Committee backs suit claiming grout damage
City Finance Committee members have endorsed filing a lawsuit over damage caused by grout blockage during repairs of the collapsed Washington Avenue sewer tunnel.
Support for moving forward with court claims was given in a unanimous vote Monday after an executive session in which Corporation Counsel Kevin Bryant updated officials behind closed doors. The full Common Council will vote Wednesday on whether to file the lawsuit.
Bryant declined to provide details of the planned case, saying information would be available after papers are filed.
“It will be multiple parties,” he said.
Bryant said the case will seek to cover costs for “all of the grouting work that’s been done relative to the damage that was done on Washington Avenue, so we’re going to go after all the defendants that we believe are responsible.”
The grout blockage happened during the repair of a sinkhole that first opened on Washington Avenue, near Linderman Avenue, in April 2011.
During the sinkhole repair, which took more than five years, a new lining was installed in a portion of the existing sewer pipe. Part of that lining was damaged and collapsed during the grouting process that followed, allowing the grout to partly fill the tunnel and block the flow in a section of the city’s sanitary sewer system beneath Washington Avenue. The grout was ultimately removed in April and the affected portion of the tunnel was relined in June.
Officials have found that the sinkhole became a money pit with the $2.5 million spent on grout removal coming on top of the estimated $7.6 million to deal with the sinkhole. Costs for the projects had each started out with $1 million estimates.
Related projects are apparently still accumulating expenses, with city Engineer Ralph Swenson last month saying cost estimates were being developed to remove debris from the tunnel between Elizabeth and Gilead streets.
“We have some associated things that need to be done downstream,” he said. “There’s some accumulated material in the tunnel.”
Traffic had been detoured away from the sinkhole from April 2011 to May 2016, but, within a month after reopening, officials reported that the new lines had been clogged. Detours of southbound traffic were in place earlier this year.