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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Huckleberries Online

One Last Question for the Major re: That Fill Dirt

Question: Could you have gotten the fill material for the gravel pit from the airport and got a hauler to move it more cheaply for you?

A -- Yes, we could have gotten boulders from the airport, not pit run. The boulders would have had to be crushed and mixed with other dirt. The dirt then would have had to be hauled by conventional dump truck down Ramsey Road at a cost of around $14 per cubic yard. This does not include the cost to compact the dirt. Just to haul the dirt. The pit run that we're getting from the Hawksnest site is free material. The only cost is for the haul and compaction, which is $2.38 per cubic yard. ACI is donating up to $150,000 in kind toward the hauling. Bill Radobenko is losing money on this haul. He's doing this because he believes in the project and the impact it's going to make in the community.

Q -- Why didn't you simply recontour the material on site?
A -- The material on site was primarily organic material, which is unsuitable material to build a building on. What we thought was the bottom of the pit wasn't the true bottom. The average depth of the pit is now 37 feet. We thought it was 25 feet. When we started to excavate dirt, we realized that we had to go down another 15 feet to get to native material.



Huckleberries Online

D.F. Oliveria started Huckleberries Online on Feb. 16, 2004. Oliveria's Sunday print Huckleberries is a past winner of the national Herb Caen Memorial Column contest.