Got asked to bid a very unusual project

[Hay Dude]

I was just kidding about the Bog Turtles, likewise the Coast Guard and the Army corp of engineers.
The stuff people come up with here, may be well intended, is so over the top, I actually share it with guys I work with to get a chuckle.

If they give me the job, I’m showing up with tools, doing the job and that’s it. Ain nobody gonna give a rats ass unless it‘s some fruitcake with a butterfly net-and that’s not impossible these days.

For real though-if you want to build here near wetlands, you have to have it swept for Bog Turtles

 

[MossRoad]

Funny story:
I came home from work one day and there was a white car parked near my gate and man in a pith helmet with a clipboard on his hands and knees in the ditch across the street. I got out and asked what he was doing. He explained that Verizon was going to trench a cable up the road and he was looking to see if any endangered species would be affected. Said he was looking for checker spotted butterflies. When asked if found any he replied no. I turned and pointed to my truck, Well there's about 50 of them plastered on the front of that truck over there and 10 more I tried to wash off the windshield. You better check your car too...

One of my nephews has a job inspecting building sites for all species. I think he said if it's a dry area, he has to do so many 1 meter squares per acre. If it appears to be wetland, he has to do more squares per acre. He enjoys the job. Just go out and see what he finds. Go back to the office and do the paperwork. He gets sent all over the midwest.

 

[Hay Dude]

Funny story:
I came home from work one day and there was a white car parked near my gate and man in a pith helmet with a clipboard on his hands and knees in the ditch across the street. I got out and asked what he was doing. He explained that Verizon was going to trench a cable up the road and he was looking to see if any endangered species would be affected. Said he was looking for checker spotted butterflies. When asked if found any he replied no. I turned and pointed to my truck, Well there's about 50 of them plastered on the front of that truck over there and 10 more I tried to wash off the windshield. You better check your car too...

I see someone wearing a “pith helmet”, I’m runnin the other way.

 

[bigtiller]

Before Sprint could sign off on building a cell phone tower, they sent a crew to scout for endangered species and another crew to look for ancient artifacts. All that time and money and they never did build the tower. Some years later they rented a spot atop the new Verizon tower.

 

[MoKelly]

We had a group wanting to build a new indoor tennis facility on land in STL. Would be the first indoor courts in STL in 50+ years.

They figured it would cost $20 million and had about half committed in donations from the bigger companies in the City. They were riding the wave of the desire to provide opportunities to underserved communities.

They were told by the City they had to prepare an economic impact report. Then an environmental impact report. Then a study on if there was asbestos and/or lead paint in the falling down abandon buildings on the proposed site. The “companies” providing these reports had to be located in STL and, preferably, minority owned. Then commit to finding and using 75% minority contractors on the construction.

There was even more.

The project was never begun and the abandoned asbestos/lead paint buildings are still there falling even more apart.

It’s not easy to understand.

STL still has no indoor tennis facility.

 

[Hay Dude]

We had a group wanting to build a new indoor tennis facility on land in STL. Would be the first indoor courts in STL in 50+ years.

They figured it would cost $20 million and had about half committed in donations from the bigger companies in the City. They were riding the wave of the desire to provide opportunities to underserved communities.

They were told by the City they had to prepare an economic impact report. Then an environmental impact report. Then a study on if there was asbestos and/or lead paint in the falling down abandon buildings on the proposed site. The “companies” providing these reports had to be located in STL and, preferably, minority owned. Then commit to finding and using 75% minority contractors on the construction.

There was even more.

The project was never begun and the abandoned asbestos/lead paint buildings are still there falling even more apart.

It’s not easy to understand.

STL still has no indoor tennis facility.

Sounds familiar, like a microcosm of the federal gov___ment

 

[plowhog]

The “companies” providing these reports had to be located in STL and, preferably, minority owned. Then commit to finding and using 75% minority contractors on the construction.

My company used to do technology projects for the State of CA. Then a new imposition came along requiring minority owned participation in all contracts.

The only way we could complete the contracts we had already been awarded was to go find some minority-owned company, somewhere, and subcontract the installation of network cabling throughout the buildings. Implementing and configuring the network equipment was so specialized and technical that it was impractical to train a subcontractor for weeks or months to do a job our company could complete in a week or two.

