Runway embankment work ongoing
– and a long way still to go

According to a Port spokesman, the third-runway embankment is 52 percent complete as of this date. The embankment portion of project will require placement of 19.84 million cubic yards of fill (which will settle down & be compacted to 17 million cubic yards). TIA calculates that the third runway will actually require 21.11 million cubic yards of fill. We include fill hauled for the RUNWAY SAFTEY AREAS (1.13mcy) and for relocating of South 154 th St. (.14 mcy ) our estimate because we think both are integral to the project.

When TTI Constructors, LLC , the consortium now working on the embankment, winds up its hauling work in December 2005, the embankment will contain somewhat more than 14 million cubic yards (mcy ) In short, there is a long way to go, & a lot of expense, before the Port can start pouring concrete for the runway.

In the years ahead, the Port of Seattle will need to seek bids for more than 7 million cubic yards of clean fill– at least another two years' worth of work. This next phase of the project will focus on straightforward fill-hauling & embankment construction, for most of the site-preparation work will have been finished. It is too early to give an accurate prediction what this phase will cost, but another $200 million would be in the ball park.

All That Fill -& Still No Runway

After the embankment will come actually building the concrete runway on top of the embankment. The least that the Airport can expect to pay for that work is $10,000 a linear foot, or $85 million. We would not be surprised if the bids came in at double that, given traditionally high labor costs in the Puget Sound area, rising costs of fuel, & short supplies of construction-grade concrete. So, at the very least, there remains to be done work amounting to $285 million & perhaps twice that.

The average load for the fill-haul trucks is about 18 cubic yards. TTI claims that there has been a sharp drop in the number of illegally overloaded trucks (as of the end of April), down to 7 percent from a high of 46 percent last Fall.

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