the p.u.c. fails to extend the actual auxiliary water supply system to all city neighbourhoods using the inexhaustible amount of seawater that exists on three sides of the city. firestorms will destroy the entire residential neighbourhoods in the west seven parts of the city. thousands of residents trapped in partially collapsed buildings will burn to death before they can be rescued. no amount will change this. is a firefighter, i urge you to not approve the westside one. you will not provide sufficient water. thousands if not tens of thousands of lives will be saved or lost depending on your decision on this matter. considered this as the survival of our city depended on it because i assure you it will.

>> commissioners commissioners? >> i have a question. the projects that have been addressed are already in the cic what this action does is it baselines the specific scope schedule on the budget that are in the cic. >> it does not add or remove the project? >> does not add or remove any projects. >> and they have gone through environmental review? >> know ,, it has not. >> okay. so this is not do or die on the issue. there will be a lot of discussion. >> this would certainly come -- it would have to go through the environmental process.

>> and i'll be back in front of us in february? >> my understanding of the item is it is basically providing edit -- initial detail on a cip, which is fairly high-level document. >> provides the opportunity for us to measure against baseline for quarterly reporting purposes on the program. those are projects that are $5 million or more. and it provides better transparency regarding the scope schedule and not just for this project. >> thank you. >> the fire department has the opportunity to weigh in as we move this along. we will be consulting with our department. >> we are working with the fire department on the project, and we are working with the supervisor as well. >> okay.

>> vice president cane? i will call for a vote on item number 18. it has been moved and seconded. i'm calling for a vote now. >> aye. >> the motion carries. that is on item number 19. it has been moved and seconded. is there any further public comment on item 19? public comment is closed. i will call for a vote? and he opposed caught the motion carries. next item. >> item 20 is the clerk's -- authorized general manager to execute four easement claims. >> colleagues? >> his or any public comment on the a-10?

public comment is closed. all those in favour? the motion carries. madam secretary? >> we have one close session item. item 23 is anticipated litigation with the plaintiff. >> i will move to assert. >> we need public comment. >> is there any public comment on the item that we are going into close session on? public comment is closed. i will entertain a motion. >> second. is there any public comment on the motion? public comment is

>> december 13th, 2016, you will the very same question in connection with these relationships with nonprofits, and knowing that we can do more and do it better. we will work together on workforce development policy that is far more effective than the perception is that we have in the public sector. we will hear more about best practices. i'm committed to working with the general manager but i still feel like we are not getting the information that we really need to be effective as an agency. that is out of convenience and familiarity, because what you heard from marguerite at h.r. was it has a lot of work, but it is totally worth it. i don't think we should let people speak for the community about what they want. we should hear from the community directly. we have to facilitate that and i will certainly assist. i am an aggressive advocate, but i don't want you to get the impression i cannot be persuaded i would like to thank staff at s.f. gov t.v. for doing an

outstanding job with media services throughout the year. our meeting broadcasts, and making a sound smart and look good and the lighting is always outstanding. i am sure you meet on the side about that. the angles and everything. you guys do a great job and i don't know that you get appreciated as much as you showed. thank you very much. finally, i have to announce that the meetings of december 25th and january 8th i cancelled. good luck to us all. are there any further businesses >> merry christmas. happy holidays. how about that? >> happy new year. [laughter] >> see you next year. >> any public comment on item 27 [laughter] >> is there any public comment? happy new year.

>> look at that beautiful jellyfish. the way to speak to students and motivate them to take action, to save the planet, they do, they care and my job is to speak to them in a way that they can understand that touches their heart and makes them feel powerful with simple actions to take every day. ♪

♪ >> i was born and raised in the desert of palm springs, california. my dad was the rabbi in the community there. what i got from watching my father on stage talking to the community was learning how to be in the public. and learning how to do public speaking and i remember the first time i got up to give my first school assembly, i felt my dad over my shoulder saying pause for drama, deliver your words. when i was a kid, i wanted to be a teacher. and then when i got into high school, i decided i wanted to get into advertising and do graphic art and taglines and stuff like that. by the time i was in college, i

