Thousands of dollars were spent on overseas consultants to protect dolphins from the construction noise of the new cruise ship pier, but it was two Bermudians who came up with a solution.

In order to protect the animals at Dolphin Quest from the effects of pile driving, $108,000 was spent on consultants and reports, according to Correia Construction Company.

Expert feedback was sought from around the world. The contractors then spent three months at Morgan's Point, testing devices such as an air bubble curtain and a neoprene barrier, to mitigate noise and vibration.

However "nothing worked", according to company boss Dennis Correia. In the end it was himself and a foreman, Charlie Chambers, who came up with the simple idea of a styrofoam box encased in wood.

The device is thought to be the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

"It was like an ice-cream sandwich," Mr. Correia told The Royal Gazette. "We used to laugh about it, because we had all these consultants from all over the world but it took two dumb Bermudians to work out the styrofoam.

"We went through people in England, Atlanta, San Francisco, the Pile Driving Association of America.

"We even had the US Navy sonar people involved to find out how to mitigate sound travelling through the water. But no one could help us.

"We went all over the world to find out if anyone had ever driven piles in such close proximity to dolphins in captivity, but no one had ever done pile driving so close."

Construction of the new pier involved driving 296 steel piles, each measuring up to 150 feet long, into the seabed.

Due to the proximity of Dolphin Quest, Correia Construction and Bermuda Water Consultants initially carried out tests at Morgan's Point in June 2007, using underwater sonar equipment to test for sounds from pile driving up to 500ft the equivalent closest distance from the pier to Dolphin Quest.

When Mr. Correia and Mr. Chambers' "big jacket square of styrofoam" around the testing pile led to no sound waves, they went to US consultant Patrick Moore with their idea.

Mr. Moore, Senior Life Scientist with the US Navy Marine Mammal Program, approved the 'baffle' device and customised it for the Dolphin Quest Keep tunnel.

Fitted at an angle, the three wooden and styrofoam baffles also had a series of smaller baffles to deflect two separate sound waves measuring 6ft and 18 inches from the pile driving.

"The idea was that by putting it at an angle, any sound wave which hit the wall would hit it at 90 degrees," said Mr. Correia.

"If the sound wave did bounce against the wall of the tunnel and bounce back, then we had a second baffle wall, and then a third, just in case."

Mr. Correia said up to $108,000 was spent on overseas consultants and a water monitoring programme by Bermuda Water Consultants, "to help safeguard the health and well-being of the dolphins".

Government requested construction of the new cruise ship pier be postponed for six months as three pregnant animals at Dolphin Quest were due to give birth in May/June.

Dolphin Quest had recommended the calves reach the age of three months before any construction work start.

"April 2007 was the original start date but Government told us we could not start until we satisfied the dolphin issue. We eventually started in October 2007," said Mr. Correia.

"We then had 18 months to do a 24-month project, but we still finished early."

The project also had to employ two vibratory hammers, at a rental cost from a US company of $613,000.

Mr. Moore advised Correia Construction to use these pile driving hammers to vibrate the piles in place until they reached the rock under the seabed.

"The idea was they would not produce as much noise and sound waves compared to a diesel hammer," said Mr. Correia.

"We cut down 90 percent of our pile driving time using the vibro at the beginning, so we didn't make as much noise for the dolphins, and at the very end we put the big diesel hammers on them to do the load testing."

He said the piles had to be capable of bearing 200 tons but as vibro hammers could not give this load bearing calculation, diesel hammers then concluded the job.

Mr. Moore, a renowned expert in animal sonar and echolocation, was also sub-contracted by Bermuda Water Consultants (BWC) for the noise monitoring programme during construction.

He said it was his job to ensure BWC's system picked up the full range of frequencies of the pile driving, to safeguard the health of the dolphins.

He used a special calibrated hydrophone, wideband amplifier, high-speed digitiser and laptop to measure high frequency noises, complementing a similar system by BWC. Mr. Moore said between them, the two systems covered "the whole wide band system, from low to high frequencies".

"I had to make sure it covered the whole spectrum of sound the pile driving was going to make and that there wasn't some high frequency sounds the system couldn't measure," he said.

"But all of the pile driving noises were contained within the limits of Bermuda Water Consultants' system."

Mr. Moore spent three days in Bermuda working on the project and communicated with Correia Construction, BWC and other parties from abroad via e-mails and telephone. He charged almost $7,000 for his consultancy work.

"My charge is $90 an hour. I'm not outrageous," he said. "I think all told it was maybe $6-7,000."

According to an Environmental Impact Study by BWC for phase two of the cruise ship pier: "It was concluded that the mammals at the Dolphin Quest facility did not suffer any ill harm during the installation of 300 support piles."

And the Environmental Monitoring Programme, from August 2007-October 2008, presented "no obvious areas of concern", with the pile installation leading to "no noticeable change in dolphin behaviour".

THE COST

The list of 'dolphin mitigation' costs since September 2007, as supplied to The Royal Gazette from Correia Construction:

THRUSTER WALL 55 percent allocated to Dolphins: $2,254,166.00.

The price for Thruster Wall was $4,098,484.00 and 55 percent ($2,254,166.00) was allocated to the dolphin mitigation and 45 percent ($1,844,317.00) was allocated to prevention of coastal erosion.

Installed to stop sedimentation from infiltrating the Dolphin Quest facility caused by ships arriving and departing the new dock.

CONSULTANTS: $108,000.00.

Overseas consultants to help safeguard the health and well-being of the dolphins, and Bermuda Water Consultants (testing and monitoring of the surrounding water for two years).

PILE DRIVING TESTING: $62,000.00.

Testing associated with the effects of pile driving and sounds produced underwater, designing and building of sound boxes, and placing boulders and sound boxes (the baffles) in the tunnel to the dolphin lagoon.

VIBRATORY RENTALS: $613,000.00.

Vibratory hammer equipment used to help reduce the noise associated with the pile driving.

POSTPONEMENT OF START DATE: $370,000.00.

Costs associated with putting on hold the leased equipment, as well as local and overseas labour already on rent.

= DOLPHIN MITIGATION COSTS: $3,407,166.00.

THE COST