Proceedings of 34th Annual Meeting of the Association of Engineering Geologists.

Association of Engineering Geologists, Greensburg, PA., September 1991

COSTLY ENVIRONMENTAL AND GEOTECHNICAL DSC CLAIMS RESULTING FROM

EXPLORATION PROGRAM AND REPORTING INADEQUACIES

Steven W. Hunt
STS Consultants Ltd. [presently with CH2M Hill]

Steven B. Fradkin, Senior Project Geologist

STS Consultants Ltd. [presently with CH2M Hill]

INTRODUCTION

Osterberg (1979) stated that: "Exploration failure occurs when the exploration process does not
reveal subsurface conditions needed for safe, economical design of foundations and earth
structures, or fails to determine proper excavation, bracing and other construction methods."
This paper presents the authors, collective experiences with several exploration program and
reporting inadequacies which resulted in costly differing site condition (DSC) claims. The claims
may have been avoided if the exploration and reporting process for these cases had considered
the five general reasons for failures given by Osterberg:

1. "FAILURE TO USE GENERAL KNOWLEDGE OF PLANNING THE EXPLORATION

PROGRAM FINDINGS OF THE INVESTIGATION"

2. GEOLOGIC PROCESSES IN AND IN EVALUATION OF THE "A PRECONCEIVED

NOTION OF WHAT THE SITE EVALUATION SHOULD BE AND A RELUCTANCE
(OR EVEN REFUSAL) TO CONSIDER EVIDENCE WHICH CONTRADICTS THE
PRECONCEIVED IDEAS"

3. "FAILURE TO USE ALL AVAILABLE TOOLS FOR SITE EVALUATION EVEN

THOUGH THEY MAY BE SIMPLE AND OBVIOUS"

4. "FAILURE TO PROPERLY DISCUSS THE GOALS OF THE EXPLORATION

PROGRAM WITH ALL THE PERSONS INVOLVED"

5. "FAILURE TO SET UP OPEN AND FREE LINES OF COMMUNICATION"

Case histories for three projects with exploration and reporting inadequacies are presented.
Each case history explains the perceived inadequacy and its consequences. Suggestions are given
on how the investigations and reports could have been improved. References providing excellent
guidelines for conducting subsurface investigations on underground excavation projects are also
recommended.
CASE I - CONTAMINATED SOIL

Differing Site Condition

Case I involved a site where portions of two soft-ground tunnels, and an access shaft were to be
constructed. Two DSCs were encountered by the contractor. One DSC was an unexpected,
buried timber bulkhead around an abandoned basin that would have interfered with construction
of the access shaft and soft-ground tunnels. The other DSC was unexpected contaminated fill
material (containing meat packing and tannery wastes) within the abandoned basin. Neither
condition was represented in the bid documents.

Geotechnical Investigation and Report Inadequacies

This case is an example of Osterberg's failure reasons 2, 4 and 5. The investigators failed to
utilize information about the site to properly investigate the the abandoned timber bulkhead and
the contents of the basin fill material. Sewer and watermain drawings furnished to the design
team which clearly showed the existence of the bulkhead outline and the basin within it were not
utilized.

Based on the information in the utility drawings, the investigators could have focused the
exploration on the bulkhead condition and basin contents. Shallow test pits could have been
excavated to verify the existence and condition of the bulkhead at important locations.
Exploration methods and instructions to field personnel could have focused on determining the
extent and condition of the fill material. Unfortunately, no special exploration measures were
performed. Hence, no signs of soil contamination or the condition of the bulkhead were
recognized or reported.

Two soil borings were drilled about 10 ft apart at the access shaft site. One boring log indicated
that standard penetration test (SPT) sampling was performed at 2.5 ft intervals to 20 ft, then at 5
ft intervals to 35 ft. The other log reported 5 ft SPT sample intervals to 65 ft. Neither log
reported the degree of recovery for each sample.