decided i wanted to be a decorator. but as i did more work, i realized working my way up meant a lot of physical labor. i only had so much energy to work with for the rest of my life and i could use that energy towards making a lot of money, helping someone else make a lot of money or doing something meaningful. i found the nonprofit working to save the rainforest was looking for volunteers. i went, volunteered and my life changed. suddenly everything i was doing had meaning. stuffing envelopes had meaning, faxing out requests had meaning. i eventually moved up to san francisco to work out of the office here, given a lot of assembly through los angeles county and then came up here and doing assemblies to kids about rainforest. one of my jobs was to teach about recycle, teaching students

to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost, i'm teaching them they have the power, and that motivates them. it was satisfying for me to work with for the department of environment to create a message that gets to the heart of the issue. the san francisco department of environment is the only agency that has a full time educational team, we go into the schools to help teach children how to protect nature and the environment. we realized we needed animal mascot to spark excitement with the students. the city during the gold rush days, the phoenix became part of the city feel and i love the symbolism of the phoenix, about transformation and the message that the theme of the phoenix provides, we all have the power to transform our world for the

better. we have to provide teachers with curriculum online, our curriculum is in two different languages and whether it's lesson plans or student fact sheets, teachers can use them and we've had great feedback. we have helped public and private schools in san francisco increase their waste use and students are working hard to sort waste at the end of the lunch and understand the power of reusing, reducing, recycling and composting. >> great job. >> i've been with the department for 15 years and an environmental educator for more than 23 years and i'm grateful for the work that i get to do, especially on behalf of the city and county of san francisco. i try to use my voice as intentionally as possible to

suppo support, i think of my grandmother who had a positive attitude and looked at things positively. try to do that as well in my work and with my words to be an uplifting force for myself and others. think of entering the job force as a treasure hunt. you can only go to your next clue and more will be revealed. follow your instincts, listen to your gut, follow your heart, do what makes you happy and pragmatic and see where it takes you and get to the next place. trust if you want to do good in this world, that

. >> good morning. i will call to order the transbay joint powers authority for december 13, 2018. call the roll. >> clerk: i will go ahead and note that tilly chang is attending another meeting. with that -- [roll call] >> clerk: mr. chairman, you do have a quorum. i'll note that director tavares is absent today. with that, shall i call your next item? >> yes. >> clerk: with that, communications, i'm not aware of any. with that, item three, directors new and oral business. also not aware of any.

>> none. >> clerk: with none, item five, executive director's report. >> good morning, director. i have several pertinent updating you this morning. to date, we have completed the temporary multilevel shoring system, and we have extracted and tested samples from the first street and the fremont street girters and as we continue to monitor them. as you know, the past identifying the salesforce transit center -- as we move forward from these elements, we are fully cooperating with the independent testing requested by the metropolitan transportation division requested by mayor breed and

schaaf. gi -- for their continued work and support in our efforts to reopen the transit center as soon as safely possible to the bay area. while we do not yet have a date to reopen the facility. today marks a significant milestone as we work to identify the cause of this incident. moving to phase two and the downtown extension, the supplementary and environmental document for the transbay project has been fined by the federal transit administration. later on today's agenda you have an item before you to

certify the e.i.r.-e.i.s. >> we did receive two letters on the environmental document, one yesterday and one this morning. one from a property lawyer representing the property owner on second street, another from ucsf. both issues that were raised in the letters are already addressed in the environmental document. having said that, we will continue to work with all priority owners along the alignment as we move forward

with the development and phase two. in relation to the development and design development for phase two, as i reported last month, the san francisco transportation authority suspended proposition k and a review of the alternative oversight and governance models for the management and delivery of phase two by sfcta. to that end, the transportation surely has issued an r.f.p. due later this month that would review domestic center and international projects, identify best practices in the decisions of oversight and issue a report. it's the selection of the firm or firms to perform this work will be done by january 4, and that work will be completed in may of this year -- or next year. similarly, the controller's

review of the management in phase one is slated to be completed in may, as well. we stand ready to work on the efforts in this so that funding can be reinstated and work on phase two can resume. as a follow up to the discussion at the board meeting last month and the suggestion by director gee that the board reach out to afta, i have reached out to afta's technical services and innovative department, and they're ready to help and they have the capacity to do so. it's envisioned that a peer review by afta would include policies and procedures implemented in phase one and include recommendations for phase two. that work would include practices that include budget establishment and management,

risk management, quality control procedures, change management and communication plan that was done in phase one with stakeholders, funding partners, policy makers, and the public at large. the scope would also include recommendation on organizational capabilitities and lead agency governance and project delivery practices. this peer review's intended to complement the sfcta peer review as these decisions would be coming from public sector leaders with experience in complex government sector projects. with the board's aful pro, i would like to proceed with afta having come onto do this work. in regards to the -- [inaudible] >> -- as the city's limb preferred alignment. the pennsylvania avenue

