Second Avenue Subway construction
The life of the the rocks being dug up as part of the Second Avenue
Subway construction does not end on Second Avenue. Instead, the rocks
have become part of an ecosystem as they are being used in construction
projects around the New York and New Jersey region, WNYC reported. Contractor Skanska has an agreement with the Metropolitan
Transportation Administration to transport the rocks off-site to
Newark. There, at Armored Recycling, the “mole rock” is turned into
usable construction material using a machine called the jaw crusher,
which lifts the rubble and grinds it into half-inch, 3/4- inch and 3-inch plus
pieces. St. Peter’s College in New Jersey is using 70, 000 tons of rock for the construction of a new dormitory. Other large
amounts of rock have gone to brownfields cleanup in northern New
Jersey.
For many construction projects,
this rock is
cheaper than material from a quarry because it has a shorter distance to travel, George Coyne from Armored Recycling said. But because of the downturn impacting the construction industry, he has more
rock than he can sell. There is daily demand for 1,000 tons to 2,000 tons
daily, while Second Avenue is producing 5,000 tons each day.
A subcontractor who either trucks the rocks to off-site or disposes of
them has also struggled with unpredictable demand and pay. While a project to develop of a golf course in the Meadowlands that would have used some of the rock has been repeatedly
postponed, the subcontractor has a managed to dispose of the rocks at the city’s
construction of the Ferry Point Golf Course in the Bronx. Even though
he could not be paid for that delivery, trucking costs to the Bronx
are cheaper than to New Jersey, and that project eliminates the
uncertainty of finding a disposal site.
And the whole affair could be going on longer than expected. CBS New
York reported that the Federal Transportation Administration is
suggesting that the $4 billion Second Avenue Construction project might not completed by February
2018, 16 months later than the MTA currently estimates. But an MTA
spokesperson said the agency was still planning on keeping the project
on schedule and on budget. [WNYC] and [CBS New York]