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Marine worms damage new bridge on Surf Line
Crazy worms! Too bad they have to replace a part of the bridge.
I wonder how the worms are doing under the Tappan Zee? The have had sixty ears to eat away at those piles…
I hope the good folks at Coaster and SANDAG do not have to pay for what amounts to a failure by the contractors to do the work the right way and use treated wood for forms, it not like the worms just came from no where who was watching the store
Crazier engineers and contractors, perhaps; I don’t believe this is a unique situation. It should have been avoided.
Went by there via train on Saturday. You can definitely can see that it’s been demolished since last time I was by there several months ago…
My recollection is that this rather small bridge project has been in progress for over five years! I wonder if the tax payers of San Diego County will be compensated for loss of use by the general contractor. Maybe an oversight managing director is needed to get this job completed CORRECTLY? Maybe someone like Bechtel Corporation?
Uh oh! The Marine Worm must be protected. Stop everything. Stop the trains, stop the rebuilding and start protecting this worm! (i.e. stiffle capitalism.)
SHUDDA USED “YALLA WOOD.” BUG-PROOF, WATER-PROOF, WORM-PROOF, AND DARNED NEALY NAIL-PROOF.
Meanwhile, the old Florida East Coast bridges out to the Florida Keys are still standing, and there’s no shortage of marine worms down there.
Either there’s some kind of racket going on out in California or those men who worked for Henry Flagler 100 years ago knew how to build, and the present generation of contractors and engineers don’t.
Damn Marines anyway…they worm their way into everything! 
Living in the area, I am disturbed that this is the first I’ve read about this mini-fiasco. Our local “news” media have made no mention of it so far. That line is a political football with the NIMBY’s and that has resulted in every little improvement to the line being fought and delayed. Simply put, the line all the way from LA to San Diego needs to be double tracked, yet large stretches are not. That limits the use of the second most heavily used passenger corridor in the country, and puts a capacity on the line. I offer a small correction. This spot is north of Oceanside and does not serve the Coaster. It does, however, serve Metrolink and its lines to both LA and San Bernardino. Oh, the Santa Margarita river flows through Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, so all this is happening on federal property.
I grew up on the San Diego waterfront, and I’ve seen damage by marine worms. But, I’ve never seen worms damage anything in the time that those concrete forms have been in place. Usually a multiple year process for worms to do their thing.
I might be all wrong here, but if we have railroader’s rather than lawyers running R.R.'s we might be better off, ya think?
This is the silliest thing I’ve heard about nature damaging a bridge since beavers forced the closing and reroute of the Vermont service between Springfield and Bellows Falls.
If the concrete forms were holding the bridge up they have bigger problems with it than worms.