SEATTLE - Declaring an emergency, King County Executive Dow Constantine Thursday moved to change the contractor building one section of the troubled tunnels for the Brightwater Waste Water Treatment plant in Bothell.
"While most elements of the Brightwater Project are on schedule, I am extremely concerned about construction delays on a remaining two-mile segment of the outflow tunnel," Constantine said in a news release. "(I) am not confident that the current contractor can complete its construction in a timely manner."
Contractor Vinci, Parsons and Frontier-Kemper (VPFK) had been constructing the two central tunnels, known as BT-2 and BT-3. The work on both tunnels ran into trouble back in May, 2009 due to significant damage to the two tunnel boring machines being used. The boring machine in BT-3 broke down in its hole and has not moved. The other machine has been only crawling along in BT-2.
Just last week, VPFK was able to complete repairs to the machine in BT-2 and resumed boring, but the work on BT-3 remains stalled. The delays have pushed back the estimated completion of the entire treatment plant. They have also pushed up construction costs. Even now, according to Constantine's office, VPFK estimates it will need an additional $98 million to repair the damaged machine and complete BT-3.
By declaring the emergency, Constantine frees the county of some red tape, allowing it to hire a new contractor - Jay Dee, Coluccio and Taisei (JCT) - to complete construction of BT-3. JCT is already working on a western tunnel. VPFK will continue to work on the BT-2 tunnel.
"We believe JCT can complete this portion of the unfinished (BT-3) tunnel project at substantially lower cost and in significantly less time," said Christie True, Direction of the Wastewater Treatment Division of King County's Department of Natural Resources and Parks.
But even if the contractor change goes smoothly, the Brightwater Tunnel delays have led the project millions of dollars and years off course. The original Brightwater completion date of Later this year has been pushed two years forward to late 2012 or maybe even 2013.The original price tag of $1.4 billion has risen to $1.8 billion and that doesn't include the costs of delays and equipment failures that the county says it hasn't completed yet.
The King County Council must approve Constantine's emergency declaration.
The county says the good news is the treatment plant part of the project is coming along on schedule and can be operated with old, existing sewer tunnels until the new ones are completed.
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