alignment separates 16th street and creates a much needed opportunity for transit development downtown. we're happy to receive mayor breed's input. at next month's board meeting, i plan to present the pennsylvania avenue alignment for consideration by the board and review. i will provide you more details on the delivery of both phases at the next board meeting. moving onto operations, on today's agenda, you have two leases for your consideration. if approved by the board and executed by the tenants, that would bring the number of leases executed to date to nine leases and 12 of the spaces. we have 36 spaces available, so that makes the percentage

leased per space of 34%. at this time, i'd like to ask martha velez to give you an update on the -- the facilities property manager to give you an update on the impact of the closure on our operations budget. she will give you a slide showing the budgets -- average budget per month, and with our current expenditure per month with the temporary closure. martha. >> good morning, directors. happy holidays, martha veles, tgpa property manager. over the next few minutes i'm going to review the cost and revenue impacts to the transit center as a result of the closure. this slide provides a general overview of the current ongoing activity, the daily operations support for the temporary terminal is now being managed

through lincoln and allied as november 1. noted on this slide are the primary areas of focus: park maintenance, minimal clean, general building systems upkeep while working with webcor and also security service. also working with the transit operators to final lies incident active screen content and then continued collaboration with the transit screen operators on finalizing the emergency response. this slide provides a general ideas of the areas where operating costs are avoided which are mostly labor and services. it was decided to look at the information as a monthly average to make it easy to correlate the passage of time to costa voidance, so the monthly average is nearly

$520,000, or 26%. monthly operating budget average. this is net of the monthly average cost to run the temporary terminal. finally, there is a direct impact to revenue primarily in two areas. park programming, digital advertising and some miscellaneous income, so details on the next slide. i will move through this slide on a line-by-line basis and focus on the temporary closure column. the temporary terminal, as i stated, this is a monthly average of the preclosure cost budget prior to when operations moved to the transit center. buried in this dollar amount is the a.b.m. facilities management cost, which is about $10,000 per month.

transit center maintenance, this category is a rollup of various expenses to include engineering and maintenance and general repairs. the primary expense is the engineering and maintenance labor, which kpriezs most of the cost. specific reductions were -- comprises most of the cost. transit center janitorial, this is also a respectup category that contains the janitorial labor and miscellaneous other cleaning-related activities, such as trash removal and supply purchases. as with engineering and

maintenance, the cost is mostly cleaning labor. in this instance, the current contracted staff is about six from a start of about 19. transit center yutilities, thi is shown as zero because webcor continues to pay the bills. park maintenance and programming, this is also being shown as zero because we are not continuing to incur bills. digital content and way finding, this category is left intact because pearl's work remains uninhabited. marketing and leasing commissions, no change is shown here because the -- the leasing

continues, and it -- it's not impacted by the closure. asset management fee and administration, this is a cost category that contains lincoln's management fee, staff compensation, other miscellaneous office expense does. and note that lincoln took over the temporary management of the terminal without an increase in their fee. also included in this is net experts and legal. security, this category is entirely made up of labor with construction related to the decrease activitied. then finally on revenue, we're showing it as an annual amount. on the revenue side, these are the budget amounts that we are conservatively assuming will not be realized. for b.r.v. just prior to the center opening, ramp-up actions will be need today rebook activities with -- needed to rebook activities with revenue

generation not expected until later in the year. with pearl, not much can occur prior to the center opening in that advertisers will wait until it actually reopens. and that's my report. i'm happy to take questions. >> mr. director? >> yes. >> i have a question. i'm surprised to see we're paying half a million dollars rent for a building that's closed. i'm curious as to why. >> director reiskin, we are providing security not just to the transit center but the ancillary property. we transferred guards over to the temporary terminal and then, the area surrounding

that -- >> so the line on the chart that said temporary terminal was exclusive of security, but what's in that line? [inaudible] >> oh . sorry. yeah. excuse me. the line item in the temporary terminal was the average preclosure so there is security costs buried in there, so we can go back and take another look at that number. >> so then, if the cost for security are shown in that line item, then, the cost in the security line, i would think, would be a lot lower. >> prior to the closure, the security costs in the temporary terminal were separate contract, and they were not included in the cost list, so after the closure, we replaced our security guards at the

