Aggregates Manager Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/815541
Bill Langer is a consulting research geologist who spent 41 years with the U.S. Geological Survey before starting his own business. He can be reached at Bill_Langer@hotmail.com CARVED IN STONE 40 AGGREGATES MANAGER / May 2017 A s a kid, my dad and I did a lot of inter- esting things together. One memorable adventure we shared when I was in high school (back in the early 1960s) involved partici- pating in the Atlantic City Tuna Tournament. Even though I was a teenager, Dad treated me like a real man. We stayed at the hosting marina, slept on the boat, had prime rib dinner at the marina restaurant, and spent three days fishing for tuna. What a thrill! On the way to and from the tournament, we cruised past Little Egg Inlet. This story picks up at the inlet about a decade later. According to literature from a power company, a floating nuclear generating facility was pro- posed to be built at an "offshore site…out in the ocean, off Little Egg Inlet, and approximately 12 miles north of Atlantic City." The Atlantic Generating Facility (AGF), as it would come to be known, was to consist of two nuclear power plants that would be built in a shipyard and mounted on gigantic barges in the ocean. Before you completely flip out, you should know that the structure and the plants were designed to survive 43-foot waves, sustained hurricane winds of 156 miles per hour, and tornado winds of 300 miles per hour. For comparison, Hurricane Sandy had a top speed of 89 miles per hour and a wave height of 32.5 feet. The facilities would be towed to their ocean site and protected by a surrounding breakwater. The breakwater would also act like an artificial reef and be a boon to sea life in the area. This is where the beneficial environmental use of gravel and rock comes into play. Concrete caissons would have been floated to the site, sunk, and filled with sand and gravel. Next, thousands of tons of rock would have been used to create the breakwater. Perhaps you recall my series of articles about the Barre granite (http://bit.ly/2nj7Ho8). The piles of oversized waste granite rock in Barre, Vt., were a perfect size and shape for the breakwater. And transportation would have been a breeze. The rail connection on the Central Vermont Railroad was a straight shot down to the dock in Connecticut. From there, the breakwater rock could be barged right to the site. What a happy job for Too Big Ugly Rock. The part of the breakwater above sea level would have been armored with interlocking pre-cast concrete objects called "dolos." If you ever played ball and jacks, dolos look like the jacks you gathered up in your hand between bounces of the ball. A large dolos would have been 20 by 20 feet and weigh as much as 42 tons. Approximately 70,000 dolos of various sizes would have armored the breakwater. That would have required a bunch of concrete aggregate. What a prize for some lucky aggregate producers! You probably know there are no floating nuclear generating facilities off Little Egg Harbor; the project never did materialize. No aggregate producers won the prize to provide stone or concrete for the breakwater. And, like the aggregate producers, my dad and I carried no trophies when we sailed on by Little Egg Inlet on the way home from the Atlantic City Tuna Tournament. But I brought back the best prize of all — the experience that my dad and I shared at the Atlantic City Tuna Tournament. AM (Author's note: My thanks to Bob Mayville for bringing this story to my attention.) A proposal for a floating nuclear generating facility would have been a boon to aggregate producers. The Atlantic Generating Facility The Atlantic Generating Facility would have consisted of two nuclear power plants built in a shipyard and mounted on gigantic barges.