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21–590 PDF 2005

DIGGING UP THE FACTS: INSPECTING THE BIG

DIG AND THE PERFORMANCE OF FEDERAL

AND STATE GOVERNMENT IN PROVIDING

OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL FUNDS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 22, 2005

Serial No. 109–29

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on April 22, 2005 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Amorello, Matthew J., chairman, Massachusetts Turnpike Authority;

John MacDonald, chairman, board of control, Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff, accompanied by Morris Levy, senior vice president, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc., and Keith S. Sibley, P.E., program manager,

Central Artery/Tunnel Project, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff; and

George J. Tamaro, partner, Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers ....... 70

Amorello, Matthew J. ................................................................................ 70

MacDonald, John ....................................................................................... 80

Tamaro, George J. ..................................................................................... 94

Gribbin, D.J., Chief Counsel, Federal Highway Administration, accompanied by Stanley Gee, Administrator, Massachusetts Division, Federal

Highway Administration; Kenneth Mead, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation; and Tom Reilly, attorney general, Commonwealth of Massachusetts ....................................................................... 14

Gribbin, D.J. .............................................................................................. 14

Mead, Kenneth .......................................................................................... 22

Reilly, Tom ................................................................................................. 44

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Amorello, Matthew J., chairman, Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 75

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia, prepared statement of ................................................................... 4

Gribbin, D.J., Chief Counsel, Federal Highway Administration, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 16

Lynch, Hon. Stephen F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, prepared statement of ................................................... 9

MacDonald, John, chairman, board of control, Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff, prepared statement of ........................................................... 82

Mead, Kenneth, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 26

Reilly, Tom, attorney general, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 46

Tamaro, George J., partner, Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 96

(1)

DIGGING UP THE FACTS: INSPECTING THE

BIG DIG AND THE PERFORMANCE OF FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT IN PROVIDING OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL FUNDS

FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in the En Banc

Courtroom, Moakley Courthouse, Boston, MA, Hon. Tom Davis

(chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis of Virginia, and Lynch.

Also present: Representative Capuano.

Staff present: Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Sarah D’Orsie, deputy

clerk; Brian Stout, professional staff member; John Hunter, counsel; Drew Crockett, deputy director of communications; and Krista

Boyd, minority counsel.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Good afternoon. A quorum being present,

the committee will come to order. We are conducting this field

hearing in Boston today to assess the status of the Central Tunnel/

Artery Project, or the Big Dig, one of the largest and most expensive Federal highway projects in the history of the United States.

My colleague and good friend and member of this committee,

Congressman Stephen Lynch, requested that this congressional

committee convene a hearing here in Boston to witness firsthand

the steps being taken to address the outstanding concerns and

issues in terms of safety and cost associated with the Big Dig.

As this project nears completion, it is vital that we assess the lessons learned here in Boston and determine how to prevent such

cost growth and improve oversight and coordination in the future.

These are significant areas of concern to the Committee on Government Reform, and indeed to the entire Nation, as we seek solutions

to increased urban congestion throughout the country.

It is imperative for the Federal Government, which often pays 80

percent of the major highway projects, to play a role to ensure that

taxpayer dollars, whether Federal or State, are being used effectively. In addition, the increase in the number of projects and the

rapidly growing competition for both Federal and State funding demand that major transportation and infrastructure projects be

managed efficiently and cost effectively, so we are able to fund the

many needs we have across the Nation.

It is for these important reasons that we decided to come to Boston today and hold this important hearing. I am pleased that ConVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:52 Jun 23, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21590.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gressman Lynch is with us this morning, and I also want to welcome Congressman Capuano to this field hearing as well. And I

would ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to sit here as a

member of the committee and ask questions. And, Mike, we appreciate you being here as well.

I don’t need to remind anyone here about the traffic and related

highway safety problems of the Central Artery in the 1980’s that

led to the planning for this massive project. Preliminary designs

began in the 1980’s, and construction commenced in 1991.

As with all State highway projects such as this, the Federal

Highway Administration is responsible for protecting the Federal

funding of this project. As part of the Metropolitan Highway System, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority has given construction

and operational authority for this project.

The figures associated with the Big Dig are staggering. The nature and scope of the project, the time involved in planning and

construction, and the cost overruns and safety concerns are unparalleled. What began in 1980 as a $2 billion project grew to $8 billion in 1995, and the Authority currently estimates the project cost

to be $14.625 billion.

Upon completion, scheduled for later this year, the project will

encompass 7.8 miles of highway, with 161 lane miles of pavement,

3 interstate tunnels, over 200 bridge structures, and 6 major interchanges. So it comes close to $2 billion a mile.

While it is hard to imagine another federally funded project—

public works project of this magnitude, there is a growing need nationwide to plan, build, and support major highway and infrastructure improvements. It is, therefore, vital for us to learn what happened here in Boston and implement procedures that will ensure

against cost overruns of highway projects and assure the safety

and confidence of the traveling public that utilizes those highways.

Certain steps have already been undertaken as a result of the

problems associated with the Big Dig. Congress now requires initial financial plans and annual updates to be submitted and approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation for all projects

costing over $1 billion.

These financial plans for the mega projects must identify project

costs and financial resources to implement and complete the

planned project. Annual updates must report actual cost and revenue performance in comparison to original estimates and revision

of estimates.

This process has been implemented. The Woodrow Wilson Bridge

Project, which is the Potomac River crossing northern Virginia,

which I represent, and Maryland. Right now that is on schedule

and under budget.

I hope that this hearing will give us an accurate picture of the

current status of the Big Dig and the efforts to remedy the tunnel

leaks, which has been learned from this mega highway—what else

has been learned, and implementation of safeguards for other federally funded projects.

Now, we have assembled an impressive group of witnesses today.

We will hear from the Federal Highway Administration, the U.S.