The log for one of the borings reported the following soil conditions (the other log showed
similar conditions):
• 0-8.0 ft, FILL: Black, fine to coarse silty sand, little fine to coarse gravel, cinders and
miscellaneous rubble.
• 8.0-23.0 ft, FILL: Black organic silt, trace to little fine to coarse sand and gravel.
• 23.0-40.0 ft, ORGANIC DEPOSITS: Black to green gray, fibrous peat to organic clay to
organic silt, occasional shell fragments and some decayed vegetative matter, chemical odor
noted at 24 ft.

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The contractor bid this portion of the project based on the above representations.

At the start of shaft construction, the contractor utilized an auger rig to drill a 24-inch-diameter
hole to a depth of about 25 ft near the shaft location. They encountered foul-smelling,
contaminated-appearing soil and notified the engineer. In addition' they told the engineer that
the utility drawings they obtained from the city indicated that the site was an abandoned, filled
basin. They claimed that a DSC existed and asked the engineer to investigate.

Construction was stopped and an investigation conducted. Eventually, a total of 17

environmental borings were drilled at the site area. Many environmental laboratory tests were
performed. Five of the borings were drilled within the basin boundary within 3 to 30 ft of the
design-phase boring locations.. All 5 of the basin, boring logs indicated conditions, which
differed materially from those, indicated by the design phase boring logs.

The contaminated fill was found to extend to about 25 ft deep. Samples from approximately 5 ft
to 26 ft were found to be biologically and/or chemically contaminated. The material sampled
from 10 to 25 ft was typically described as organic clay fill, gray to black with yellowish and
pink streaks, hairy fibers throughout, occasional unknown reddish material which looks like
chopped meat, hide and bones, smells like tannery-decay, oily sheen on water.

Laboratory tests indicated the presence of chemicals used in tanning operations, including
chromium, mercury, lead, arsenic, zinc, benzene, vinyl chloride, and toluene. The
concentrations of these chemicals were not high enough to classify the material as EPA
hazardous waste. The biological wastes were feared to contain anthrax and other potentially
infectious spores. The contamination was bad enough to require disposal as a special waste and
special health and safety procedures during construction.

Consequences of DSC

As a result of the conditions found within the basin, the tunnel alignments and shaft locations
were moved out of the basin to avoid direct contact with the worst material. Leachate from the
basin and petroleum spillage was still found within the upper 10 ft of the relocated site.

Construction had to proceed with special precautions. The earth support system was modified to
isolate groundwater. This was to minimize exposure to workers, minimize groundwater disposal
costs, and to avoid further migration of the contaminants away from the basin. To protect
workers, a comprehensive health and safety plan was prepared and implemented. Workers and
inspection personnel had to complete an EPA approved, 40-hour hazardous materials training
course and perform some of the work in accordance with Level C protection requirements as
specified by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) standard

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titled "Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response", 1910.120. CFR

The extra costs to complete the tunnel and shaft facilities due to the contaminated basin
conditions were approximately one million dollars. The area could have been avoided by
changing the project alignment if contaminated conditions had been recognized during design.

Thompson and Dobbels (1991) provide some good suggestions for design-phase subsurface
investigations where contaminated ground and groundwater conditions are suspected near shaft
and tunnel alignments.

CASE 2 - COBBLES AND BOULDERS

Differing Site Condition

The differing site condition for Case 2 resulted when the contractor encountered numerous, large
cobbles and boulders at two access shafts extending into bedrock on a project. The existence
of cobbles and boulders was not reported in any of the design-phase borings drilled for the
project- nor within the report text describing expected soil conditions. Cobbles and boulders
should have been addressed in the geotechnical report.

Geotechnical Investigation and Report Inadequacies

This case is an example where all five Osterberg failure reasons occurred, including a failure to:
consider local geology, evaluate pre-design information, instruct field personnel, perform
continuous sampling, use the best exploration tools, and adequately report expectable conditions.

