OCR

15 months. Utah Dredging Company, then a subsidiary of Utah Construction Company, handled the work under a $5,000,000 contract with the Port of Oakland. This dredge-built embankment marked the first construction step in the multi-million dollar program for the development of the airport; base paving and terminal facilities to follow. In 1958 this new portion of the airport, the runway, taxi way s and building areas resembled a series of connected sand spits, the areas in between being either water or mud, depending to some extent on the tide. The drege fill was placed to build one 8,600 foot runway, a parallel taxiway, four connecting taxiways, an area for terminal and service facilities, and another small area for instrument landing facilities. Even the roads leading from the old adjoining airport to the new service area were long, narrow sandbars thrown up by the dredge. Since approaches at both ends of the runway were completely over water, the new field would be relatively free of the encroachment difficulties which plague many airports. There was also room for the extension of the runway at either end, whenever desirable. The first step in providing a stable base for the future terminal building and other structures in the terminal area was the stripping of soft mud from the bottom of the area before the dredge fill was placed. This work was sublet to a small suction dredge. The powerful Franciscan took all of the sand fill from two adjoin- ing borrow pits at the north end of the runway. One continuous excavation would have been made, except that a strip had to be left where the so-called southern crossing of the bay between Oakland and San Francisco was to be built. The borrow area, dredged to a depth of more than 40 ft. was included in the City of Alameda master plan as a future yacht harbor. The relative location of the borrow areas and the extreme length of the embankment made it necessary for the Franciscan to use an unusually long discharge line. At the most distant point from the fill, the dredge was pumping the sand through 26,600 feet of pipe, and did it without the aid of a booster. In the borrow area, the dredge used up to 3,500 feet of 30 inch floating discharge line coupled with Mobile Pulley & Machine Works ball-and-socket joints. From the edge of the borrow area to the beginning of the embankment, the line had to cross