Petition to name tunnel after worker

THE son of a former Clyde Dam tunneller is campaigning to have a Sydney motorway tunnel named after his father three years after he died in a workplace accident during the tunnel’s construction.

Jim Adams (65) a grandfather of six, died on May 23, 2017 after being struck by part of a pressurised pipe during tunnel work at the NorthConnex project in northwest Sydney.

Now his son, Dallas Adams, wants to keep his father’s memory alive.

Jim Adams was born in Mangakino and came from a family of underground workers, including his father, and had worked as a tunneller, gold, and coal miner on both sides of the

Tasman since he was 18.

That included a decadelong stint on the Clyde Dam project — one of New Zealand’s largest engineering projects — from 1981 to 1991, during which time he lived with his family in Cromwell.

Other projects in his 47year career included the construction of the Rangipo Dam and Sydney projects like the Parramatta and NorthWest rail links.

He also worked a year at the Pike River Mine, as part of the crew that later died in the mine disaster in November 2010, some five weeks after he had left.

Dallas Adams said he had launched the online petition after talks with the tunnelling working group in the leadup to the more than $3 billion tunnel being opened.

‘‘We felt it was something — that, as tunnellers — naming the NorthConnex tunnel Jim Adams is something we would like to see.

‘‘My father unfortunately lost his life on the project, at the age of 65, but had given 47 years of that to working, mentoring and helping people on both sides of the ditch in tunnelling.’’

His father had begun mentoring after his eldest son, James, was killed in 2004 while they were working together, Dallas said.

The petition can be found at petitions.net and is called ‘‘Name the NorthConnex Tunnel after Jim Adams’’. It has more than 800 signatures at time of writing.