21st century innovations in heavy construction in Alaska: the phases of innovation in resource production.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: SPECIAL EDITION: Building Alaska

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Alaska is a tough place to build, especially for heavy construction. Infrastructure, especially in remote areas, needs to be able to stand with minimal regular maintenance. The cost of building large scale, rural structures is astronomical, and expensive maintenance costs that depend on the transportation of materials or an abundance of man-hours may take a project from expensive to impractical.

The environment is key to Alaskans-we are proud of the resources we have, we're proud of the beautiful land that holds them, and we believe strongly in using intelligent methods to use our resources while preserving our state.

Furthermore, safety is a constant issue, especially when the closest medical facility may be a two-hour helicopter flight, and no helicopter is available. Alaska's industries are known for their attention to safety, which isn't surprising when one works in an environment where routine injuries are transformed by cold and isolation into life-threatening ones.

It's no surprise that Alaska's contractors, engineers, architects, planners and workers do all they can to improve heavy construction practices to save costs, protect the environment and increase safety.

Phase One: Get There

In some cases, Alaskans and other Arctic occupants have managed to use the challenges of the far north as tools, such as allowing the bitter cold to help them build roads. Ice roads have been a means by which the mining and oil and gas industries have stretched towards resources responsibly for decades. Yet these seemingly simple roads are constantly being improved.

The amount of water, snow or ice needed to build these roads can be staggering. One mile of road can require up to 1 million gallons of water. Alaska Interstate Construction LLC invented snowbirds, the "most efficient method of offshore ice road construction in the Arctic today," according to their website. These machines drill through the sea ice and pump water to the surface of the intended road. Layer by layer, the water freezes until the road achieves sufficient thickness; this eliminates the need for water, snow or ice chips to be transported in from surrounding areas, and of course, if and when the ice melts, it's already right where it belongs.

Cruz Construction, as stated on their website, "has years of experience in all types of heavy construction projects in remote Alaskan locations" and an entire fleet of tundra-approved, low-ground-pressure vehicles, which aid them in both transportation and construction. One such type of vehicle, a Rolligon, is absolutely essential to building tundra-safe ice roads. Wet, marshy tundra...