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Engineers at the Fredonia water supply project this week declined to blame for a design incident, with village administrators often angrily disagreeing.
Mike Manning and Lori Reed of Ramboll, also known as OBG, appeared at an administrators workshop on Monday to take stock and listen to concerns about a ring for a clarifier that did not match the equipment. The problem caused a significant delay in the long-running Fredonia water project, which was due to be completed this week.
“There was a lot of misunderstanding and some things were misunderstood along the way,” Manning said, starting a discussion that lasted over an hour and was often very technical.
He said the water clarifier that took the disputed ring, which was quickly removed, “is working fine, doing what it’s supposed to do.” The second clarifier still needs to be worked on, and it may take around 10 weeks.
Manning said project contractors Kandey Co. and Ahlstrom-Shafer are “ready to finish this job for the village.” What’s holding them back at this point is permission for Kandey to move forward into the ring for Clarifier # 1. There’s money in the emergency elements of the unit price. It’s money that’s in the project, it’s there to be used, and it’s available. The amount is $ 5,265. He went on to say that while Ramboll didn’t think he needed board approval for this, he did mention it “to be frank in the discussion”.
Shortly after, administrator James Lynden told Manning: “Right now, even though you say it’s working hard enough, it seems from what I’ve talked to the plant supervisor (Chris Surma), it works at limited operational settings… There was a statement you made that was a bit confusing. This is because Fredonia provided Ramboll with the manufacturing drawings of the existing clarifiers and these drawings are the only known record of the equipment installed… if you had been at the factory you would clearly have seen that there was a difference. over there.
Lynden added that Manning was wrong when he said in a letter that the rings were not an integral part of the work at the processing plant. “If someone isn’t really looking (the clarifier), that’s going to cause a problem. And that posed a problem. “
Manning said, “I don’t know if any of you have experienced a (clarifying) start-up like this before, but there’s always something going on. This time, luckily for us, we discovered this problem when demand was low… so there really was no disruption for customers.
See ENGINEERS, page A5
“The fear now is to run the scum removal and trough cleaning system as planned,” Lynden replied. “If somebody doesn’t look at it with a hawk eye now, we’re going to have big problems, just like it was initially when you first started it.” To avoid these problems, we need a safe and secure system. We can’t let someone walk away or look away for two seconds and let this thing cause a problem and it shouldn’t be the village’s problem.
“We entered into a contract to provide a system that would operate safely and efficiently. You have the effective part, apparently, but the safe part… ”he continued. Lynden reiterated his position that the village should not pay for the work requested by Ramboll, and also complained again about the time extensions added to a project that is still not completed. He said the village had accepted a fine of $ 31,000 to set up the extension.
“The most important part of the whole project is about the clarifiers and the second is not even going to be started… I think the village should receive $ 1000 per day until the project is almost finished and functioning properly. . Essentially, you pay us back our money that was penalized to us for extending the contract, ”he said.
“We expected an exact replica that would perform as we always have,” said trustee EvaDawn Bashaw. “This is the subject of the initial discussion. We didn’t get an exact replica, and now that it needs to be adjusted, it hurts a bit to think that we have to pay extra to get the exact replica.
“They understood the current project,” Lynden said. “When you clean out the clarification tank… over a number of years, there are things in there and there are going to be problems which as an engineering company you should know is going into. as part of a renovation. “
Manning said surprises are the reason a contingency fund is in the contract. He also explained the difference between change orders, which are added as additional costs to a contract, and field changes, which are funded from the contractual contingency fund.
“We really recommend that you go ahead with clarifier # 1. The rest we can sort out later,” he said.
Administrator Roger Britz asked Reed about how she looked at the drawings and specifications for the project. Reed, like Manning, said no one knew about Fredonia’s seemingly unique water clarification process.
“Maybe in 1965 they realized there was a problem and they changed the system without updating the plans,” Britz said. “As engineers, wouldn’t you take both and look at them and say, ‘here are the 1965 plans and it doesn’t look like it’.
“There is an obvious mistake there and I think it’s a design flaw and I’ll put the blame on the engineers. I don’t think the village should pay for a modification that should be taken into account during the drawing process, ”he added. “I’m just not buying your story, I’m sorry.”
“We’re talking about less than 1% (of the project), $ 11,000 for those two rings,” Manning said, apparently also referring to Clarifier # 2’s ring.
Britz said if Ramboll still wanted to work with the village, he would have to “stand up”. Lynden said Manning is “giving us the ride” because while it is the village’s decision to put the contractors back to work, it will also have to pay them for the work that should have been done right in the first place.
“It’s such a shame to come to this, frankly,” said Lynden. “The idea that we must have done this in public is, I think, terrible.”
“We have the funds available to pay the contractor, move the project forward, and then our legal team is going to have a long, long discussion with (Ramboll). I think that’s what should happen, ”Britz said.
The trustees followed Britz’s suggestion, verbally agreeing to advance work on Clarifier No.1 while promising that their legal team would help resolve any disputes with the engineers.
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