A pre-design-phase report with text and boring logs covering the site was provided to the design
team. At one shaft site, the pre-design-phase report included two soil boring logs. Both boring
logs and the text of the report indicated that the lower 9 to 12 feet of glacial till deposits above
bedrock had encountered numerous, large cobbles and boulders. Two other deep borings
included in the report from a nearby bridge project also indicated that the lower till was
bouldery. In addition to the pre-design-phase report, published papers and reports on local
geological conditions could have provided the investigators enough information for them to have
expected cobbles and boulders in the glacial deposits, particularly near the bedrock surface.
These indications were apparently overlooked during the subsurface investigation.

Based an indications that cobbles and boulders should be expected, and knowing that the
proposed shaft must extend through the soil and into bedrock, the subsurface investigation could
have been designed to look for cobbles and boulders and other conditions pertinent to shaft
construction.

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Field personnel could have been instructed to use drilling and monitoring procedures which
increase information about cobbles and boulders. Continuous sampling could have been
performed, particularly in the lower soil strata.

Cording et. al., (1989) provide excellent recommendations for cobble and boulder detection.
They suggest that cobbles and boulders are most easily identified if augers are used to advance
the borehole. In addition to sampling with split-spoons, coring may be attempted when refusal
conditions are encountered. They suggest observing the following conditions as indications
of the presence of cobbles and boulders:

1. Rig chatter. Drill scrapes, catches or bounces on rock surface, and vibrations are transmitted
to rig at ground surface.
2. Slow rate of drilling advance, including stalling of engine.
3. Angular fragments and shards in the drill cuttings .
4. High blow counts and recovery of angular rock fragments
These conditions should not only be observed, but should also be accurately reported on the
boring logs.

Instead of a subsurface investigation focused on cobbles and boulders and other conditions
pertinent to shaft construction, it appears that the design-phase exploration was conducted as if it
were for a foundation investigation. Rotary drilling methods with SPT sampling at 5 ft intervals
were used. Due to high blow counts, sample recoveries were probably small (the degree of
recovery for each sample interval was not noted). Only about 10 percent of the lower deposits
are estimated to have been sampled. Signs of cobbles and boulders were not noted while drilling
between sample intervals. As a result, none of the logs for the design-phase borings at this site or
any of the other 14 design-phase borings drilled for the project included descriptions of cobbles
and boulders.

The text of the design-phase geotechnical report did not address the presence or lack of cobbles
and boulders. The only references provided were boring logs and a table characterizing glacial
deposits, which came from the pre-design-phase report. None of the soil profiles or site condition
descriptions in the text mentioned cobbles or boulders. In addition, the text did not discuss
construction problems to be expected if cobbles and boulders were encountered. Instead, the
report suggested that driven steel sheet piling would be suitable for the ground support system.

The report did not include or reference boring logs and a separate geotechnical report that had
been concurrently prepared for an adjacent shaft and tunnel project for the same owner. Neither
the geotechnical firm nor project designer appear to have requested the information even though
their own design drawings and specifications clearly identified the other project. Omitting
pertinent boring logs and other subsurface information from the bid documents may result in
DSC claims

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Consequences of DSC

At both shaft sites, the contractor selected driven steel sheet piling for the ground support and
groundwater isolation system. Numerous cobbles and boulders were encountered in the lower 5
to 10 feet of till deposits overlying bedrock. The lowest 2 to 3 feet of till consisted of
approximately 90 percent cobble- and boulder-size material. Nearly every sheet pile met
refusal or hung-up on cobbles or boulders and most were damaged. Consequences included:
• Construction delays due to harder driving and frequent damage. to sheet pile butt-ends.
• Bent sheet piles and split interlocks requiring damage removal and redriving.
• Large groundwater inflows developed through and below sheet piles causing settlements
from lost ground due to piping of fines and from consolidation of organic deposits.
• Considerable cement grouting was required to fill voids and cut-off inflows.
• The excavation had to be completed "in-the-wet" rather than in a dewatered shaft .
• The bottom mud-mat design had to be modified and thickened to cover ruptured and hung-up
sheet piles.
DSC claims concerning the cobbles and boulders and groundwater inflows encountered at the
two shafts were filed and found to have merit. Contract modifications to pay for the extra work
and delays exceeded two hundred thousand dollars.