Department of Transportation Inspector General, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the attorney general of the CommonVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:52 Jun 23, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21590.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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wealth of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority,

the overall management consultant for the project hired by the

Massachusetts Highway Department, and a safety engineer who

evaluated the project.

I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before the committee, and I look forward to their testimony.

I now yield to Mr. Lynch.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I would like to

begin by thanking you for convening this hearing, and also it was

necessary for me to get the agreement of our ranking member,

Henry Waxman, and I appreciate you coming here to Boston.

This committee is the Committee on Government Reform. And as

the name suggests, it is the continuing problems that we have encountered on the Central Artery/Tunnel Project that brings us here

today. Very simply, this committee is charged with asking the

tough questions, and using the powers that are afforded to this

committee, and to the Congress, to determine where the shared responsibilities lie in completing and maintaining this project in a

manner that meets the high standards that taxpayers and toll payers expect.

In a national regulatory context, we also seek to ensure that the

systemic problems that resulted in cost overruns are not allowed to

happen again. There is frequent criticism of partisan bickering in

Congress that sometimes hampers our work. And, in fairness, I

must confess that sometimes that criticism is warranted and well

deserved.

However, I must say that my experience on this committee,

under the leadership of Chairman Tom Davis, the gentleman from

Virginia, has been a shining exception to that rule. In my brief tenure on the committee, we have conducted investigations of the Boston Office of the FBI and their involvement with organized crime,

we continue to investigate the U.N.’s complicity in the Iraqi Oil for

Food scandal, we are investigating contract irregularities with Halliburton in the Middle East, and most recently steroid abuse in

Major League Baseball and professional sports.

And through it all, I have seen Chairman Davis has personally

gone to great lengths to maintain a level of fairness and to encourage the work of all members together, regardless of their political

affiliation. So, again, my thanks.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. If you want to take more than

your 5 minutes, you are doing real well. [Laughter.]

Mr. LYNCH. Well, he wrote this, so—[laughter]—not at all. Turning to the difficulties of the Central Artery Project, as somebody

who literally grew up in the construction industry, I have taken a

natural interest in this project. Let me state at the outset that I

do not for a moment discount the colossal scale of this undertaking,

which is, again, as the chairman has said, the largest and most

complex construction project in the history of the United States.

And also, I fully and personally appreciate the pride and skill of

the men and women of the building trades who built it. I have

enormous pride in them, and I am not questioning their work.

And I am mindful, most of all, of the memories of workers who

actually gave their lives on this project, men like John Hegarty, an

old friend from Savin Hill, in the neighborhood, in the Savin Hill

section of Dorchester, a proud member of Pile Drivers Local 56,

who left a wife and young children; men like Fook Choi Kan, who

was a union carpenter from Springfield, who also died on this

project; and Lonnie Avant, a member of Local 4 Operating Engineers from Roxbury, who on all accounts was considered a true

gentleman and someone who took great pride in his work.

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And men like my young friend, Frank Shea, of south Boston, who

was an accomplished boxer and a Golden Glove champ, who lived

by the simple truth that there was honor in hard work. Those gentlemen were reflections of what was and is best about America.

There were common threads that ran through each of their lives.

They, like their parents, Irish, Asian, African-American, by their

labor they found dignity in their work, and that has been an enduring truth in this country.

It is also directly related to America’s sense of shared sacrifice

and our willingness, as citizens, to support projects like this, that

probably benefit future generations more than they benefit us

today, not simply to reduce the length of a traffic jam or cut our

morning commute time, but because we hope that our work can become our legacy, to improve the lives of future generations. And as

noble as that may sound, it takes more than good intentions to

build that legacy, as this project has shown.

I think the best example of how quickly good intentions can succumb to failure is the story of greed following national need during

World War II. The people of this Nation were bound to a unified

cause because of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, and they rallied to

superhuman acts during World War II.

And yet as the country grappled with logistics of the war effort,

terrible examples of waste and mismanagement and abuse in our

defense contractor practices threatened that effort until Senator

Harry Truman and the members of the Truman Commission investigated the causes of those deficiencies and that waste and got the

war production effort back on track.

The risk then was not just in wasted tax dollars but in lost lives,

shoddy materials, and missed deadlines in delivery. Then, Senator

Truman got in his car and went around the country visiting installations and talking with the people working for defense contractors.

He knew that the key to reform—true reform—would be found

where the work was actually occurring.

And so now we are here today in the spirit of that earlier effort,

and it is my hope, with at least a small fraction of the clarity and

the sense of mission that Senator Harry Truman brought to his

work.

Why is this as important as the earlier investigations? Our

transportation system is the key to our economic stability, and we

have just approved in the House a brand-new $285 billion transportation bill. This Nation will continue to undertake huge public

works projects, but, whether large or small, the taxpayer deserves

value for each dollar spent.

This project was and is a courageous endeavor of breathtaking

ambition—make no question about it—an effort that was equal to

the people who have built it. And we are trying to—what we are

trying to do here is preserve the legacy of this monumental effort

and bring it back into respectability, and that can only happen

when all the parties are held accountable and share in that responsibility.

I have followed the chronology of this project from its inception

to today, and I must say through all of its twists and turns and

conflicts and mediations I have yet to find a single example when

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the interests of the taxpayers and of ordinary citizens have prevailed. Well, we are hoping in this hearing that will change.

If we reexamine how we got to this place, and take note, as the

chairman has said, of lessons learned from our experience, if we

work together thoughtfully and in good faith to find a way to ensure that the public is a partner in this effort, we can restore dignity to this project, and we can protect the people’s interests from

this day forward.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen F. Lynch follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Capuano.

Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, thank you

for allowing me to sit with you and to share some time with you.

Welcome to Boston. Actually, welcome back to Boston.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. CAPUANO. And, again, I would echo everything Mr. Lynch

said about your tenure, both in this chairmanship and as a human

being. I find you to be one of the most fair and honorable people

in Congress, and I am pleased and honored to sit here for a few

minutes with you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. CAPUANO. As far as today’s hearings go, there are only a couple of things that I am deeply interested in. I am the least interested person here in the headlines that are going to be in tomorrow’s papers or in tonight’s news, because I think that’s part of the

problem with this particular project is too many people interested

in too many headlines and not enough people interested in the

facts and the realities of the project.

First of all, as everything I understand, and I am going to ask

every single witness today to answer the question, as I understand

it today, the project is safe. And everything I have read, everything

I have heard from everybody involved has indicated that it is safe,

but I want to hear it from every person who testifies here today.

No. 2, the project is working. I took it to get here today. My expectation is that many of you took it to get here today and will

take it as you leave. And if you didn’t take it, I would suggest that

you do. The project, though not complete, is working.

It is doing what it was promised to do, which is to ease traffic

flow, improve our environment, and improve the quality of life in

greater Boston, and hopefully to set an example of the kinds of construction projects that are wanted across this country to improve

the quality of life in other especially older cities.

As far as what we learned from this project, my hope is that we

learn a couple of things. No. 1 is that we know that this project

will continue to be safe. That is the top priority, that it continues

to be safe tomorrow, next week, next month, and in the next generation.

I would hope that over time, maybe not today but over time we

learn on issues of accountability—who is responsible for what, how

much, and hopefully none of that will go to the taxpayers. But I

think that will be part—it will clearly be part of the discussion

today, and it will take a while to work all those things out.

I also want to hear some of the lessons that we have learned

from this project, both on a State level and on a Federal level. I

have been involved in major construction projects in the past, and

every time you do one you learn something.

This project, as you have heard, is the biggest project in the history of the country. There are lots of lessons that have been

learned, and hopefully they will allow us to improve our process in

the future, again, both on a State and on a Federal level.

And, finally, I want to make sure that the costs relative to this

project don’t have a negative impact on, No. 1, taxpayers; and, No.

2, on future projects.

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I was a former mayor of a city close to Boston, Summerville, and

during that time when I was mayor I personally experienced

projects in Summerville that were stopped or delayed because the

financing on this project sucked up every single dollar the State

had.

That was unacceptable, and the solution was a few years ago the

Congress passed basically a rule or a regulation, a law, that said

the State must have minimum spending on projects in Massachusetts other than the Big Dig. To my knowledge, that is still working. That is still in place and still being adhered to.

I want to make sure that the future costs of this project don’t

lead to the same results, both on maintenance and in completion.

Everything I have heard thus far on completion I think we are in

good shape. Obviously, maybe we will hear different today, but that

also goes for maintenance. It doesn’t do us any good if the maintenance costs of this project are 100-fold what we expect, so that they

suck up future dollars.

I know that the House just passed a bill, as Mr. Lynch mentioned, that for Massachusetts will mean $5.1 billion. It means

7,500 new jobs—40,000 jobs but 7,500 new jobs per year every year

for the next 5 years.

Now, I happen to think that is the way government should work,

both for the jobs and economic aspects of it, even for the transportation aspect of it. And I don’t want those jobs jeopardized by the

concerns of this project.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be with you

today. Thank you for the opportunity to sit here with you. And,

again, I hope you enjoy your brief time here in Boston.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you very much.

Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements for the

record, and we are going to recognize our first panel. We have Mr.

D.J. Gribbin, who is the Chief Counsel for the Federal Highway

Administration. Mr. Gribbin is accompanied by Mr. Stanley Gee,

the Administrator of the Massachusetts Division of the Federal

Highway Administration.

Joining Mr. Gribbin and Mr. Gee is the Inspector General of the

Department of Transportation, the Honorable Kenneth Mead,

whose office plays a vital role in promoting the effectiveness of and

preventing waste, fraud, and abuse in departmental programs and

initiatives.

And we are also pleased to have the Honorable Tom Reilly, the

attorney general for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who has

been tasked with leading the current cost recovery efforts. We appreciate your being here, too, Mr. Attorney General.

It is the policy of this committee we swear everyone before you

testify. So if you could just rise with me and raise your right

hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Your entire statements are in the record.

Mr. Gribbin, we will start with you and move straight on down.

And thank you, once again, for being with us up here.

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STATEMENTS OF D.J. GRIBBIN, CHIEF COUNSEL, FEDERAL

HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY STANLEY

GEE, ADMINISTRATOR, MASSACHUSETTS DIVISION, FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION; KENNETH MEAD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION;

AND TOM REILLY, ATTORNEY GENERAL, COMMONWEALTH

OF MASSACHUSETTS

STATEMENT OF D.J. GRIBBIN

Mr. GRIBBIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you again for the opportunity to testify today on issues concerning the Boston Central Artery/Tunnel

Project.

I have asked, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, Stan Gee, who

is Federal Highways’ Massachusetts Division Administrator, to join

me today. Stan is our point person on this project, and he has been

overseeing it since the year 2000.

The Central Artery/Tunnel Project is 96 percent complete, and

substantial completion is scheduled by October of this year. This

$14.6 billion project has been the largest, most expensive, and most

complex highway project in U.S. history. This ambitious project will

provide countless benefits to the city of Boston in the way of enhancing safety, easing traffic congestion, providing acres of open

park land to city residents, and reconnecting communities severed

by the old elevated highway.

In my time here today, I will touch on three issues—the safety

of the tunnel, the recent problems with leaks, and the cost of the

project. First, I wish to take this opportunity to restate Federal

Highways’ conclusion that the Central Artery, including the tunnels that are part of this project, is safe for public travel. We will

not compromise on safety. Safety is the Department of Transportation’s top priority, and I agree with Mr. Capuano that we need

to ensure that this project will continue to be safe into the future.

Second, one of the most recent areas of concern with the project

involves water intruding into the tunnels. This water is causing

two types of leaks. The most serious of these leaks occurred on September 15, 2004, when a slurry wall panel was breached, allowing

a substantial amount of water to enter into the northbound tunnel

of I–93 for a few hours.