The subcontractor work was a disaster. We gritted our teeth, paid them in full, said "thanks" and "bye." Then our company removed and pulled out all the deficient wiring they had installed. We had our people re-do that part of the job, and install everything, brand new, correctly. At our expense.

That was the last State of CA job we ever did. Afterward, the State got fleeced by contractors charging 3x, 5x, etc. to make up for the added costs the new hurdles caused. But it was no longer my fight as I had a business to run and a payroll to meet. I could not engage in nonsense contracts.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

And that is the clown world we live in.

 

[kwbobwi]

So this is a recently abandoned railway in my town. We have hundreds of them here in the rust belt. Unfortunately, with their abandonment comes a lack of maintenance. I would think they would still have to maintain this, but owner tells me they won’t.
So I have been asked to remove this log jamb.
I have my ideas, but thought some backround information would be helpful.

There is no access from the RR bridge. It is closed off and off limits, so debris cannot be removed from there.
On the right side of the picture, the land you see is mush. You cannot realistically get equipment to the edge of the river from there.
On the left side of the picture, there is a “ledge” of ground. You can get a pickup down there, but not much bigger without cutting/building an access path.

View attachment 848250



My thought was to rent a crane with a clamshell bucket and an operator and have him “grapple” the logs and swing them over into a waiting debris truck. The crane would sit where you see the foot tracks in the foreground.


Water is fairly deep and current fairly strong. The width of the water from the center of the rail bridge center support to the edge of each bank is about 50’ of water.

Thoughts?

A long reach excavator with a thumb or log clam would be the best.
In my area you need permits to do any work on anything from ditches to rivers

 

[BigBlue1]

Before Sprint could sign off on building a cell phone tower, they sent a crew to scout for endangered species and another crew to look for ancient artifacts. All that time and money and they never did build the tower. Some years later they rented a spot atop the new Verizon tower.

And people wonder why everything is so expensive these days. The level of ridiculousness our society has reached is impressive.

 

[plowhog]

And people wonder why everything is so expensive these days. The level of ridiculousness our society has reached is impressive.

Don't want to hijack the thread-- so this is my last post on this subject.

Things got weirder after my company quit contracting due to the minority participation requirement. We started getting solicitations that, for payment of a fee, a "minority owned company" would sign a certification they had done the required contract participation. Many of these were just business licenses, with no actual company, and no intention of doing any work. The solicitations described "no audit trails" (hint hint.) A whole industry sprung up where minorities could pay $25 for a business license and then reap fees as job "partners."

A famous one was an inmate serving life in Folsom prison. He somehow still had a business license. He was advertising that for a fee of 5% of the contract total he would sign any certification so the contractor would get paid. Serving life-- do you think he was worried about a fraud charge?

 

[Gator6x4]

My company used to do technology projects for the State of CA. Then a new imposition came along requiring minority owned participation in all contracts.

The only way we could complete the contracts we had already been awarded was to go find some minority-owned company, somewhere, and subcontract the installation of network cabling throughout the buildings. Implementing and configuring the network equipment was so specialized and technical that it was impractical to train a subcontractor for weeks or months to do a job our company could complete in a week or two.

The subcontractor work was a disaster. We gritted our teeth, paid them in full, said "thanks" and "bye." Then our company removed and pulled out all the deficient wiring they had installed. We had our people re-do that part of the job, and install everything, brand new, correctly. At our expense.

That was the last State of CA job we ever did. Afterward, the State got fleeced by contractors charging 3x, 5x, etc. to make up for the added costs the new hurdles caused. But it was no longer my fight as I had a business to run and a payroll to meet. I could not engage in nonsense contracts.

"Then our company removed and pulled out all the deficient wiring they had installed. We had our people re-do that part of the job, and install everything, brand new, correctly. At our expense."

From your post it sounds like the General Contractor Employee who was supposed to monitor the Sub Contractor failed to do their job. Example: If the bid specification called for all wall receptacles to contain industrial plug in receptacles and a minimum of # 12 wire and the sub contractor was allowed to install residential receptacles and # 16 or 18 wire then the General Contractor had to install what the contract called for. I hope the General Contractor insured the individual was licensed and bonded and filed a claim with the individual Sub Contractors bond carrier for the expense of have to correct the mess the individual made.

