Rodd Staples (the guy at the top of the Sydney Metro project) sure has a turn of phrase

[highlyeccentric]

archive posted: Sydney Metro: Rodd Staples on when he feared the worst for new harbour rail tunnels

“What came with that was as we tunnelled under the harbour, every metre we were worried about water ingress into the tunnel,” Staples says. “Most of the tunnelling that’s done in Sydney is like carving a hole out of Swiss cheese whereas going through the harbour is more like tunnelling through yoghurt.”

Comments

[muccamukk]

That sounds safe!

[highlyeccentric]

The same article discusses "big bubbles coming up in the harbour". Very reassuring.

My favourite YIMBY/public servant friend did point out to me this evening that Rodd Staples might be some guy, but MANY levels of people below him probably had strong experience in "tunnelling through yoghurt" because there are only so many jobs in "driving massive tunnel machines" or "engineering supervisor for massive tunnel machines" in the world and in the last 15 years several of those jobs have been "under the Thames", famously squelchy territory.