In response to this incident, Federal Highway Administrator

Mary Peters requested an independent Federal highway engineering assessment of all tunnel leaks. The Federal Highways’ tunnel

leak assessment team issued its interim report on March 23rd of

this year.

The team reports that the project is appropriately addressing the

tunnel leaks. The September 15 breach appears to be isolated to a

discrete section of the tunnel and is primarily the result of poor

quality control during construction. It is not a result of a defective

design.

The contractor responsible for this section of the tunnel has successfully installed an interim repair, has submitted a design for a

permanent fix, and has agreed that repairs will be made at their

expense, not at the public’s.

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The MTA is reviewing plans for the permanent repair, and Federal Highways will approve plans for the repair once we are satisfied that it provides for a structure that is sound, durable, watertight, and relatively maintenance free. We will also assess the degree to which the repair disrupts nearby structures and the traveling public.

As a result of the September 15 breach, emphasis has been

placed on the second kind of leak in the tunnels. Federal Highways’

leak report noted that the project continues to manage the tunnel

leak sealing efforts in a very methodical way. As of April 13 of this

year, almost 1,100 leak sealings have been performed, and it is estimated that the project is on track to have all of the low-level

leaks sealed by October.

Once again, the cost of this work is the responsibility of the

mainline tunnel contractors, not the taxpayers. Federal Highways

will continue to monitor these efforts, and will issue a report upon

completion of all repairs.

Finally, perhaps the most publicly criticized aspect of the Central

Artery/Tunnel Project has been its dramatic cost escalation. Federal Highways has worked closely with Inspector General Mead

and his office to ensure Federal Highways’ oversight practices and

procedures to avoid similar occurrences. Together we have been

able to create a framework for major project oversight that will

serve us well for the remainder of this project and for future major

projects.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify. I will be pleased to answer any questions you

may have at the appropriate time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gribbin follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Mead.

STATEMENT OF KENNETH MEAD

Mr. MEAD. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding

this hearing today, and Congressmen Lynch and Capuano. This is

the most expensive public highway project in U.S. history, actually.

But it is extremely important to the Commonwealth, to the entire

northeast, indeed to U.S. interstate commerce.

I should say, as the chairman alluded to in his opening remarks,

that the lessons learned on this project have just had a huge impact on the oversight approach of the Federal Government, as well

as on the highway bill that is now pending before the Congress.

And the lessons learned have already had a very positive impact

on major construction and other multi-million dollar projects.

The chairman mentioned the Wilson Bridge, which crosses the

Potomac—Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. That project is actually—

I think it is a little bit under budget, it is certainly on target, and

that project—we are really all I think very proud of the progress

that project is making.

It has also been applied to—the lessons learned on the Central

Artery have also been applied to other projects like the Sound

Transit/Light Rail Project in Washington State. It is the largest

transit project in the country at this time. Trentabono in Puerto

Rico, and it will have impact on the other major projects, such as

the Bay Bridge Project in California, which is experiencing some

problems.

And I dare say it will probably have an impact on the Chicago

O’Hare Airport runway expansion program. So I think this one will

go down in history.

Our office has been reviewing this project since about 1991, well

before my time. And we are now finding ourselves reviewing the

2004 finance plan. We can’t approve this plan, though, until,

among other things, they have in place a credible time table to fix

the leaks, know approximately how much they will cost to fix, and

who will pay.

The project’s troubled history of delays and cost increases is well

known. The Central Artery was to be finished initially in December

1998; the new completion date is September/October 2005. It is almost 7 years later. Their price tag moved from $2.6 billion in the

beginning to today’s $14.6 billion, and that estimate of $14.6 has

been holding now for 2 or 3 years. And I certainly hope it doesn’t

change.

Congress has, with respect to the Central Artery Project, taken

the unprecedented step of actually capping the amount of money

that the Federal Government would have going to it, and it is for

the reasons that Congressman Capuano alluded to.

Four months ago, our testimony to a State legislative committee

here in Boston detailed two kinds of leaks on the I–93 tunnels. The

taxpayers ought not to have to pay for the repairs to these leaks,

regardless of whether the project manages to come in at $14.6 billion on the button or even under $14.6 billion. The taxpayers

should not have to pick up the tab here.

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Mr. Gribbin outlined the two types of leaks. One is the slurry

wall leak. This became a public concern last September 15 when

a panel breached, and I think you had 300 gallons per minute coming out of that, so that was a pretty big leak. That breach was, as

he pointed out, caused by a series of construction errors.

Actually, those construction errors were documented when the

wall was built, but they were not corrected. Since then, inspections

have found a total of 102 defective or leaking slurry wall tunnels.

The numbers change daily, but this is—so this is as of about April

1.

There is about 1,900 wall panels, to give you a frame of reference, so 102 of them they found a problem with. Here is the

breakdown on the types of problems. Two of them need major repairs, 33 of them need what I would call moderate repairs, and 67

of them need only patching; 10 of them have been repaired, but the

Authority has not approved the repair yet.

So we have 400 of about 1,900 odd wall panels that still need to

be inspected. That is about 20 percent. So I would like to see that

get done.

Now, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is going to have to

decide soon on how to repair the wall panels with the worst defects.

There are three suggested methods. One is to install a steel plate

over the hole, a second does the same thing, but adds a reinforced

concrete, and a third requires rebuilding the wall.

The Authority faces the challenge of selecting one without being

perceived by the public as picking just the most expedient method.

I think that is very important, given this entire affair. A permanent, lasting fix to the walls ought to be the paramount concern,

and obtaining the most cost-effective one at this point I think is

probably secondary.

The second type of leak is found up at the roof wall joints, and

these are worrisome because they have long-term maintenance implications. The number changes constantly as the leaks—as you

seal one leak with the grout—I guess they are called grout injections, you seal one and the water goes down all over and you get

two more leaks. And that is why you see these numbers keep fluctuating so dramatically.

Last summer, for example, there were more than 700 roof wall

joint leaks. As of April 1, there were 662. More than 4,500 of the

9,000 odd roof wall joints still have to be reinspected for leaks. All

of the roof wall joints have been inspected once, so now they are

on the second round of inspections, and we still have 4,500 to check

out.

We don’t know yet the full cost of repairing all of the leaks. A

consultant assessment of the cost is due next month, I think in the

middle of the month. And, again, the Authority has said that its

contractor is going to pay to fix the leaks. We are not entirely confident of this.

According to the Authority, contractors have already been paid

$7 million for leak repairs, and they estimate they will have to be

paid—have to pay another $10 million. We are concerned that the

costs and payments related to leak and water problems may significantly exceed the $17 million.

24

And these payments may actually go back further in time than

we thought. Certainly, they go back through all of 2004. They may

go back for several years prior to that as well. Taxpayers may have

already paid for some of them. Now these costs, if already paid,

will have to be recovered.

I would like to turn now to the cost recovery program. The cost

recovery program that we now have in place for the Artery will be

helpful in returning some leak-related payments to the project.

Maybe all of them. The previous efforts on cost recovery here,

though, have been anemic.

In December, we recommended that the State form a bipartisan

commission that was independent of the Authority to investigate

the leaks and that this Commission would work with the attorney

general. Well, the Commission wasn’t recreated, but the Authority

recently transferred its cost recovery program to the attorney general’s office.

We see this as an improvement, as a positive step, because it

served to remove the program from their project management

structure, where it was hampered by all kinds of role conflicts, especially with Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, who was a partner of

the Artery, who is responsible for quality assurance and portions

of the project design, and who has been paid nearly $1.9 billion for

its work.

So we know the attorney general, Mr. Reilly. We have talked several times on the phone. I know he has his work cut out for him,

and we wish him the very best. But he has to not only look at the

cost recovery issue for the leaks; he has to look for cost recovery

for the entire project, for things that have nothing to do with the

leaks, but have to do with change orders that have already been

paid.

In fact, the cost of the leaks are only a modest portion of the cost

recovery effort. Let me give you a frame of reference. Over the life

of this project, there have been over $2 billion in contract change

orders. A significant portion of these are claims by contractors for

work they claim is beyond the scope of the original contract, or for

work that they did because they felt they encountered significant

problems that they had not expected.

As of February 28 of this year, there were over 3,600 unresolved

contractor’s claims for over $400 million. That is a large piece of

change.

We are currently reviewing the 2004 finance plan, as I said before. By law, we must determine whether that plan contains reasonable estimates for cost schedules and funding sources, before

the Department decides whether to release I think it is about $81

million remaining in Federal funds.

And we won’t be in a position to do that until more information

is known about the extent of the leaks, which means all of the inspections have to be done, and a cost has to be attached to them.

And we would like a reasonable estimate as to what it is going to

take to dispose of them.

And I think I would just like to close by starting out where I

began, to say that there have been some important lessons learned

in this project. The last project finance plan we reviewed from the

25

Central Artery, it is—I tell people as I go around the country and

speak that it was probably among the best in the country.

I know the Wilson Bridge project used the improvements that

the Central Artery had made in its finance plan, and there has

been a lot of other lessons learned. And hopefully we can get this

project done, no more cost overruns, we can get the leaks resolved,

and move on.

And, again, thank you for holding the hearing, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mead follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

We will now hear from the Commonwealth’s attorney general.

Mr. Reilly, thank you for being with us.

STATEMENT OF TOM REILLY

Mr. REILLY. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And Congressman Lynch

and Congressman Capuano, thank you for being here as well.

Mr. Chairman, I also want to thank you for your courtesy in

scheduling my testimony this afternoon. I have submitted written

testimony, so I will not repeat that at this point. There are a couple

of points I do want to pick up on.

Ken Mead is right; we do have our work cut out for us in this

endeavor in taking over cost recovery. Let me tell you why we

agreed or actually volunteered for this task. This represents—and

the importance all of you have noted—it is a very important

project. It represents an enormous investment on the part of the

Federal and State governments and to transportation improvements, not just for the city of Boston but also for this entire region.

But it is more than transportation. Any one of you that has been

over the Zakim-Bunker Hill Bridge realize it is a magnificent structure, a wonderful introduction into a great city. And it is my hope

that we will get to a point where we will all be proud of this project

and appreciate what has been done here.

But we are not there yet; there are serious problems. And getting

from the problems to the promise of a future of this project is why

we stepped in. There were suggestions at the time of a commission;

I did not agree with that approach. Cost recovery is going to go one

of two ways. It is either going to be a negotiated settlement, or it

is going to end up in litigation. Commissions don’t litigate; commissions really don’t negotiate. So we decided that we would step in.

Also, Mr. Chairman, I take this responsibility, and to Congressmen and the Federal Government, I take this responsibility very

seriously. We want to demonstrate to you that we can do the job

that you expect of us, and we will try and are committed to doing

that.

Let me just bring you up to date very quickly as to where we are.

Currently, we are reviewing 134 issues for cost recovery. The major

ones—and Ken Mead spoke on the leak issues in the I–93, and

clearly there has been poor construction. But our focus is not just

on the construction companies; our focus is on Bechtel. They were

hired to do a particular job, in terms of oversight, in terms of design. And our focus is on them.

There is a lot of focus and a lot of attention paid to the slurry

walls. We are equally concerned with the wall and the roof joint

with the continuing leaks. We are not confident with the approach

that has been taken in terms of grouting, filling those leaks and

those holes with—by grouting. You cannot—in our estimation, you

cannot grout your way out of this problem.

We are concerned that this may not be solvable in the—for a permanent solution, and we may have on our hands a very long-range

maintenance problem for the project. And certainly we will have to

take some time to find out, if that is true, what is the cost and who

is going to pay.

