Remember when we used to just eyeball the spoil line distance?
Honestly, I got lazy on a big channel job down in Mobile Bay about five years back. The old cutterhead dredge I was running had a worn out flow meter, and instead of getting it fixed right away, I just guessed based on the pump sound and how the spoil looked coming out. Ngl, I figured my experience would cover it. Ended up over-pumping by almost 300 feet past the marked area. The environmental fine was bad enough, but the real cost was the two extra days we had to spend repositioning the entire floating line and re-dredging the section we messed up. That mistake cost the company close to $15,000 in lost time and penalties. It was a dumb, expensive lesson that you can't skip the basics. Anyone else have a story about a small gear issue that turned into a big problem?