000 cubic yards of sand and concrete slurry is $726,000, according to U.S. authorities.



Read more: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070516/news_1m16tunnel.html

[youngdem]

1. $2.7 MILLION!!!??!!??

Why not just use about $80 worth of dynamite?

[Demeter]

2. Subsidence, Probably

And in a pinch, it could be cleared out for future use....

[DainBramaged]

3. The Otay Mesa

Eddie Murphy go there once?


Seriously, a 2600 ft. tunnel gets dug out by hand labor and it's a major project to demolish it?

$2.7 million given to Huitt-Zollars, a very big Texas based (offices everywhere in South West)engineering firm.

[Kagemusha]

4. There are 6 other tunnels being filled out of the same budget.

Or so it seems from my reading of the article.

[Javaman]

5. how are those walls working out?

tunnels?? tunnels?? you mean they can dig UNDER the walls?

D'uh!

my brain hurts

[HereSince1628]

6. 3x the material cost was a rule of thumb back in day, it may still be

[booksenkatz]

7. Great scam to get in on

Get paid for building one of these tunnels on the sly, then get paid for "finding" one of these dadblame tunnels, then get paid $2.7 million for filling it. Lather, rinse, repeat.
:evilgrin: