Marina News
December 2009 Monthly Report
By
Jan 21, 2010, 15:23

Capital Projects

North Marina Combined Projects

In December the contractor, IMCO Construction worked on installing the long sheet piles for the new travel lift pier and some of the shorter sheets south of the new pier location. Their electrical sub-contractor, Veca Electric worked on the extensions to the medium voltage electrical distribution system.

At the beginning of the month, while driving the longer sheet piling, the IMCO crew encountered some hard driving conditions that prevented them from driving the piling to the design depth. This situation created two problems for the City. First, the contractor brought in a much larger vibratory hammer to try to advance the sheets. They used the larger hammer for one full day and part of another, but the noise from the hammer generated several complaints from residents in the South Shores Condo. One of the residents claimed that the vibrations from the hammer caused structural damage to their unit and filed a claim. The staff, with the supervision of the consultants had been monitoring for ground vibrations. The reports from the ground vibration monitoring for those days showed that no vibrations were reaching the South Shores building. The second problem was that the contractor asserted that the sub-surface conditions were different than those represented in the bid documents and provided notice that differing site conditions required the City to pay for the extra measures needed to drive the sheets to the design depth.

By the second week of the month, the Marina staff along with the consultants, Moffatt & Nichol Engineers and Shannon and Wilson Geotechnical Engineers were busy working on both problems. To mitigate noise and vibration impacts, the project team instructed the contractor to discontinue using the larger hammer and to submit decibel readings in accordance with the Noise Control Plan that the contract requires them to have in place. They also compiled the vibration monitoring reports done to-date and forwarded them to the City’s legal department. To deal with the change in sub-surface conditions claim, the City agreed to further geo-technical testing in the area where the long sheets are being installed. The City agreed to pay for the additional tests if the results were significantly different than the tests included with the bid documents.

By end of the month, the contractor had complied with the requests to discontinue using the larger hammer and start a noise monitoring program. The geo-technical consultants had reported that the vibration monitoring equipment showed that there were no ground vibrations reaching the South Shores building at anytime during the pile driving process and the contractor’s geo-tech had completed the test bore holes near the location of the new travel lift pier.

In December, the project team met with the City’s legal department to discuss the issues with the South Shores Condo and the contractor. As a result of those meetings, the Assistant City Attorney recommended that the project team increase the vibration and sheet pile installation monitoring and plan to have those activities done exclusively by Shannon & Wilson’s geotechnical staff. The original plan was to have Marina staff or other City personnel do the monitoring for both. Obviously, this will be a significant increase in scope and budget and at the end of the month the staff and consultant’s were working on a proposal to take back to the City Council.

The following pictures show the driving of the long piling for the new travel lift pier, installing a utility vault and all of the piling installed as of the end of December.

Water Main Relocation Project

This project reached substantial completion in December. The only remaining task to be completed is the application of the speed hump arrows and that is waiting on weather. By the end of the month, the project team was working on resolving a few remaining issues with the contractor and determining the final amount that Midway Sewer District will pay for the work done under Schedule B of the contract. The main issue to be resolved with the contractor is the final amount of pavement that is billable to the City under the terms of the contract. The contractor used more asphalt than originally estimated. Some of the overage can be attributed to removing more of the old pavement to make the final pavement restoration better, but some can also be attributed to damage done by the contractor’s equipment and to change orders needed by Midway Sewer District for their part of the job. The project team expects to have the pavement issue resolved before the end of January.

MARINA MAINTENANCE

In December, the maintenance staff worked on end of year tasks like inventorying and repairing tools and equipment and cleaning up the shop and other work areas. The maintenance staff also worked on pressure washing docks and rat and otter abatement. The crew also spent a significant amount of time moving the gate control wiring and the CCTV fiber optic cables off the bulkhead and into the new duct banks,


MARINA SERVICE

December is typically a slow month for the Marina services. Guest moorage revenues were about the same as last year but fuel sales, especially diesel, were up significantly over last December. The service staff spent most of December helping tenants cope with the impacts of the bulkhead replacement.


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