temporary terminal and so it came out of our budget. so it was tjpa money, but it was different fund. with the temporary terminal removed, the cost has gone down about 40%. >> director reiskin, we'll continue to look at it, but we have no security on the roof, we have no security -- well, i shouldn't say no security. we have security on the roof, but not as much as before. our main security is on the ground floor, and the security plaiti operating center. it continues to be fully staff because we have cameras that we need to. and the ground facility continues to be fully staffed, as well. that's why you see continued costs, but it's an item we will it be to refine. at the next board meeting in january , we will bring to you how the budget is being developed for next fiscal year

as well as the annual budget for this year. at this time, you have before you the quarterly financial report. do you have any questions on the report at all? if not, this concludes my report. thank you. >> i did have a question from earlier report. >> yeah. >> when you were talking about the phase one presumption, the reopening of the transit center, two times you mentioned the steps as being identifying the solution, presenting the solution and starting up the facility. we had spoken last time about the balance of starting the entire facility, not just the facilities above fremont and first. can you confirm that's what needs to happen before we start-up the facility? >> yeah. it includes the direct repair of the girders and

investigation of the facility. >> okay. thank you. >> go ahead and call your next item. >> next item is committee review up i didn't tell. we have bruce aggett with us. >> good morning chair nuru, director reiskin, and director zabaneh. [inaudible] >> -- part one, we understand the controller's office evaluation and the sfcta's review of the alternative oversight and governance models for the management and delivery of the d.t.x. in addition to its previous scope task to advise on the project delivery methods for d.t.x. as approved through resolution 1902 is targeted for completion as

executive director zabaneh indicates, may of 2019. although we were hoping this could be completed in 120 days, we understand and agree -- agree fully with the need to perform a thorough review and it is good to see that a date has been established for its completion within a reasonable time frame. we were also pleased to see the letter from mayor london breed supporting the sfcta commissioners' unanimous approval regarding pennsylvania alignment as the city and county's preliminary preferred alignment for caltrain and high-speed rail. although there's much work to be completed on the pennsylvania avenue extension, we look forward to the discussions moving forward after this board takes action on the final certification of the seis-eir for the transbay program phase two. we were pleased to hear the two new leases were coming to the board for approval, and this

continues to be a high level of interest in the retail spaces. in addition we were pleased to hear that tenant improvements continue while the transit center is closed to the public. we also have confidence that letters of interest, negotiations and contracts will move forward with a heightened sense of urgency once there is nor findings on the testing, peer review concurrence, strategy and timing of the opening of the center. next item in the c.a.c. meeting was a presentation on the supplementation on the environmental impact study and environmental impact report. we had a robust discussion regarding the impacts on the buildings near 2nd and howard -- near the 2nd and howard intersection based on the changes to the train throat design as well as the specific mitigation measures regarding caltrain's use of the term backtrack crossing at 16th street. we also heard during public

comment comments from a small business owner who was very pleased with the communications and appropriate accommodations made by the tjpa project team to minimize impacts on their business during phase one construction. i am pleased to report that the c.a.c. fully supports today's item number 10 approving the resolution to certify the final seis-eir, for refinements to the downtown extension redevelopment project, the transbay program. and last on our agenda was an item including a high-level update on the status of the transit center which will be covered later on today's agenda. it's our understanding additional information was being assembled at the time of our c.a.c. meeting and will be presented in the item today. with that, the c.a.c. looks

forward to hearing more on the latest update, next steps, and timelines. thank you for the opportunity to provide this update and happy to answer any questions. >> questions from board members? thank you for your report. >> clerk: all right. go ahead and call your next item? >> yes, please. [agenda item read] >> clerk: directors, we've not received that a member of the public wishes to address you on this item. we can go ahead and move on your consent calendar. >> yes, you may. [agenda item read] >> clerk: and directors, i've not received any indication that a member of the public or any member of the board wishes to have a matter severed. >> motion. >> second. >> clerk: with that, go ahead and call the roll call vote?