Most General Contractors require all Sub Contractor to provide a copy of their License, proof of Workmen Comp Insurance and liability insurance coverage before allowing a Sub contractor and his employees onto the Job site. Many a Contractor has been forced into bankruptcy because a Sub Contractors employee sued them over a job injury which caused a permanent disability.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

We had a group wanting to build a new indoor tennis facility on land in STL. Would be the first indoor courts in STL in 50+ years.

They figured it would cost $20 million and had about half committed in donations from the bigger companies in the City. They were riding the wave of the desire to provide opportunities to underserved communities.

They were told by the City they had to prepare an economic impact report. Then an environmental impact report. Then a study on if there was asbestos and/or lead paint in the falling down abandon buildings on the proposed site. The “companies” providing these reports had to be located in STL and, preferably, minority owned. Then commit to finding and using 75% minority contractors on the construction.

There was even more.

The project was never begun and the abandoned asbestos/lead paint buildings are still there falling even more apart.

It’s not easy to understand.

STL still has no indoor tennis facility.

I don't blame the group for not building the facility with all the demands that were being placed on them, once again a group of do-gooders ruined it for all.

 

[dodge man]

It’s been years ago but we had a city road project. Normally they just cleared the archeological survey without doing anything unless it was a known area or unless someone objected. In this case a local college professor objected than they turned around and hired him to do it. We had to disc the entire job then wait for it to rain. Of course it didn’t rain for a while. Then he found all these rock chips and I had to do a topographic survey of this ”Indian encampment“. He explained to me what they were doing in this encampment and all. It looked like someone threw out a handful of rocks to me.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

It’s been years ago but we had a city road project. Normally they just cleared the archeological survey without doing anything unless it was a known area or unless someone objected. In this case a local college professor objected than they turned around and hired him to do it. We had to disc the entire job then wait for it to rain. Of course it didn’t rain for a while. Then he found all these rock chips and I had to do a topographic survey of this ”Indian encampment“. He explained to me what they were doing in this encampment and all. It looked like someone threw out a handful of rocks to me.

Interesting! Upstream from my parents lake is a depression near stream. It's quartz lined, maybe 30ft across, 5ft deep "bowl". All around perimeter are quartz chips where natives made arrowheads. I had the state anthropologist as well as my geologist brother check it out and verify it.
It should be preserved not bulldozed some day.

 

[chim]

The company I worked for faced so many government-imposed hurdles it's a wonder we stayed in business. As years passed it became worse and worse.

The restrictive edicts that were to help certain groups of people usually did not. The true result was a few "minority persons" getting rich and a lot of extra office work trying to keep from getting into outright skullduggery. I saw a real effort being made to conform with the requirements, but almost without exception the minority subs we hired failed, and there were no minority suppliers who could handle our volume. We often had to make their payroll for the subs we hired.

There were definitely a few people who made a lot of money by acting as "middlepersons" on larger material and equipment sales without ever seeing or handling the stuff.

A few times I overheard someone in the purchasing department remark that they needed to "make the gear order chocolate" to meet certain criteria. That meant one guy got a check for being a minority and at least on paper we met our requirements.

Back in the 80's I was on an electrical project we had at a VA hospital. There was another contractor doing a GC project on the same site who wanted to know if we'd do some electrical work on their project. Turns out the "owner" was a minority fellow who was given a hardhat and instructed to walk around the site and stay out of the way.

 

[Hay Dude]

I identify as a minority now, so all good

 

[chim]

I identify as a minority now, so all good

On another board, someone posted they were conceived in the back of a Jeep, so they identify as part Cherokee.

 

[Lastkidpicked]

Costco Lasagna identifies me as a family of four.

 

[dodge man]

The woman owned, disadvantage owned and minority owned businesses is usually a requirement on projects in Illinois. We did construction staking and often lost out because we weren’t one of those. Some of these companies were just owned by a DBE on paper while some were legitimate. I always remember a woman that owned a seeding and mulch company running the equipment all the time.