CASE 3 - ROCK INSTEAD OF SOIL

Differing Site Condition

Case 3 involves a project where piles being driven for two cooling towers at a nuclear power
plant site encountered rock where soil was expected based on the contract geotechnical report.
The contract documents required the contractor to drive pipe piles through sand strata and a
"shell layer" into an underlying "marl" stratum. Two-thirds of the piles met refusal at the shell
layer. Near the end of production pile driving the owner declined to accept the piles, stating that
the "shell layer" was a solutioned limestone cap rock and was not considered a suitable bearing
stratum. Despite 102 additional borings which indicated competent, non-solutioned rock at the
hung-up pile

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groups and two pile load-tests without failure, the Owner insisted that the piles be driven into the
marl. This was ultimately done at great expense.

The "shell layer" was found to be a DSC. It was expected to be a medium to very dense sand and
gravel layer with some shells. It appeared to be alluvial in nature, particularly since a major river
was near the site. However, the "shell layer" across about two-thirds of the site was found to
consist of 4 to 5 feet of competent fossiliferous limestone cap rock rather than soil. The
geotechnical report included with the cooling tower contract documents did not include the
words "limestone" or even "rock" in the entire report.

Geotechnical Investigation and Report Inadequacies

This case is an example of Osterberg's failure reasons 1, 4 and 5. General knowledge of local
geologic processes and conditions were not considered in the investigation and report. The
goals of the investigation were not shared with field personnel and report writers. Considerable
existing geotechnical information at the adjacent power-block portion of the site was not utilized
or reported. Communication of information was poor.

A major inadequacy involved the subsurface investigation. The field personnel were apparently
not provided with pre-exploration geologic information and instructions which would have
enabled them to understand that piles were to be driven through an intermittently solutioned
fossiliferous limestone cap rock and into an underlying marl (soft-rock) stratum. Knowing this,
the exploration should have included rock coring and testing to determine thickness, strength and
degree of solutioning of the cap rock. Instead, it was sampled with split-spoons which were
driven at 5 foot intervals. The recovered material was reported as medium to very dense sand and
gravel with some shells. The underlying "marl" was sampled with split-spoons and shelby tubes
and was also described as soil (stiff to very stiff clayey silt).

Another inadequacy was in the reported information. Had they included a section in the
geotechnical report on general site geology and character of the various formations encountered,
they would have likely have discovered that the "shell layer" was actually a cap rock. This
information alone may have alerted the bidders that difficult pile driving conditions should be
expected. In addition, a section of the report addressing construction considerations could have
indicated that pile driving through the "shell layer" may require special measures such as
predrilling.

The geotechnical report also failed to reference or include any of an extensive amount of pre-
existing geotechnical information learned at the adjacent power-block site. Even though the
exploration program did not disclose the problem with the intermittently solutioned cap rock, the
power-block information would have. The power-block geotechnical report included very
detailed sections on site geology and specific formation conditions, including solutioning within
the limestone cap rock. Somehow, the information learned from the power-block

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investigations was not included within the cooling tower contract documents. It was superior
knowledge possessed by the owner, but not provided to the bidding contractors.

Consequences of DSC

In order to drive the hung-up piles through the competent limestone bedrock, very time-
consuming and expensive measures were required. All the piles were extended in length and
concreted. A large 80,000 ft-lb hammer was mobilized to the site. A 12-inch diameter tri-cone
rotary bit was mounted to the pile driving leads and used to perforate the rock between piles.
Many of the hung-up piles were driven to penetration rates over 100 blows per inch for over a
foot of penetration before the rock fractured and the pile toe penetrated into the marl.
Although pile damage was surprisingly minimal, many additional piles had to be driven to
account for lower toe bearing capacity in the marl.

