ROCK Construction and Mining Inc.
ROCK Construction and Mining Inc. was founded by Peter Walker in 2002 after a career in excavation and mining. The company philosophy is to provide safe, efficient and guaranteed service, always knowing project parameters before a bid and always meeting client expectations. ROCK specializes in drilling and blasting for hydroelectric development, quarry and mine production, road and highway construction, infrastructure foundations and specialty drilling.
Drilling and blasting is a specialty that only a few companies do at the scale of ROCK. “If you look in the Yellow Pages in any city in America for drilling and blasting that can do the work we do, there are only four,” President Peter Walker maintains. “As with everything, once you get the scale and ability to provide the owner of the project or the contractors what we see as peripheral items – such as bonding, safety programs and accessories to the contractor – you limit the field.”
For example, the cost of insurance for a blasting company is very substantial – much more than what doctors pay for malpractice insurance, Walker says. “For the value we pay each year for liability insurance alone, you would not be doing small projects,” he maintains. “You would not be able to afford it!”
ROCK Construction and Mining Inc. offers its customers a complete package of services across Canada. “We give you a number – it’s a lump-sum value for that project,” Walker notes.
The scale of projects on which ROCK Construction and Mining Inc. works is massive. For example, the company might be asked to remove 2.5 million cubic meters of earth in five months for an iron ore mine. That would require moving approximately 192,000 square meters of earth to a depth of 13 meters, Walker calculates. “That project would be worth $6.5 million,” he estimates. “That’s pretty standard for our fleet.”
Wuskwatim Dam
ROCK Construction and Mining Inc. is doing the drilling and blasting for Manitoba Hydro’s new Wuskwatim Dam, which began construction in 2008 and is scheduled for completion in 2012. “The Wuskwatim hydroelectric project is a turnkey operation from the ground up,” Walker asserts. “When we started in there, it was bush and a river and some rock outcrops. Now it’s going to be a $3 billion hydroelectric generating station dam with a head pond. We’ve done all the dry work that can be done behind coffer dams and out of the water, but to finish and allow the water in, you’ve got to remove the plugs of material and rock that were left in the flow channel.”
Doing this with accuracy is crucial, he stresses. “Once you blast it, the pad you’re sitting on is removed, so you’ve only got one shot at it,” Walker declares. “If you leave it a meter or two high on the bottom, you’ve got a flow of water that cannot be overcome. That’s something we take a lot of pride in – being able to pull it off.”
Bennett Dam
Another ROCK Construction hydroelectric project is pushing back a rock wall on the existing W.A.C. Bennett Dam that was built in the late 1960s in British Columbia to prevent debris from falling into the dam’s spillway.
“The technical challenge is the fact you’ve got a sheer face of rock sitting over a concrete structure 120 to 150 feet above the spillway that needs to be removed, with minimal rock deposited in the spillway and no damage to the existing structure,” Walker explains. “We’re only moving that vertical face in 30 feet on average. That’s a challenge.” To do this, ROCK will use directional blasting.
“We create a void where we basically draw the consecutive blast we’re doing parallel with the spillway versus casting it out into the spillway,” Walker notes. “That takes a little bit of finesse. It’s nothing tricky – no special products – just experience and bore hole timing is what’s allowing our experts to pull these feats off.”
Walker keeps employees working year-round. “We have the ability to perform as easily in Hudson Bay in December and January as we do on Vancouver Island,” Walker asserts. “We hire and retain the best people in the industry.”