Asset Management gets personal

Getting ready for The Big Dig

Scan everything

When I started out on The Big Dig, I was naive. I knew within inches of where the decommissioned oil tank was located. But the rules defined by the City of Vancouver say that property must be properly scanned by a qualified third party to ensure the exact location of the tank ... and to locate other buried tanks if they existed. Really? I've lived on this property most of my life and couldn't imagine another buried tank. But I followed the rules.

At the Opera good friends asked me about what I was up to. "Oil tank removal." I said. With the confidence of a satisfied customer, they recommended Stormworks Contracting that had removed their oil tank. I set about to figure out what I had to do. It looked like the scan was followed by the oil tank removal, inspection by the Firemen(!?), soil sampling by a third party environmental engineer, tank removal, then cover up the dig and restore the site.

Based on my friends' recommendation, it was easy for me to find a qualified scanning company, GeoScan Subsurface Surveys, recommended by Stormworks.

I made a call to GeoScan and we arranged a prompt visit. To my delight, a young woman arrived at my front door. As an early women's libber, I was thrilled to see a young, capable woman at the helm. She was the scanner, equipped with a degree in Geophysics and geophysical scanning equipment. That afternoon, she delivered her report. Tank found. Only one. Two feet below the surface. Surrounded by a 2,500 lb. concrete pad supporting a hot tub that was suspended in the air and accessed on the upper deck, plus 3 out of 4 posts supporting a 1987 extension to the kitchen. The hot tub eventually brought down version 1 of the deck, but that's a heartbreak asset management story for another day.

The next step was The Big Dig.

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A sleepless night

Advice from a construction expert

I woke up in the middle of the night with a start! I put on my slippers, retrieved my flashlight and went out into the darkness under the deck to check out my nightmare. Just as the pictures in the scanning report indicated, the posts supporting the extension to the house were carefully placed within 3-4 inches around the decommissioned oil tank. Add the cement pad, and the oil tank was surrounded on 3 sides. I had to see it to believe it.

In a panic, I sent a text message to a fellow who had worked for me in the past and knew my property. I trusted him. He came around the next day to check out my fears.

"Don't do it, Gail. It's too risky. If any one of the 3 posts fails, it will rip out the back of your 3-story house and destroy the deck as well. The risk and liability is too great."

I sent an email to the oil tank removal company to stop work.

My Stop Work Order wasn't picked up until the crew was on its way to my house the next morning. I expressed my concerns. The owner proposed an abandonment-in-place option for the tank. After I thought about it, at least I would be making a best effort to remove the tank. I would be doing the right thing. I gave my permission to proceed.

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Day1 The Big Dig

Cross your fingers!

The crew arrived and checked out the site. I expressed my fears and received a bit of a testy response from one of the workers. The foreman said: "Gail, I've got your back!". You have no idea how relieved that made me feel. Someone heard me. Yes to that.

After a morning dig, the crew exposed the tank and realized the risk involved. They were forced to expose 3 of the 4 posts supporting the kitchen extension.

The crew disappeared at lunch time, returning with 3 pole jacks to support the house. In the photo above, one jack can be detected to the right of the white pail. Before they left for the day, they backfilled the dig to secure the poles against 'drifting'.

Yikes! They were beyond the point of no return.

Day2 The Big Dig

"This is the worst job ever!" -the foreman

Day 2 was a long-and-stressful day where many independent players interacted in precise time with the oil tank removal crew to get the job done.

It was a long, hard day. It ended with all tasks accomplished in precision time.

My mission to remove the oil tank was accomplished with some degree of uncertainty depending of the soil test results and the final report from the oil tank removal company.

I was comforted by knowing that I'd done the right thing.

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Day3 The Big Dig

Restore the site

The time had come to fill the tank with neutral soil and sand and put it safely to bed with legal abandon-in-place status. Relief is in the air for everyone.

The stress of digging  and pumping out the content of the tank, cutting out holes in all 4 sides of the tank plus the bottom for soil extraction to be tested, and taking a sample of the oil-sand-water compound in the tank is over. The pole jacks are still doing their job to stabilize the support posts and prevent them from drifting.

I missed the 5-minute visit by 2 firemen to inspect the filled tank on behalf of the City.

The crew did a careful job of filling and compacting the tank and the big dig around the tank and support posts for the kitchen.

Tomorrow is another day to do more of the same and begin to clean up.

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Day4 The Big Dig

The crew is almost finished. Almost.

The oil tank and hole around the tank was filled with neutral environmentally clean soil and sand, then compacted.

I can feel relief from the 3 support posts assigned with the responsibility to hold up the back of the house and deck. But that may be my relief also. If one post had given way the entire back the house would have been ripped out because the deck and kitchen extension were strapped back into the house. Everything-is-connected-to-everything-else.

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Day5 The Big Dig- It’s Over!

Done!

The final day was one of completion. Above is the after picture. Yes to that.

The internals of the tank, about one tonne of sand-oil-water, were carefully loaded into 4 disposal barrels and sealed.