>> yes. >> clerk: okay. with that -- [roll call] >> clerk: this's seven ayes, and the consent calendar is approved. go ahead and call your first item on the regular calendar? >> yes, please. [agenda item read] >> this item will be introduced by ron alameda. >> good morning, directors. in lieu of our regular construction update, speaking to budget schedule and progress on closeout, we have the pleasure of having a presentation that includes l.p.i., our testing lab, thornton thomasetti, the structural engineer of record, and the m.t.c. peer review. we've reached a significant stage in a measured and meticulous study of design, fabrication and installation of steel. albeit today's a lot of data on

material, but we are focusing on our elements to inform us on how to advance through this problem. the presenters in this order will include l.p.i.'s president, robert vecchio, followed by thornton thomasetti's bruce gibbons, the structural engineer of record, m.t.c. peer review will be introduced by andy fremier, and mike engelhart speaking to the peer review's view on what's this interim step of data collection. we view it as a critical step in validation of the structural steel, which in itself will be a strong component in developing the criteria to examine and evaluate the entire facility. i do understand that webcor,

skanska herrick representatives are here to answer questions if needed towards the end. but with that, i'll introduce mr. robert vecchio to speak to the material findings out in the field. >> good morning, directors. i'm robert vecchio. i'm the chief executive at l.p.i., inc, in new york, and we have tested the samples that have been removed from the transit center. in this slide presentation that i have here today, there's some information -- some of the slides are here for informational purposes only, and i'll probably go through some of those quickly. there's a timeline on the first slide, which i'm sure most of you are aware of, what occurred and how it occurred, the

sequence of those events. to inform you of what the girder in question looks like. this is a shot of the typical appearance of the fremont and first street girders. the area of interest is going to be right here where the cursor is right here. that's the bottom flange where the passenger passes through that drops down to the bus deck level. these are a couple of photographs showing one of the fracks in the fremont street girder. a frackture, as you can see is this area here, and it started back at this access hole. [please stand by].

>> four samples were removed from both the north and south girders at fremont street. and this is a schematic illustration of what the -- whoops -- of what the sample looks like. and then here's the appearance of the sample after it was removed from the structure. in addition to evaluate the mechanical properties specifically something called fracture toughness from the first street girders, we drilled several three-inch diameter cores from each of those two girders, and as you can see in the bottom right hand corner, and those samples were used to evaluate what's called sharpie b-november sharpness. the next photo shows the

fracture on the fremont street girder. it initiated at this cut out at the flange section next to the hangar. here's a shot of the entire fracture surface. this is referred to as a low brittle fracture. it means that it happened very rapidly, and a lot of energy was displaced. the origin energy is back at this dark zone right here, and that dark zone was investigated further. during the course of this investigation, representatives from all the interested parties that are involved in this project were present at our facilities in new york, and everyone participated in all aspects of what was gone, and everyone had an opportunity to look at everything equally. this is another one of the fractures. this is from another access

hole area. again, this one has a similar large -- relatively large defect on the fracture surface. this defect is heavily oxidized, and from that information, we were able to tell when and how that defect formed. this is the third location that fractured. this -- there's a thin band here, actually, that exists in all three fractures. it was harder to see on the other two, but this band is also a preexisting defect that occurred during the fabrication process. we -- we were able to examine the weld access areas in greater detail. one of the procedures that we use is something called magnetic particle testing, and we were able to identify a number of additional fine cracks that were present in the radius of the -- of this access hole. in order to determine the modes of failure, we looked in more

detail with an instrument using a scanning elect ron microscope to allow us to identify the mode of fracture and confirm the origin and also to identify that these preexisting defects formed at high temperatures, so the defects that we observed formed during the thermal cutting process of the access hole as well as subsequent to that was when the butt wells were made between the plates, they induced some residual stresses that were able to cause these larger defected to form, again, as elevated temperature, and that's basically what the next couple of slides show. this is a shot that shows that the fracture surface itself is covered with a large amount of oxide, and we know from the tenacity of this oxide and its appearance that it formed at elevated temperatures, which can only occur during the

thermal cutting of the access hole or the butt welding of the plates together. this is what the cross section looks like through the access radius, and this is the actual fracture right over here on the top left. and then, along this radius there, through this side, it's martinsite. it's a normal development, and when you cut thick plates like this, because it's so brittle, you get these small little microcracks that build in. it exists in other industrial structures. other circumstances around them can cause into larger cracks, and then subsequent brittle cracks that we have in this instance. and here is a higher magnification shots, showing what they see cracks look like. and we found these cracks in all of the sections that we looked at that were removed from the girders.

