It just hasn’t been easy for Bertha. Just as the tunnel boring machine (TBM) began moving again on January 12, the barge used to haul away spoils tipped and damaged a pier at the port’s Terminal 46, leaving the machine no place to deposit its waste. Seattle Tunnel Partners responded to this event by shutting down the Bertha and sending personnel and divers to the terminal to survey the damage. According to reports roughly 15 concrete dock pilings were damaged and some clean soil was dumped into Puget Sound because of the accident. And it wasn’t just the barge incident, unexpectedly a sink hole said to be 35 feet long, 20 feet wide and 15 feet deep developed at the excavation site. The sinkhole was filled subsequently with 250 cubic yards of concrete-sand mix. But, as a result of the sinkhole, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee ordered the excavating to stop until the cause of the sinkhole is investigated. According to reports the problem area is located entirely around Bertha but does not extend to the viaduct itself. As for the issue of “dirt”, according to plans, the clean excavated soil will eventually be barged to the Mats Mats reclamation facility two miles north of Port Ludlow, WA. There it will be used as fill in a gravel quarry that is being reclaimed. Only clean soil from the viaduct replacement project will be accepted, not soil that contains concrete or other materials from the various structures that have been built on Bertha’s planned route.