PROJECTS
WHITEY'S CARPARK. MT HOTHAM
Contractor: Mt Hotham Resort Management Board
Winning tenderer: DropShot Drill and Blasting Services.
Project Objectives: Mount Hotham is a popular Winter skiing resort straddling the divide between North East Victoria and the Gippsland Region of Southern Victoria, and is accessed from both regions by the Great Alpine Highway, an important link through the mountains connecting Northern and Southern Victoria. A car park for visitors needed extending to increase its capacity, and this required blasting up to 4 metres of rock from the existing car park surface. Short-hole blasting is notorious for producing flyrock, and the Client had specified that no rock could be allowed to land on the Highway, and there was to be zero damage to the workshop, the street lights, any other assets, and the surrounding vegetation. The local Authority wanted the assurance provided by blast mats, and the Contractor chose rubber tyre blast mats supplied by Flintstone Group.
Result: mission accomplished in full, with zero damage and no flyrock occurrences.
48 x 2.9*2.4 Flintstone blast mats delivered on a flat bed semi. Unloaded by an excavator in bundles of 8, bound with slings that were also used to hang face mats for the last blast that was within 2 metres of workshop and machinery.
Blasting mats laid over shot near street lights, trenched utilities, Plant and Equipment workshop, roadside trees, and, only 20 metres away, the Great Alpine Highway.
Mats collected after a blast and laid on a section advancing towards the workshop. Mats were used on blast areas within 50 metres of the highway or the workshop, and on sections adjacent to street lights.
The outcome: No rock landed on the highway, no rocks impacted on the workshop, and there was no damage to ant street lights, other assets, or surrounding vegetation.