Author Topic: Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers  (Read 1796 times)

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Online Elderberry

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WacoTrib 1/9/2019 By Todd C. Frankel

The current fight — and now 19-day federal government shutdown — over funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall could look simple when you consider the logistics of actually building the fabled barrier: It would take an estimated 10,000 construction workers more than 10 years to build the kind of 1,000-mile wall that President Donald Trump has said he wants.

Even the more modest $5.7 billion in wall funding that Trump directly requested during a primetime Oval Office address Tuesday to address what he called “a growing humanitarian and security crisis” would take an army of 10,000 workers more than two years to build and yield only 230 miles of barrier, according to estimates.

And even at 1,000 miles long, the steel-slatted border wall would still be too small to be a boon for U.S. steelmakers.

The full version of Trump’s envisioned border wall — featuring rarely tested heights cast over almost unimaginable distances — would cost at least $25 billion, said Ed Zarenski, who teaches construction estimation at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. Zarenski spent 30 years figuring out project price tags for Gilbane, one of the nation’s largest construction firms.

“I wouldn’t say it’s impossible. But you’ve got to factor in engineering considerations,” Zarenski said. “And then I would say, is the project realistic? Probably not.”

After almost two years of Trump demanding that Congress fund his desire for an expanded southern border wall, little time has been spent determining how the project might actually come together. A project of this scale has rarely been attempted — not even by the developer-president himself when he was erecting New York skyscrapers.

The border’s landscape is uniquely remote and difficult. The project site is narrow and runs for miles. And there are unknowns, such as the maximum wind load for a fence reaching about three stories high.

The wall design currently favored by Trump appears to make heavy use of steel — which the president said would be good for the U.S. steel industry. About 3 million tons of steel would be needed for 1,000 miles of steel-slat wall and concrete base, according to Zarenski’s calculations, which factored in 8-inch hollow steel tubes standing 30-feet high and spaced every 14 inches.

But the demand for that steel would not land all at once. It would be stretched over the project’s life. If it took an optimistic 10 years to build, the wall would require less than half a percent of the annual U.S. appetite for finished steel.

The wall “would have a very limited impact for U.S. steelmakers,” said Josh Spoores, a steel analyst with the research firm CRU.

More: https://www.wacotrib.com/news/trending/build-the-wall-it-could-take-at-least-years-even/article_7ea6d90b-843e-5323-a903-9ffdcc3bdf8f.html

Offline sneakypete

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The current fight — and now 19-day federal government shutdown — over funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall could look simple when you consider the logistics of actually building the fabled barrier: It would take an estimated 10,000 construction workers more than 10 years to build the kind of 1,000-mile wall that President Donald Trump has said he wants.

Only if they are government employed union workers.

And even if it does,so what? 10 years from how we will have a secure border. If we don't built it there will be no borders.
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Offline the_doc

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The border’s landscape is uniquely remote and difficult. The project site is narrow and runs for miles. And there are unknowns, such as the maximum wind load for a fence reaching about three stories high.


The estimator said the project is probably "not realistic."  Well, if that's case, then I'd say that the Hoover Dam was certainly not realistic.

The wind loading for a thirty-foot high fence is "unknown"?  Heck, a good structural engineer can make it known.  Besides, I'm sure there would be ventilation grates in the fence to defeat Von Karman vortex streets.

(Speaking of realistic, I'd say that necessity makes it realistic.  I think this article is palaver.)

Offline Smokin Joe

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The estimator said the project is probably "not realistic."  Well, if that's case, then I'd say that the Hoover Dam was certainly not realistic.

The wind loading for a thirty-foot high fence is "unknown"?  Heck, a good structural engineer can make it known.  Besides, I'm sure there would be ventilation grates in the fence to defeat Von Karman vortex streets.

(Speaking of realistic, I'd say that necessity makes it realistic.  I think this article is palaver.)
I agree. While substrate variation may require unique solutions to make the wall structurally sound, the challenges are not insurmountable.Of course the site is long (It's a border wall, for Pete's sake), sure (especially relative to its length) it's narrow, and parts will be remote. (Duh, ya think!). These things were all pointed out when the idea was first pitched, and they haven't changed. But, like all that oil that was going to take 10 years to get out of the ground, sooner started, sooner finished.
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Offline Frank Cannon

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would cost at least $25 billion, said Ed Zarenski, who teaches construction estimation at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. Zarenski spent 30 years figuring out project price tags for Gilbane

Gilbane is regularly sued for being the eff ups on the job site. Just because your big doesn't mean your any good.

Offline To-Whose-Benefit?

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The estimator said the project is probably "not realistic."  Well, if that's case, then I'd say that the Hoover Dam was certainly not realistic.

The wind loading for a thirty-foot high fence is "unknown"?  Heck, a good structural engineer can make it known.  Besides, I'm sure there would be ventilation grates in the fence to defeat Von Karman vortex streets.

(Speaking of realistic, I'd say that necessity makes it realistic.  I think this article is palaver.)


Spot On.

Neither were the Golden Gate Bridge or the SF to Oakland Bay Bridge.

When the GG went up it took a painting crew of 11 men to git it done.

