City of Concord

Underground Construction was chosen as the contractor to complete a new backbone in Concord. The project is

“We spent the next four days carefully stripping the spiral cable sheath and jacket away from the fiber optic cable, knowing that one slip of the knife could ruin several million dollars of fiber optic cable.”

approximately 7 miles in length and consists of HDPE conduit installed by directional drilling. We have three Underground drilling crews and a bridge hanger crew working on this project. Completion is scheduled for early May.

Project Manager Matt Cook, Project Superintendent Joe Kovacich, Foremen Chris Stream, Jeff Kent, Shawn Powell, and Izzy Rodriguez have accepted the task of completing this project on time and budget.

On a most interesting note, we were called upon to assist in bringing a submarine cable ashore at Pier 7 in San Francisco, at Treasure Island, and Emeryville. The first crossing ran from Emeryville to Treasure Island and required approximately 7 hours to complete. The second crossing connected Pier 7 to San Francisco to the west side of Treasure Island near the main entry gate. An underground cable traversing Treasure Island connected the two underwater cables.

Underground was responsible for pulling the submarine cables from the barge to the shore and through an existing manhole. After a few tense moments adjusting the pressure on the power winch trailer, the cable began to come ashore in Emeryville. This operation was repeated again at Treasure Island and in San Francisco at Pier 7. We spent the next four days carefully stripping the spiral cable sheath and jacket away from the fiber optic cable, knowing that one slip of the knife could ruin several million dollars of fiber optic cable.

George Albright, Larry Yamamoto and crew were responsible for keeping this work underway as not to delay the underwater trenching operation.

Future Challenges

Our fiber optic division continues to work at a rapid pace in order to complete our clients’ projects on time and within their budgets. Our challenge of completing projects is increasingly more difficult as additional environmental, cultural and agency restrictions are placed on construction operations.

In summary, it all boils down to digging a trench, placing conduit, backfilling the trench, and restoring the pavement surface... A far cry from the days when most major projects required large excavators, dozers, scrapers, cranes ... Ah, for the good old days. Almost makes me want to dig out my Tonka Trucks again!