45

Again, we believe that the responsibility, the ultimate responsibility, is not with the taxpayer—the ultimate—the Federal Government or the State government. The ultimate responsibility lies

Bechtel. Waterproofing is a major issue throughout the project.

Again, Bechtel was responsible for the concept for the entire

project, and concerns have been raised about the choice of materials and design of certain of the waterproofing details. Again, we

see that as the responsibility of Bechtel.

There is a serious matter involving the so-called Honeywell contract, which is a communications system throughout the project for

alert to any problems in the systems. Again, Bechtel has a role in

this.

There are roadway problems with pavement, causing not only regrinding but also repavement. That has been so-called—people

went through it in the early stages of so-called rollercoaster effect.

Again, we see that as the responsibility ultimately of Bechtel.

Last, there are problems with the water treatment system on

Spectacle Island for the treatment of environmental waste. It is not

functioning properly. Again, we see ultimately the responsibility—

there is a lot of focus and a lot of fingerpointing back and forth,

but ultimately we see the responsibility being with Bechtel.

In the end, our goal is to recover as much money as we can for

taxpayers, both Federal and State, and to make sure that when all

is said and done we got what we paid for.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for being here in Boston.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reilly follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank all of you for being here, and

for the testimony, some of which is in the record and wasn’t discussed here.

Mr. Mead, let me start with you. You said we have 3,600 claims

for change orders that came through, basically?

Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Now, when these change orders came

through, were they agreed to by whoever was administering the

project, or did they just decide to make the change and resolve

later who was going to pay for it and how it was going to—and who

was to blame?

Mr. MEAD. All of the above. One of the problems with this project

is that things that are now in dispute as to whether or not the

Commonwealth ought to get money back that they already paid

many years ago. I think there was a haste to pay some of these

things, and now we still have a very large number outstanding.

I would just—some of these things just went unattended for

many, many years, and now Attorney General Reilly has a task of

trying to recover the cost of these things.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. He has to pick up the pieces.

Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, you—Mr. Mead, you said it was

about $400 million in these change orders roughly.

Mr. MEAD. There’s $400 million, sir, just pending now that still

have to be resolved.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Payment doesn’t resolve it? The fact that

these people were paid doesn’t resolve it, in other words. There

is——

Mr. MEAD. Well, it——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Was it paid under protest, or how did that

work?

Mr. MEAD. Well, they would just pay it, and there would be no

protest. And now people are raising a protest, and saying, ‘‘We

never should have paid this. This was somebody else’s fault.’’

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Can you elaborate on that, Mr.——

Mr. REILLY. Yes, this is a big——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I have never heard of that before.

Mr. REILLY. Well, there is a lot of things we haven’t heard of before, and there is a lot of lessons to be learned.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I was a government contracts attorney for

20 years. I was a general counsel for a $1 billion company, and we

worked with the government a lot. And it was resolved or you

didn’t get paid. That is the way it used to work with us. Sometimes

you would do the work, but they would hold the money until—you

are telling me they paid this up front and then are trying to resolve

it later?

Mr. REILLY. One of the big——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Either one of you.

Mr. REILLY. One of the major problems here is that there was no

cost recovery for a period of 10 years. This should have been done

in a timely fashion.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I understand.

49

Mr. REILLY. An ongoing fashion. Deal with the problem when it

comes up, and decide who is going to be paid and for what, and

some of the quality assurances. That wasn’t done and——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Who would make the decision to pay?

Would it have been Federal Highways? Would it have been the

State? Was it a low-level person? I mean, obviously you are trying

to get the mission accomplished. You have the bulldozers out there,

or the drillers, or whatever.

They say they need to get paid, but who would make the decision

to pay versus saying, ‘‘Let us see if we should make this change?’’

I mean, at what level was that done? Was that done Federal or

State or—can you explain that to me?

Mr. MEAD. I would say that first inside the Artery there is a

great deal of closeness between the Artery and its project consultant, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff. It was almost a partnership,

and I think there was some failures there.

At the Federal level, I have to candidly say that I think the Feds

dropped the ball as well. There was very little oversight. I think

the Feds were thinking that there was a great deal of oversight

going on inside the project, and the project was thinking everything

is going fine. But the Federal Government learned a lot of hard lessons from this, Mr. Davis.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. If the money is recovered at this point,

the money that is recovered, who does it go to? Does it go to Federal Highways? Does it go to the State? Can somebody——

Mr. REILLY. Most of it—at least 60 cents on the dollar—goes to

the Federal Government. It is Federal money.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. It will be shared basically in

proportion——

Mr. MEAD. It will be a shared project.

Mr. REILLY. In proportion with the investment that was made in

the project. Most of that money is Federal money, at least 60 cents

on the dollar, maybe a bit more.

Mr. MEAD. I think, though, that a lot of that money might find

its way back to the Commonwealth, because a lot of that money

came to the Commonwealth as part of its annual apportionment.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. So it is Federal money. And depending how it was apportioned, it could be returned to the State.

Mr. MEAD. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Or to the Federal Government, or whatever. But there is a lot on the table.

Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. General Reilly, do you have any idea how

much money is on the table at this point?

Mr. REILLY. At this point, there has been a lot of speculation, a

lot of numbers thrown out there. I am uncomfortable with doing

that. We have——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You set an expectation level when you——

Mr. REILLY [continuing]. And we have given assurances, and we

will give assurances to you. This will be fact driven. We will make

decisions based upon facts. When we have numbers that we believe

we can prove in court, then we will inform—if you want to be notified, and the Congressman wants to be notified—and I know the

Federal authorities, they will be——

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is fine.

Mr. REILLY [continuing]. They will be notified when we have

hard numbers that we can back up.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I guess the last question before my time

runs out—we may do a second round, because I think we all have

a lot of questions as we go through this. Is there a statute of limitations problem with any of this, that money might have been paid

off in the past, it probably shouldn’t have been paid off, but the

statute has run on our ability to get it back?

