On June 12, 2006 at 2:56 pm, the last load of base contract cut came out of the Bowl at the WE Energy Project in  Oak Creek, WI.  As Jene Pientok puts it, "THANK GOD!"   After nearly a year of hard work and meetings, HCC sees the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Todd Groeschel, in a backhoe, loaded the last load into the offroad operated by Arvide Irish.  The Bowl is a 40 acre area right on Lake Michigan that was taken down 100 feet to accommodate a new power plant. The table summarizes the load count of the excavated material hauled out of the Bowl.                    

 The total tonnage of breaker, surge stone, base, sand, and rip rap that was delivered totaled nearly 560,000 tons. The equipment fleet at WE burned through an astonishing $3,365,000 worth of fuel.

Many Dirthogs passed through Gate 32.  There were 332 HCC employees that participated in this great adventure, with about 200,000 man hours. Many men and women sacrificed their winters and weekends to move some dirt at this monumental project. A special thanks goes out to those tremendous people that worked through some cold winter nights on the PM shift.

“We knew it was going to be a challenge, but WOW, what a challenge!  While certain aspects of the project didn’t turn out as expected, we learned a lot and were able to upgrade equipment.  I’d like to thank all the dedicated employees that made the project come out. It looks great!  Standing on the edge of the bowl, looking at the grass growing, it’s hard to remember what it looked like a year ago!” Jim Hoffman