20071823 Ver 1_More Info Received_20101210

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTAT10N
BEVERLY EAVES PERDUE
GOVERNOR
December 9, 2010
Mason Herndon
NCDWQ
Fayetteville Regional Office
225 Green St. Suit 714
Fayetteville, N.C. 28301
Mr. Herndon,
EUGENY- A. CON-ri, JR.
SECRETARY
This letter is in response to your memorandum dated November 3, 2010.
The first item of concern was the maintenance of the safety fence around the perimeter of
the site which was installed to protect the jurisdictional areas. Within days after your visit
the contractor had restored the fence to the condition as prescribed in the permit. The
restored fencing could be observed in the photos I sent to you on November 10, 2010.
The contractor stated that although the fence had been overgrown by vegetation and
damaged by high water movement in some areas, he had used some ribbon to establish a
line of sight for the protected areas until the fence could be reestablished. It does not
appear that the area outside of the safety fence has been damaged by equipment or
construction activity.
Another issue was the placement of an air compressor, construction materials, and some
excavated soils inside of the hand clearing area but not on the timber mats. Initially the
soil material had been placed on the mats but a small amount had rolled from the pile and
off of the edge of the mat and onto the ground. The contractor had started implementation
of corrective actions to all of those issues while we were still on site that day and
completed the clean up the next day, which included removing the soil stock pile from the
mats and moving it to an upland area.
Your next concern was the change in the construction method which involved the use of
timber mats instead of an H pile frame work bridge. Based on our records and my
recollection of events, the following is a brief synopsis of how we arrived at our decision
to switch to the timber mats.
A couple of days prior to the week of February 9, 2009 1 received a call from Mr. Marty
Tillman, the Resident Engineer for this project. He was inquiring if Mr. Richard Spencer,
from the Army Corps of Engineers, would be in our Division at some point that week. I
P.O. BOX 1067, ABERDEEN, NORTH CAROLINA 28315
PHONE [phone] FAX [phone]

notified Mr. Tillman that Mr. Spencer would be making one of his "routine" Thursday
visits, that week to review Division projects for compliance. At that point Mr. Tillman
requested that I include on our schedule a visit to the Drowning Creek Bridge site on R-
2502B, to discuss various issues with the contractor that would include the possibilities of
the use timber mats in place of the H pile work bridge. This meeting was set up on a very
short notice and no other parties were notified. On February 12, 2009 Mr. Spencer met on
the site with Mr. Tillman, Rex Badgett, Jason Crissman and me from NCDOT. Also at
the meeting were Tom Goodson, Eddie Goodson and Brett Calicutte representing the R.E
Goodson Construction Company. During the meeting we discussed several issues
concerning the hand clearing in the area under the existing bridge span and the area of the
newly established bridge span on the south bound lane and the possible use of a
"buncher" within the hand clearing areas. After a brief description by contractor of how
the work would proceed with the buncher, Mr. Spencer approved it use. The next issue
addressed at the meeting was the contractor's desire to use timber mats in place of
building the work bridge. Mr. Spencer asked the contractor to make his case for the
change in method. The contractor's representatives presented the case that the change
would allow for the construction to proceed more quickly while still minimizing impacts,
be more cost effective and would allow for a greater margin for safety due to the close
proximity of the construction activity to the travel lane. The contractors felt that by
lowering the crane to the ground level there would be less chance of a crane accident
reaching out to the active travel lane. The nature of this site demanded that all the work
on the bridge would have to be done within an extremely tight corridor with some
construction activity involving crane work at very close proximity to the active travel
Iane. Mr. Spencer said that he agreed with the contractor's arguments and told us on site
that day that he would agree to the use of the mats and that it would "not require a permit
modification for the change in the construction method ".
Current NCDOT policy requires that all requests for permit modifications made through
the Division for TIP projects must be submitted to PDEA for approval and for them in
turn to prepare the formal request for submission to the agencies. In this case, because a
modification was not required by the Corps, no formal notification to NCDWQ was
made. This was treated as an in field change in construction method that did not
constitute a change in impacts. I did have some informal conversations with DWQ staff
about our intentions to make the change in the construction method. During these
conversation it was mentioned that the Corps of Engineers had determined that no
additional impacts would be assessed and they would not require a permit modification.
These conversations were not documented by me and there is no formal record of these
informal conversations. On September 29, 2009, Mr. Ken Averitte ofNCDWQ and Ms.
Kim Garvey of USCOE made a site visit and routine compliance inspection at the R-
2502B bridge construction site on Drowning Creek. On that day the south bound bridge
section was under construction. The timber mats were in place and were being used as the
work platform for various pieces of construction equipment including a crane and track
hoe. At that time neither Mr. Averitte nor Ms. Garvey raised any objections to the
methods of construction in use, they both seemed satisfied with what they had seen at the
site. To my knowledge neither of them left any instruction or request for any changes at
the site or any request for additional documentation. Ms. Garvey did ask the contractor to
keep the site clear of trash, and asked us to keep an eye on an area along a fill slope where

the grass had not grown well. The method of construction in use that day, and the general
site conditions were very similar to those during your visit to the north bound section of
the bridge on October 19, 2010.
You had also raised an issue concerning the material that had been removed from around
the drilled shaft installation to accommodate the building of the forms in preparation of
pouting the bent caps. This method of construction has not been routinely used in this
division. During the preliminary plan reviews the structure plans are usually not complete
so the bottom elevation of the bent cap were not known and therefore the need to
excavate to construct the bent caps was not addressed during the permitting process. This
unusual situation of having to excavate to construct internal bent caps is rare in our
division and may have contributed to the discrepancy in the permit drawings, the impact
assessments and what was actually needed in the field. I have since been made aware by
PDEA staff that normally for an installation of this type they would have typically
account for some temporary or permanent impacts under the bridge spans to cover these
types of incidental impacts, that step was omitted in this case. We believe there is enough
existing mitigation built into this project to cover the projected additional impact of less
the .005 acres of excavation at the bents. We are prepared to submit an after the fact
request for a permit modification to cover the incidental impacts near the bents and
request additional mitigation from EEP if you require it or if our calculations show that
our total mitigation is short.
Some of the issues in question here may be partially due to the staff changes at DWQ and
the Corps that have occurred over the past year and a half. We have had four different
DWQ staff members and three different Corps of Engineers representatives involved in
this project since the beginning of construction. In every case each agency representative
has had their own preferences and priorities as it pertained to the methods of construction
used on the project, not to mention the added input from Area Roadside and Land Quality
agents. Because of our long term relationships with Ms. Spencer, Mr. Averitte, and Ms.
Lespinesse we may have allowed ourselves to evolve into a more casual and informal
method of working together in which phone call and casual conversations may have been
used in lieu formal notification by mail or email. I will note, however, that at any time
when documentation has been requested, it was supplied. In any case The Division has
always strived to do our work in the most cost effective and safest manner and to remain
in complete compliance with all environmental regulations. We will of course comply
with any request you make in terms of correcting any of the problems found on this work
site.
Sincerely,
Art C. King,
Division Environmental Officer
NCDOT Highway Division 8
Cc: John R.G. Olinger, NCDOT Div.8 Construction Engineer
Marty Tillman, NCDOT Resident Engineer, Sanford Office

Ronnie Smith, US Army Corps of Engineers, Wilmington District
Barry Harrington, NCDOT Roadside Environmental
David Wainwright, NCDWQ 401 Wetland Unit
Sonia Carrillo, NCDWQ Central Office
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