Ignoring the fact that you’ve moved the goalposts:

• A local PhD petroleum engineering lecturer who was involved with the issue directly has a working theory.
• A Texas PhD chemical and petroleum engineering professor agrees it’s likely.
• It’s further supported by the fact that resurfacing work removed the issue.

Cherry-picking the words “I speculate” out of the entire article to suggest they’re unfamiliar with the phenomenon and just pontificating conjecturing is deliberately misleading and I suggest you take your own advice.

No one likes a pedant.