20 years ago it took over 120 men to not get it and keep it done, after all the Governmentalizing of that crew.
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Offline Smokin Joe

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Just a couple of thoughts on this:

It isn't going to get any cheaper.

Sooner started, sooner done.
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Turkey finishes construction of 764-km security wall on Syria border
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Ankara had launched the construction project in 2015 to build an 826-km (513-mi) wall on the Syrian border, as part of Turkey's measures to increase border security and combat smuggling and illegal border crossings...

...The border wall project incorporates physical, electronic and advanced technology layers.

The physical layer includes modular concrete walls, patrol routes, manned and unmanned towers and passenger tracks.

https://www.dailysabah.com/war-on-terror/2018/06/09/turkey-finishes-construction-of-764-km-security-wall-on-syria-border
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Offline Fishrrman

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Title and premise:
"Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers"

Absolute nonsense.
Get to work!

Offline sneakypete

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Re: Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers
« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2019, 03:40:01 am »
Title and premise:
"Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers"

Absolute nonsense.
Get to work!

@Fishrrman

I agree,and in addition,every mile that is built is one less mile that needs to be patrolled. Do not dismiss the value of the cumulative effect of each additional mile added.  We won't have to wait years for the wall to be completed to benefit from it. Those benefits will start showing almost immediately.
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Offline LegalAmerican

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Re: Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers
« Reply #11 on: January 12, 2019, 07:22:46 am »
My builder president thinks it can be done in about a year! 


Sorry...

Offline LegalAmerican

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Re: Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers
« Reply #12 on: January 12, 2019, 07:30:11 am »
@Fishrrman

I agree,and in addition,every mile that is built is one less mile that needs to be patrolled. Do not dismiss the value of the cumulative effect of each additional mile added.  We won't have to wait years for the wall to be completed to benefit from it. Those benefits will start showing almost immediately.



YES!  All the negative, nay sayers on here.  Never a positive, hopeful outlook.  "It will take too long"...so don't even TRY to fix anything.  "Too old to go to school", yet a year from now,  be halfway through a program and be a year older, anyway.   My dad was a nay sayer about everything!  I think he just didn't want to do any of the work.  MOM got things done!  lol.  " A/C the house".."No we don't need it".  Then later totally enjoyed it!  Cool sleeping, no humidity, heat wave in the heart land. I am a HOOSIER.   

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers
« Reply #13 on: January 12, 2019, 01:38:02 pm »


YES!  All the negative, nay sayers on here.  Never a positive, hopeful outlook.  "It will take too long"...so don't even TRY to fix anything.  "Too old to go to school", yet a year from now,  be halfway through a program and be a year older, anyway.   My dad was a nay sayer about everything!  I think he just didn't want to do any of the work.  MOM got things done!  lol.  " A/C the house".."No we don't need it".  Then later totally enjoyed it!  Cool sleeping, no humidity, heat wave in the heart land. I am a HOOSIER.   
We dealt with the same thing with the Obama administration in re: oil production. Ten years later, the ten years they said it would take to get any benefit, we're a net exporter of oil.

Git 'er done!
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline sneakypete

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Re: Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers
« Reply #14 on: January 12, 2019, 02:30:54 pm »


   
Quote
My dad was a nay sayer about everything!
 

@LegalAmerican

So was mine. Never had a positive thing to say about anything or anybody,but practically worshipped FDR. Mostly because of the WPA programs that gave him a job during the Depression.

Not that it made him vote for King Franklin or any other Dim,though. Always claimed voting was a waste of time because the bankers controlled the vote. Never could get him to explain to me how FDR got elected over and over with the bankers in charge. Never voted even once in his life "because it's a waste of time."

He did lose an election bet,though. I know,because he lost it to me. I ended up scoring my first shotgun out of that bet. He was so fired up about Truman he came close to actually voting,so I bet him a forgotten number of car washes versus his old 12 gauge double barrel hammer shotgun that Eisenhower would win. I was less than 10 years old,and already hating on the Dims. It got me my first shotgun,though.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2019, 02:32:41 pm by sneakypete »
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Offline LegalAmerican

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Re: Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2019, 06:13:39 pm »
 

@LegalAmerican

So was mine. Never had a positive thing to say about anything or anybody,but practically worshipped FDR. Mostly because of the WPA programs that gave him a job during the Depression.

Not that it made him vote for King Franklin or any other Dim,though. Always claimed voting was a waste of time because the bankers controlled the vote. Never could get him to explain to me how FDR got elected over and over with the bankers in charge. Never voted even once in his life "because it's a waste of time."

He did lose an election bet,though. I know,because he lost it to me. I ended up scoring my first shotgun out of that bet. He was so fired up about Truman he came close to actually voting,so I bet him a forgotten number of car washes versus his old 12 gauge double barrel hammer shotgun that Eisenhower would win. I was less than 10 years old,and already hating on the Dims. It got me my first shotgun,though.



Excellent!     :thumbsup:

Offline TomSea

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Re: Build the wall? It could take at least 10 years, even with 10,000 workers
« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2019, 06:19:41 pm »
Now, it will be a steel barrier. I thought I heard a few estimations that it would not take long at all.