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HomeMy WebLinkAbout20071823 Ver 1_More Info Received_20101210STATE 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 (910) 944-2344 FAX (910) 944-5623 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 File