BY SHERRY CONOHAN
Staff Writer
MONMOUTH BEACH — The $48 million project to expand and upgrade the sewer plant of the Two Rivers Water Reclamation Authority, which is hard by the Shrewsbury River, is shaping up to become a lawyers’ field day.
The legal action began when the TRWRA moved to assess damages against PKF, the prime contractor of the project. The project is running just under a calendar year late.
PKF has filed a number of claims against the sewer authority as a result.
TRWRA board member Daniel Levine, Little Silver, expressed frustration during the authority’s workshop meeting Nov. 12. Levine said Thomas Schoettle, a senior manager at Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., the authority’s consulting engineer, had only been to two engineering meetings "since he became the new man," and wasn’t there that night, though Schoettle had said he would come to meetings as often as he could.
Levine said the project was running nearly a year late and the authority is in litigation.
"But the key individual, the crucial individual, isn’t here," he complained.
"I thought that was me," James L. Brandes, an engineer and an associate at CDM, replied with a laugh.
"I will definitely bring your concerns back to him," Brandes added.
He said Schoettle had planned to attend the workshop meeting at its regular time Tuesday evening, but when the meeting was moved to Wednesday because of the Veterans Day holiday on Tuesday, he had a conflict and had to attend another meeting in New York.
Schoettle showed up a week later at the authority’s regular meeting Nov. 18.
James A. Parr, an engineer and senior project manager for CDM, reported that PKF had gained six days over the past month and was now running 324 calendar days behind the contract completion date, down from the 330 days of the previous month. The substantial completion and final completion dates set forth in the contract were March 17, 2003, and July 15, 2003.
Parr said substantial completion is now projected to occur by Feb. 5.
The authority decided at its Aug. 19 meeting to impose damages in the amount of $1,211,663 against PKF for being late. That money is to be collected by withholding $134,650.10 each month from the payment to the company until final completion of the project.
PKF has said it is not the party at fault for the delay.
Parr touched on PKF’s legal stance when he discussed problems with the plant’s polymer system. He said while PKF has provided a properly functioning polymer blending system, two of the three polymer pumps still do not meet specification requirements. He said PKF has sent a notice of claim for costs associated with their efforts to provide functioning equipment, alleging that the design was to blame.
Parr said one of the three Viking pumps has been modified to exceed specification requirements and PKF is now pursuing modification of the other two pumps.
Concern about the polymer system came on top of Parr’s report that the main pipe carrying sewage into the plant had a hole, which has been temporarily patched. The hole was punched by a backhoe operated by PKF while it was removing an abandoned pipe in the area.
Parr also reported on the strategy PKF is employing. Noting that the authority has begun withholding payments to PKF because it is so far behind schedule, Parr said PKF has responded that it is late on the project due to delays beyond its control.
He said PKF has adopted the approach of filing schedule "fragnets" for each claim, which he defined as "a small network or part of a network."
"With each fragnet, PKF claims that, by itself, it does not impact the critical path, but collectively, with all other changes, PKF claims that the end result will show project delay responsibility assigned to the owner," Parr told the board.
William O’Hagan, the board’s attorney, said he had not looked at PKF’s legal claims. He said there were 21 claims, each of which could be a separate case.
Michael A. Gianforte, the authority’s executive director, reported that the second day of arbitration had been moved up, from February to Nov. 18.
Parr said that since the authority began withholding payment, PKF has been working harder with workers putting in overtime daily and on Saturday. He said PKF wants to finish by the end of the year.
"I don’t necessarily agree with that," he added.
"But they are accelerating," Gianforte agreed. "They are working faster. I’m happy to see them go from slow to fast because of our action."