Massive boulder that rolled onto Colorado highway is too expensive to move, will now be a tourist attraction

[L0ki]

@fuzzyfungus

I’d be curious to know if the change is cultural(eg. risk sensitivity in the face of the casualties you mention); or whether it’s a matter of the overall growth of multiple layers of government(in this case it sounds like blowing up the rock is actually the cheaper option in absolute terms

@fuzzyfungus

I share your surprise at ‘blow it up real good’ being dismissed as infeasible(especially since Colorado and vicinity have a decent amount of mining and quarrying activity; and those are industries where blowing up a rock real good is just another day at the office);

They have apparently blown up the other rock that came down. It’s just this particular one which is considered too big/too expensive.

Transportation officials destroyed the smaller 2.3-million-pound rock with explosives.

Crews on CO 145 successfully blast boulders following rock slide

Warning: photos and video footage of traumatic damage to innocent boulder.

[Michael_R_Smith]

@fuzzyfungus

Or some other change I’ve not considered?

The cost of labour, especially for risky work, is a lot higher now.

edit: I bet mythbusters would have blown it up for free.

[Richard_Kirk]

@Michael_R_Smith

I bet mythbusters would have blown it up for free.

Free? That rock is going to take a lot of match-heads, and they come off someone’s budget.

[Mister44]

@RandomDude

Actually you could fund the ammunition with a lottery by setting up five or six preloaded bazookas pointed at the Rock and the winners get to pull the trigger.

Finally, someon with some god damn common sense. Put this guy in charge and get-er-done!

[mjlonsda]

Canada was actually founded by Kryptonians and we’re genetically Kryptonian. Unfortunately we made the poor decision to make the center of our loonies ($1 coins) out of kryptonite which weakens us to the level of regular humans.

#canadafacts.

[DukeTrout]

@Michael_R_Smith

edit: I bet mythbusters would have blown it up for free.

[BakerB]

They must have been watching The Producers!

[sosumi]

2015 - three million lbs.

House-sized boulder falls on and blocks Ohio highway -- Sott.net

[Mongrove]

Wow. Looking at that slide, I’d probably leave the rock there, too. It can be a natural barrier to further debris and smaller rockslides in that area.

[DukeTrout]

It’s on the wrong side of the road for that, unless they move the road further downhill.

[blackanvil]

So, the question that comes to mind is who gets to sculpt it? Damián Ortega or Antony Gormley? Lynda Benglis, Juliana Cerqueira Leite, or Sarah Peters? Richard Serra? Jeff Koons?

[Mongrove]

I mean… I guess I’m assuming from the image, that they’d shift the road away from the hill, on the opposite side of the rock. It never occurred to me that they’d shift the road toward the slide zone.

[DukeTrout]

I guess I would leave it to the DOT to calculate which is going to be less dangerous - having a great big rock 10’ from the road or having an unexpected sharp turn in the highway.

[knoxblox]

@blackanvil

So, the question that comes to mind is who gets to sculpt it? Damián Ortega or Antony Gormley? Lynda Benglis, Juliana Cerqueira Leite, or Sarah Peters? Richard Serra? Jeff Koons?

I don’t think Koons actually sculpts. He has other people do it for him. IIRC, he employs about 130 people, so technically maybe he could just employ 130 DOT workers, LOL.