Bob Ortblad says the Vancouver mayor’s incorrect and misleading engineering statements are forgivable because she has been lied to by the IBR and its consulting engineer WSP (paid $100 million) and public relations consultants (paid $25 million)

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and may not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com

On KGW8 Straight Talk, Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnery-Ogle, who has no engineering qualifications, made several serious and incorrect engineering statements.  

Asked about an immersed tunnel and preservation of current bridges, the mayor incorrectly claimed a tunnel needs bed rock. She supports the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program (IBR) bridge design that requires support from bedrock that is over 200 feet deep, which can only be reached by risky and costly drilled shafts. An immersed tunnel is supported in soft sand by buoyancy. It displaces its weight like a floating bridge. This could save over $1 billion on foundation costs. 

The mayor said, “I don’t want to be under the Columbia River in a tunnel when an earthquake happens.”  WSDOT and University of Washington geotechnical experts claim a tunnel is the safest place to be in an earthquake and made a video explaining why. 

Mayor Anne claims the current bridges are not seismically safe due to wooden piles, “a Douglas Fir tree sunk in mud.” Wooden piles supported the London Bridge for more than 700 years. Seattle’s Fremont, Ballard, University, and Aurora Bridges are all supported by wooden piles and have experienced five major earthquakes with no damage. These bridges are in a higher earthquake risk zone than the Vancouver I-5 Bridges. Ninety 120-foot-long piles support each of the current bridge piers. These piles are closely spaced and create a caisson that is probably more immune to an earthquake than the IBR’s design of only eight 250-foot-long drilled shafts for each bridge pier. Japanese and Canadian studies claim that tightly spaced wooden piles provide earthquake immunity. 

The mayor also blames the wooden piles for the bounce a truck makes on the current bridges. This is nonsense, every bridge, steel or concrete, has a perceptible bounce with a heavy truck crossing.  

The IBR plans to spend $7.65 billion and nine years of construction for just its bridge. British Columbia is building an eight-lane immersed tunnel under the Fraser River that is longer and deeper than a feasible Columbia River I-5 immersed tunnel for less than $3 billion and in only four years. An I-5 Immersed tunnel would also avoid the devastating impact of bridge approaches on Vancouver and Hayden Island. When the mayor was asked, “How do you like the design?” she responded with a long “Ah” and pivoted to the bridge to avoid the discussion of the devastating approaches. 

The mayor also stated, “There’s never been a project in the United States or Europe, China, or Japan that came in at that initial estimate. It’s always doubled or multiplied by three and five.” 

Boston’s Ted Williams Tunnel (an immersed tunnel of 12 segments, each 300 feet long) was completed within its budget. Baltimore’s Fort McHenry Tunnel (an immersed tunnel of 32 segments, each 300 feet long) was completed for $100 million below its $825 million budget. A Columbia River I-5 immersed tunnel would need only 9 segments, each 300 feet long. 

The mayor’s incorrect and misleading engineering statements are forgivable because she has been lied to by the IBR and its consulting engineer WSP (paid $100 million) and public relations consultants (paid $25 million).  

Bob Ortblad MSCE, MBA 
Seattle