Ballard’s Hyperbaric Services for Seattle Ship Canal Project

Lane Construction brought Ballard’s hyperbaric services division out to the Seattle Ship Canal project in early April. The TBM (nicknamed “MudHoney”) was showing signs of wear so round-the-clock teams performed interventions to inspect and maintain the cutterhead. These interventions are a specialized skill,  which require Compressed Air Workers  (CAW) to repair and inspect the front of the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM).

The 19-person crew changed out many of the discs, some scrapers, two foam ports, and a wear detector. Since the project started, Ballard has completed 236 Interventions on MudHoney, from Inspections to Arc air burning.

Ballard Marine Construction, LLC was awarded the Contract by Lane Construction middle of 2020.

The Seattle Ship Canal Water Quality project is a 2.7-mile, 18-ft and 10-in internal-diameter tunnel that will extend from Ballard to Wallingford. Once complete, it will capture and temporarily store more than 29 million gallons of untreated stormwater and sewage until the treatment plant is ready for it. The tunnel will improve water quality regionally by keeping more than 75 million gallons of polluted stormwater (from rain) and sewage from flowing into the Lake Washington Ship Canal.