one of the other tests that we performed is something called surface hardness, where we look at how hard that thunderstormally cthermally cu surface is. it did have reduced hardness, which means they're very brittle and they're prone to form these very brittle microcracks. we also conducted something called a microhardness survey which is conducted as you go from the surface back into the material thickness, and this data, again, shows that at that surface, we have very high hardness, very brittle zone present, which enabled these fine cracks to form. we also conducted regular hardness surveys tlouded welded component itself. this is a view showing a cut. this is the stiffener that's present at this location. this is the flange plates here, and this is the weld that joins

them. the survey showed the plate and the welds to be suspected, so there was nothing deficient in the welding itself and nothing deficient in the steel plates that were used for this -- for the buildup of these plate girders. we also performed an extensive amount of mechanical testing. the two primary were sharpie toughness impact tests and that's a test that resists the strength of the steel plates. and this diagram shows where the toughness specimens were removed from as well as the tensile specimens were removed

from. we performed the same kind of tests on the first street girders, and this is just a layout of what those looks like. this looks like complicated data, but basically what it shows -- this is the temperature along the x axis, and this is the toughness level along the vertical axis, and what we found and what we typically find for these levels at the toughness surfaces of the plate are very good, and as you go to the t., it drops down. this is characteristic and typical of heavier plates like this, but it's a contributing factor to the fracture because it's in the same location where the defects were. so the defects were sitting in material that had very low toughness. i did want to point out again that the plate itself did meet the requirements for what is specified for this type of

construction. we ran tensile tests and it met the requirements for what the project were, and that's shown in this table here. one of the things that we're doing as part of the analysis and we haven't completed this as yet, we're doing some stress analysis that's going to allow us to identify what the stresses were due to the loading process as well as the loading that was applied as the structure went into service. the next slide just shows some of the modelling that we're working on right now, the method that's used to determine stresses that we're applying here is called finite stress analysis where we break it up into small pieces and you do the mathematics on those small pieces. we've developed some very preliminary results at this point, and we're looking

primarily at what the stress right side in the area where the fractures initialled, and this is a look into the access hole, and this is a path of the stresses. here's a typical distribution of what the stresses are. at the hole itself which is right here, the higher the stress corresponds to the red color, the lower stresses are in, you know, green and blue. so in this area where the radius is, the stresses are very high. when you go out from there, the stresses are where they should be that you'd expect from a normal girder. not that you'd expect high stresses in an access girder. these with what you'd expect when you invest geometry into a structure. this slide is kind of -- is a summary of the findings that we have to date.

essentially, they state that we identifies very shallow cracks because of the cutting process. we know that those formed as -- at elevates temperature, and then once it went into service, the stressed due to normal service were enough to pop those oxidized defects into the main structure that went across the entire girder. and at this stage, we are just about complete with all the metallurgical analysis. we're just about to develop a root cause. and with that, i thank you for your time, and if you have any

questions, i'll do the best i can to answer them. >> questions from board members? yes, director reiskin? >> so to put it simply -- and i appreciate you taking what is very flex information and putting it in -- complex information and put transgender in fairly lay terms. my understanding is it was the fabrication of the access holes that was the root cause and other issues such as the welding maybe exacerbated the situation? >> well, we haven't arrived at a root cause yet. a significant contributing factor is the presence of these flaws that developed during the fabrication process. we haven't concluded what the driving force -- if it was sufficient to push everything through at this stage, but it's certainly a contributing factor. but i wouldn't assign a root cause. we can't do that until we've conducted an analysis. >> and how would the access holes have been fabricated?

>> the way they're put into plates like this is that they're thermally cut. they're oxy acetylene cut. when it does that, it's brittle, and it's a very thin player. then after the plates were joined and they were butt welded, the residual stress caused the cracks to pop into those larger, about 1.5 inches long, three-eights of an inch deep cut that you saw there that was very prominent.

and then, the question becomes whether those -- where does all those stresses come from, are the stresses high in the hole due to a number of different reasons, which we haven't finished evaluating yet. >> and the shape of the access hole looks like it was not round, it was rectangular with round corners? >> yes. essentially it was round with radii as you make the transition from one edge to another edge. >> would it typically be that shape as opposed to a circle that maybe more -- >> there's a number of different shapes that you can have when you cut into plates like this. there's a number of different geometries that are permitted. and then, you have size restrictions and there are requirements for different sizes, which we have not finance issued evaluating at this point. >> and then just as -- last question -- part -- as part of that thermal cutting process, is there any kind of