Dive summary:

• Goodfellow Bros., Inc. (GBI) had one handicap when the company began work on a bypass around the popular tourist town of Lahaina on the coast of the island of Maui in Hawaii: The contract did not allow for drilling and blasting even though the path had rock—a lot of very hard rock.
• Since the long-planned project got underway in 2008, Goodfellows has removed 650,000 cubic yards of material to create the roadbed, and 240,000  was basaltic rock, which the project manager, Bo McKuin, said has a reputation for being very hard and wanting to stay put.
• The company wound up using Hitachi excavators, including its largest, shipped from Washington state, to rip 200,000 cubic yards of the the rock; Goodfellows got a break and was allowed to blast the other 40,000.

From the article:

Most of the excavated rock was processed and crushed onsite and reused for the roadbed. It also provided backfill for drainage systems. ...