Engineer Builds 'Big Dig House'

Not all Big Dig-related stories these days are bad news. USA Today recently profiled a civil engineer who worked on the project for 11 years and managed to recycle and reuse scrap materials from the project to build a new home.

Paul Pedini, who at the time was a vice president for Modern Continental Co., one of the Big Dig’s main contractors, salvaged about 600,000 pounds of concrete and steel to build his 4,300-square-foot "Big Dig House" in Lexington, Mass. Saving the materials for himself-and paying to have them transported to his property-Pedini estimates that he saved the company $20,000 in demolition and dumping fees.

"These materials are as good as you can get," Pedini told USA Today. "We were being paid money to junk this stuff. There’s something inherently illogical about it."