The cost of additional pile driving operations exceeded three million dollars. In addition, the
project completion was delayed nearly two years. Had the geotechnical report properly
identified the limestone cap rock and addressed difficulties of driving piles through it, the bid
prices for the work would have been higher. However, the final cost of the' foundation would
have been much less than occurred as a result of the DSC.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Some geotechnical investigation and report inadequacies and their costly consequences were
presented. The resulting DSC claims could have been avoided by more careful subsurface
investigating and reporting. Generally, the investigators were not focused on the purpose of the
investigations and were unable to gather information about the most important ground conditions
for the proposed underground work.

Information about ground conditions and the proposed work, which was available prior to the
investigations, was often inadequately utilized or not utilized at all. In some cases, this was
apparently due to a lack of effort by the investigators to obtain existing information. In other
cases, information in hand was apparently overlooked due to poor management and
communication with field staff.

Too often, information transfer between the owners and design teams was inadequate. The
owners sometimes did not provide the geotechnical investigation firm with all the pertinent
information in their files about ground conditions, buried facilities or construction problems from
previous investigations or other projects in the area. Ultimately in these cases, the owners were
found accountable for superior knowledge due to unreported information.

The geotechnical investigators must endeavor to have a budget and

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scope of work that adequately allows pertinent pre-investigation information to be obtained and
evaluated. This will aid in keeping their investigation properly designed and focused so that
the resulting report communicates complete, meaningful and accurate information. Smart et. al.
(1989) provide excellent recommendations for improving communications between
geotechnologists and others during the exploration, design and construction processes.

Based on the authors' experiences, eliminating inadequacies and improving geotechnical

investigations and reports will be better accomplished by improvements in quality control and
communication practices than improvements in equipment, technical competency and
sophistication. Improvements should result if more effort is spent:
• Obtaining pre-investigation information about ground and groundwater conditions at the site
and site area, and about the proposed new facilities.
• Focusing the investigation to maximize information obtained which will be needed for not
only design, but also construction (conditions related to construction often need as much
attention as those for design).
• Preparing reports that present all the available information, design recommendations, and
construction considerations clearly, without ambiguities, and in a meaningful or useful
manner.

Two additional references are recommended on the subject of geotechnical investigations and
reports for projects involving subsurface excavating. The first is "Avoiding and Resolving
Disputes in Underground Construction", Committee on Contracting Practices of the
Underground Technology Research Council (1989). The second is "Geotechnical Site
Investigations for Underground Projects", Subcommittee on Geotechnical Site Investigations,
U.S. National Committee on Tunneling Technology Commission on Engineering and Technical
Systems, National Research Council (1984). Engineers and geologists involved in
investigations and reports for underground projects should have a good understanding of the
information presented in these references.

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REFERENCES

Committee on Contracting Practices of the Underground Technology Research Council.

Avoiding and Resolving Disputes in Underground Construction, New York: American Society
of Civil Engineers. 1989.

Cording, E. J.; Brierley, G. S.; Mahar, J. W.; and Boscardin, M. C. "Controlling Ground
Movements During Tunneling". Art and Science of Geotechnical Engineering. Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice Hall, 1989. 477-505.

Osterberg, J. 0. "Failures in Exploration Programs". Site Characterization and Exploration.

New York: American Society of Civil Engineers. 1979. 2-9.

Smart, J. D., Frei, L. R., and Von Thun, J. L. "Geotechnical Engineering in the Design and
Construction Process". Art and Science of Geotechnical Engineering. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice Hall, 1989. 336-348.

Subcommittee on Geotechnical Site Investigations, U.S. National Committee an Tunneling

Technology Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, National Research Council.
Geotechnical Site Investigations for Underground Projects. Washington D. C.: National
Academy Press, 1984.

Thompson, David E. and Dobbels, Daniel J. "Geotechnical/Geoenvironmental Planning Issues

for Tunneling Projects in Urban Settings." Proceedings of Rapid Excavation and Tunneling
Conference. Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc. Baltimore: Port City
Press, Inc., 1991. 11-18.

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