City settles ‘big dig’ sewage tunnel dispute

Paying $800K on underground project

The city of Lorain will pay $800,000 to settle a contract dispute with the company digging the massive sewage conveyance tunnel under downtown.

Lorain City Council on May 22 approved the settlement with Walsh/Super Excavators JV. They are the lead contractors creating the $55 million underground structure, one of Lorain’s largest public projects in recent memory.

No representative of the contractors stepped forward to speak publicly about the case during the Council meeting.

Ward 2 Councilman Dennis Flores was the only member to comment on the city legislation.

“We’ve had many discussions on this tunnel and in my opinion, I think it was a bust,” Flores said.

The city had its contract price and change orders, “whatever they were,” he said.

Lorain also was under a mandate by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to build the tunnel “and the problems that came with it,” Flores said.

“And here we are, settle a mutual agreement because there were legal problems, legal issues,” he said. “We’re stuck with a hole in the ground, a holding bladder, because the EPA said we had to control the storm sanitary sewer runoff. That’s all I got to say for right now.”

Flores voted against the settlement, which passed 8-1.

The city and contractor also will execute two change orders in the job contract, one worth $125,909 and the other worth $68,820, as part of the settlement, according to city records.

The dispute between the company and the city did not land in court, but did prompt mediation through the American Arbitration Association, city Law Director Pat Riley said.

“They made claims for extra expenses that they claimed to have incurred over and above what they were contractually obligated to pay in the building of the tunnel,” Riley said.

The contractors’ original demands were in excess of $3.2 million in overage charges due to construction, he said.

“The safety-service director and I dispute that,” Riley said, referring to Safety-Service Director Dan Given.

They entered into negotiations and analysis of the claims with the help of experts to understand better

Lorain City Council on May 22 approved the settlement with Walsh/Super Excavators JV. They are the lead contractors creating the $55 million underground structure, one of Lorain’s largest public projects in recent memory.

if the claims had merit, Riley said.

The settlement approved by Council was the result of that analysis, he said.

The settlement does not release Walsh/Super Excavators from any of its contractual guarantees or warranties of performance, Riley said.

“That was a very significant thing for us to retain,” he said. “So, even though it’s a release, it’s not a release of the quality of the construction of that tunnel.”

Under downtown Lorain, the tunnel runs north-south on a course roughly parallel to Broadway, in the area between Broadway and the Black River. It is 19 feet in diameter and runs about 5,560 feet from the site of the former Lorain Pellet Terminal across from City Hall, south past East 14th Street.

The city will use it to contain stormwater to prevent sewer overflows in the river and Lake Erie and to prevent backup flooding in residential basements.

The project is due to be substantially completed by June 30 and done by Aug. 31, according to the settlement agreement.