In the center of Moss, the state will build a record-breaking railway line through a cauldron of unstable quick clay, where several new reports point to a much higher risk of landslides than what is previously known.
The comments expresses the writer’s opinions.
Bane NOR is working hard and will continue the development, even with great uncertainty and several potential billion-dollar cracks.
Click here to subscribe to newsletters from Norwegian debate
The ten kilometers of new double track through Moss will now cost 18 billion tax kroner, which is close to the kilometer price of the world’s most expensive railway line to date, HS2 i England. It is understandable that it is expensive to build a new high-speed line (400 km / h) on the way out of densely populated London.
A little less understandable is that we can end up with the same high kilometer price on a stretch in Moss that does not even meet Intercity standards.
The quick clay in the center and harbor area in Moss is the main reason for both the cost gap and the concerns of people who live nearby, and after the landslide in Gjerdrum, this has become an even bigger issue. It is still not entirely clear what caused the landslide in Gjerdrum, however excavation work 30 centimeters into the ground at the bottom of the ration are some of the factors being investigated. In the quick camp in Moss, Bane NOR will dig a 35 meter deep ditch where 1600 tons heavy trains must pass.
It makes no sense to scrape together those billions
After Gjerdrum, the people of Moss wanted a proper review of the quick clay conditions in the construction zone. The report written by NGI (Norwegian Geotechnical Institute) was ready in February this year, and showed that the risk was far higher than Bane NOR was previously aware of. The area was now considered to have risk class four out of five, and a “very serious” level of damage.
The report recommended conducting a “risk analysis of all conditions that could lead to the triggering of a landslide”. The locals saw video clips from the excavation work which showed that the camp down in the ground had the consistency of thick soup.
Here you can read more comments from Are Søberg
Then it got even worse. Geophysicist Erling Siggerud (former associate professor at NTNU) was hired to create an alternative report on the ground conditions. His company uses methods from the oil and gas industry to map ground conditions. The report was ready in August this year, and Siggerud then thought that the avalanche risk was own higher than NGI wrote in its dramatic report. The report also meant to prove that a landslide must have occurred a few hundred meters from the area in which it is now to be dug.
The picture the geophysicist paints of the risk is so serious that it would probably be pointless to try to scrape together the billions needed to secure the area well enough. Jonathan Parker from the urban development group “Better Urban Development Moss” (BBM), which has been working against the plans since 2016, fears an enormous slippage of the terrain that could create a tsunami across the Oslo Fjord.
Siggerud’s report, on the other hand, was dismissed as a “view” by Bane NOR, which during a meeting in Moss on 30 August this year said that the work would continue.
It is naturally difficult for those of us who are not geologists to consider professional questions here. But mapping clay clay has obviously not been an exact science. To then firmly reject methods from an oil industry that has a stronger history of mapping ground conditions, seems bold when life and such great values are at stake.
Is it wise for the state to go “all in” with such bad cards in hand?
The project can also be meaningless even if the quick clay stays in place and there should not be more billion cracks:
- The plan was originally to build double tracks all the way to Halden, but due to huge billions in the plans there as well, it is no longer safe that the development will continue to the towns south of Moss. Lowering the ambitions for the development in Moss will thus not necessarily create a bottleneck.
- In the longer term, there is talk of light rail Oslo-Gothenburg, which already under planning from the Swedish side. In any case, such a line will not be able to meander through the center of Moss, where Bane NOR is planning a new station, and it will also not be possible with a transition between the light rail and the section that is now being developed. Et siding in Moss can be the world’s most expensive railway line! On the other hand, correspondence between the lines could have been possible if the new double track was laid outside the quick clay further east, according to Jonathan Parker in BBM.
- The environmental arguments for trumping through the railway development are becoming less and less relevant as the car fleet is electrified, and the increasingly demanding development itself will emit extreme amounts of CO2.
Read more from the Norwegian debate here
The railway development in Moss was referred to as «the mother of all scandal projects»Already this spring, before the latest risk analysis which suggests that the project will be even more expensive and more risky.
Is it wise for the state to go “all in” with such bad cards in hand? If the Minister of Transport does not sign up for the discussion now, it will be a bit of a dish on the day something goes wrong.
–