Mr. REILLY. In some cases——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is a possibility.

Mr. REILLY [continuing]. There are problems. There are problems

with people being gone. It is with memories, it is with documents,

it is with statute of limitations.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The usual.

Mr. REILLY. On the other end of it, we have just got to work our

way through those problems and get the best possible result that

we can. But if there is a lesson to be learned here, cost recovery

should have been taken on an on-time basis.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Right. And I think you have heard the

Woodrow Wilson Bridge project is going along, because of some of

the mistakes made here. We are not replicating those mistakes in

other parts of the country. I think from the committee’s perspective, we would be interested as you move through to see if there

are statute issues, things that might have fallen through because

of timeliness and stuff, not to basically point a finger at anybody,

but just to understand this. Historically, I think that is important

for us moving ahead.

But we appreciate your cooperation in this. I am going to recognize Mr. Lynch.

Mr. MEAD. Mr. Chairman, if I might just, given your background,

I think you can relate to this point really quickly. You asked Attorney General Reilly for, you know, does he have a sense of what the

magnitude of cost recovery would be, and he I think quite

properly——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. He said what I would have said.

Mr. MEAD. Yes. And when I was a lawyer would say, too. But you should know that up until a couple years ago, this is a $14.6

billion project. The total amount of cost recovery up until 2 years

ago was roughly $30,000.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. There is a lot of money on the table. I got

you. Thank you very much.

Mr. MEAD. I hope so.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Gribbin, I just wanted to followup very quickly with you. You

answered rather forthrightly that you thought the tunnels were

safe. When we heard from the two construction experts—Mr.

Lemley and Mr. Tamaro—at the State hearing, they answered in

a similar fashion, but they conditioned that response by saying,

‘‘The tunnels were safe for now.’’

They also said that if proper maintenance were not—was not

conducted, and proper repairs not done in a timely fashion, then

51

an unfair—or an unsafe condition could arise. Do you—is that condition unstated in your answer?

Mr. GRIBBIN. I mean, our answer would be, first, as part of the

September 15 incident, we created a leak assessment task force

that did the interim report that I mentioned in my statement. At

that point in time, our experts went through the tunnel and found

it to be safe. We will continue, however, to monitor the leaks, to

monitor the injections on the leaks, and we will be doing a final

report once the project is complete.

And this project is still under construction from our standpoint.

And so we will—this project is perfectly safe to be used. I don’t

think we are going to project forward into the future too far until

we finish our report, which will be done after the project is completed.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. All I am saying is you have at least—right

now you have 102 flaws that they have noted, a couple of them serious, 33 of them No. 2’s as they say, moderate deficiencies, and

then 67 light ones. I am just concerned about——

Mr. GRIBBIN. That is correct.

Mr. LYNCH. And not only that, but the patch that is on E–045,

which is the burst panel, that is a temporary patch, so—I am just

concerned about the completeness of your answer, whether or not

you think that, if we don’t have proper maintenance and repairs in

a timely fashion, that there could be an unsafe condition that

arises.

Mr. GRIBBIN. The assessment that we made was that the patch

was appropriate. It is a temporary patch, but clearly appropriate

to protect the integrity of that wall in the tunnel until a permanent

patch can be made. But why don’t I let Stan, since he is the engineer here, add to that answer.

Mr. GEE. Sure. To answer your question, Congressman, there

have not been any discoveries of additional breaches of the type of

September 15. So we are confident now that the tunnel is safe. The

temporary repair is holding. We have recommended they go to a

permanent repair as soon as they can.

For the long-term safety, we are recommending they do a tunnel—they create a tunnel inspection program similar to what we do

for bridges. I think you are all familiar with the National Bridge

Inspection Program that requires a periodic review of bridges. Well,

we are going to institute—we have recommended, and will follow

through, that the tunnel create an inspection program for the longterm safety.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. Inspector General Mead, I want to say

how pleased I am with the work you have done on this, and you

have been very helpful. I do note in your report this—for the

record, ‘‘The Impact of Water Leaks on the Central Artery/Tunnel

Project and Remaining Risks,’’ by the Honorable Kenneth Mead,

Friday, April 22.

You note that in your inspection you originally testified back in

December that it was an open question whether the September

breach was a one-of-a-kind event or a harbinger of systemic problems in the tunnel walls. And, however, based on the results of the

Authority’s inspections to date, it is clear in our opinion that the

52

wall panels leaks are systemic and are not centered in just one contractor’s section, as was originally suggested.

That failure occurred 5 years ago. I am sorry. The wall was constructed 5 years ago. The defects sat latent 5 years ago. For that

5 years, Bechtel had a responsibility to inspect. For that whole 5

years, we never were informed of, even though they had the information in their possession, they never informed the public, and we

never found out about this latent defect.

The fact that there is another 101 defective slurry wall panels

that have been found, and the problems are more systemic, as you

say, are there suggestions that you would make in terms of the approach that should be taken in order to guarantee the structural

integrity of the tunnel? Not only in the short term, but in the long

term as well?

Mr. MEAD. Well, I, too, have never had any question that the

tunnel is safe, and it has integrity, and it will be safe for travel,

and so forth. But I do think this leak situation, and the magnitude

of it, does need to be resolved. And, yes, I do have a suggestion.

The first thing we need to do is we need to complete all these

inspections, both the slurry walls and the roof wall joints. Then, we

need to have a credible process for deciding how to fix them. You

can already hear in this hearing that there is going to be some controversy about the fix. I think it is incredibly important that the

public perceive that the fix is the right one.

Mr. LYNCH. I just want to—just for the sake of this—follow up

on this question, sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words. Leah,

I don’t know how you turn the lights down a little bit. I just want

to show you, a lot of people have seen the flooding, the water on

the street. But I want to go to Slide B2 if we could. These are pictures of the breach that occurred back on September 15.

