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.â€
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