Front End

Taming the Narrows

Washington state’s new Narrows Bridge, built by a Bechtel-Kiewit joint venture, opened to traffic in July. At 5,400 feet (1,646 meters) overall, the bridge incorporates a 2,800-foot (854-meter) main span that’s the longest to be built on a suspension bridge in the United States in more than 40 years.

The new bridge stands alongside another span that was built in the 1950s to replace the original bridge over the Tacoma Narrows, Galloping Gertie—so named for its tendency to twist and roll in high winds. Gertie collapsed during a storm in 1940, just months after opening. Today, the 1950s span and the new Narrows Bridge carry traffic in opposite directions, making the commute at the southern end of Puget Sound the safest it’s been in years. Bechtel’s team broke ground for the project in 2003.

Over, Under, Around, and Through

The shortest route from Pristina, Kosovo, to the shimmering beaches of Albania’s Adriatic coast may be only 145 miles (234 kilometers), but it can take seven hours to complete the dizzying zig-zag drive over the region’s most rugged mountains.

That will change when a new four-lane highway—Albania’s biggest infrastructure project to date—opens, cutting travel time by two-thirds. One key to the speedier trip will be the Bechtel-Enka-built section through Albania’s northern mountains, which includes a tunnel near Kukes. At 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) in length, the dual-bore tunnel will be the first and longest of its type in the Balkans.

The road will stimulate the economy in a developing region, bringing new tourist money from the east to beach towns. At the same time, the road may increase trade, as farmers in the two regions diversify their crops and livestock and attempt to reach new markets.

New Lab Contract

A team including Bechtel has won a seven-year contract to manage and operate the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The lab is home to research projects related to nuclear weapons stockpile safety, security, and reliability testing, as well as efforts to counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The University of California, which had operated the lab since its inception in 1952, is a member of the new management team, called Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC.

The new team will assume its responsibilities on October 1. Last year, another team that also includes Bechtel and the University of California system began managing and operating the DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

First Class Rail

Korea’s new Incheon Airport—on an island west of Seoul—is quickly becoming an international hub. Until this March, though, the only land route from the city was a highway. That’s when the first 25 miles (40 kilometers) of a new rail link opened.

Built under South Korea’s Private Investment Act, AREX is the country’s first privatized rail line. Since 1999, Bechtel has provided consulting services and project anagement support to AREX’s owners, a consortium of Korean companies and the government.

The grand opening on March 23 followed an almost trouble-free trial run and startup. When Phase 2 opens in 2010, passengers will be able to check their bags and pass through customs inside a terminal in downtown Seoul before departing for the airport.

Bechtel Buzz

“I can think of no other construction organization that has logged 18-million-plus exposure hours without a ‘days-away’ illness or injury.”
—U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, commenting on the safety performance of Bechtel Savannah River, Inc. (BRSI has since exceeded 20 million hours).

Wall Done

A Bechtel-led design and construction team at the Chernobyl nuclear plant site recently achieved one of its key goals—stabilizing part of the damaged plant’s original structure.

Anchored in enormous concrete foundations, a new 161-foot- (49-meter-) high steel truss system was constructed to transfer loads from the structure’s west wall—which had been left leaning precipitously outward after the 1986 fire and explosion. With this wall secured, the team has completed measures to stabilize the hastily constructed concrete-and-steel “sarcophagus” that was built to keep tonnes of radioactive rubble and dust from further contaminating the environment.

The team will soon begin work on a permanent enclosure to create a controlled environment for deconstructing and decontaminating the disaster site.

Virginia Tech Losses Mourned

Bechtel has close relationships with engineering colleges the world over. The company’s technical experts work side-by-side with faculties on challenging assignments, and Bechtel employees are mentors to promising students. Talented teachers and graduates have enriched the Bechtel organization for many years. So when a tragic campus shooting took the lives of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech in April, the shock hit close to home.

Bechtel, Bechtel Group Foundation, the Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, and many generous Bechtel employees have made donations to the school in honor of those who lost their lives.

Portable and Potable

As Marathon Oil Corporation and its partners shipped the first cargo of liquefied natural gas—ahead of schedule—from the new, Bechtel-built facility on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea, some local residents recalled another recent liquid shipment completed with Bechtel’s help.

Last year, shortly after a storm knocked out Malabo’s primary fresh water pipeline, Bechtel assigned two of its 10,000-gallon (38,000-liter) water trucks, normally used in construction operations, to deliver potable water to the capital city and neighboring towns. For more than two months, the trucks made 19-mile (30-kilometer) round-trip runs for drinking water at least twice a day. Bechtel worked with customer EG LNG and other companies to set up two temporary holding tanks where residents could fill up.

In 2005, Bechtel also supplied fresh water to help the island’s public health officials combat a two-month cholera epidemic.


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