I don’t know if you can see that very well. There is sort of a waterfall thing going on there. That is the breach. And, notably, I

wanted to bring your attention to the clock on this. This is midnight, basically, on September 16. This wall breached between 2

and maybe 3 and 5 o’clock I think on the 15th.

So this has been running. This actually burst, let us see, a number of hours, at least—let us see, I am not sure of my timing on

the original breach. I think it was 8 or 9 hours previous to this picture being taken. So this is after the wall panel was taken apart.

Based on what you see here, and I can only imagine what the

actual force of this spout of water out onto the interstate highway,

by the way, which was being used by traffic traveling at, let us just

say, 55 miles an hour. Do you have any sense on the safety aspect

of this, you know, given the fact that now you have had an opportunity to see what the breach actually involved?

Mr. MEAD. Well, obviously, if you had a lot of breaches like that,

you would have a safety problem. I mean, you would need a boat.

But I think there is two walls—there is two panels where we have

defects that are classified as serious, and there is 30 others, 30 odd

others where I think the problem is moderate. It needs to be fixed,

so it doesn’t become serious.

Maybe you would like to speak to that.

Mr. GEE. Yes. You know, on that particular situation, the State

Police shut down the lane, so it wasn’t a danger in terms of traffic

53

flooding. In that particular situation, they had it sectioned off.

There was one lane of traffic that was allowed to pass through.

When the water was emptied, it was restored to full operation.

The other leak that goes all the way through the wall is the size

of a tennis ball. OK? It is no longer leaking. It has actually been

temporarily fixed. All of the other leaks that we have do not—are

indentations or gouges in the wall, and this is a——

Mr. LYNCH. Are inclusions—is that included as well?

Mr. GEE. Excuse me?

Mr. LYNCH. Are there inclusions?

Mr. GEE. Yes.

Mr. LYNCH. Yes.

Mr. GEE. Yes. The foreign material, like dirt or whatever, that

was mixed in——

Mr. LYNCH. That fell into the slurry during construction.

Mr. GEE. Right. And when we poured the concrete, they filled up

the hole. My point is that those other ones don’t go all the way

through. This wall is almost 4 feet thick. So the other moderate defects—also, most of the—if many of the—let us see, I think very

few of these defects, the numbers you—are wet, are actually leaking. These are defects that have foreign material in there, but they

are not leaking water.

The last point I wanted to make is that these—the moderate

ones, as the Inspector General has mentioned, these are defects

that have inclusions that may be more than a foot deep. OK? But

the wall is almost 4 feet. That is why I can say that there is not

a structural integrity problem; it is a quality control issue as was

pointed out.

Mr. MEAD. Now, you know, we have 400 of these panels of

these—that still have to be inspected. And what is very troubling

about this whole matter is that they knew that there was a problem, and it wasn’t fixed. And that this happened so many years

ago, and now there is a second one. Plus, they found these problems with almost 100 panels.

I would hope that this teaches us a lesson that there is something broken in the quality assurance process. And I hope that the

remaining 400, when they get done with those inspections, they

don’t—that it doesn’t turn up other problems.

Mr. LYNCH. I am going to—I know I have taken more than my

time. My concern is this, Mr. Gee, and maybe you can address it

at a later time. These defects are latent, just like the—this was a

latent defect until it burst. These walls are 31⁄2 feet thick. We

shouldn’t have water spouting through a wall 31⁄2 feet thick. We

shouldn’t have a hole the size of a tennis ball through a wall 31⁄2

feet thick.

And in my estimation, we shouldn’t have traces of water filtering

through a concrete wall 31⁄2 feet thick. And the reason it was designed to be 31⁄2 feet thick is we need that. We need that thickness

to retain the soil and the water pressure behind it.

And all I am saying is that these inclusions that are treated so

lightly by many are actually, over the long term, threatening the

structural integrity of those panels, not of the tunnel itself but of

those lateral panels that are holding back the soil.

OK. The last question I have—I know I am over——

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Can I just follow on to that? I will give

you your last question. You said they knew about this. I mean, the

contractor knew about this. Did State or Federal inspectors know

about this, too?

Mr. MEAD. Well, it is not clear—it is——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Or should they have known about it?

Mr. MEAD. Oh, yes, they should have known about it. We also

know, though, sir, that Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, whose job it

was to do quality assurance, knew about it. But they did not require its correction. And the paper trail that we traced down, it

ends at problem identification. And there is no followup documentation that we were able to find.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Why do you think that is?

Mr. MEAD. I don’t——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Is there any possibility of collusion here,

that everybody is just so close here they are losing things?

Mr. MEAD. I think, at best, sloppiness.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. At best.

Mr. MEAD. At best, it is sloppiness.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. It could be collusion.

Mr. MEAD. Yes. And, you know, what the taxpayers want here

is they want a wall panel that meets the specifications that were

originally designed.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So do the drivers.

Mr. MEAD. And that is going to be tough to do now. [Laughter.]

That is right. The drivers that have to go through there.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Lynch, one more question.

Mr. LYNCH. Just one last piece, and we are going to let Mr.

Capuano finally say something. The inspections that we are talking

about here—and I know we have a technical panel coming up behind us—but is this with non-destructive testing? Are we doing

pulse echo? What are we—is this just visual detection of defects,

or are we actually scanning these walls with, you know, pulse echo

or ultrasound or—how are we detecting these panel defects so far?

Mr. GRIBBIN. I am going to volunteer Mr. Gee for that question.

[Laughter.]

Mr. LYNCH. OK. That is a question for—that is called a question

for the next panel.

Mr. GEE. We are doing—all of those are being done now. The initial screening is visual, OK, but when there is a question of a defect, all of the methods that you describe, non-destructive as well

as actual picking away, is the inclusion of the material, the foreign

material is being done, too.

Mr. LYNCH. But it requires some other indication before you do

that, right?

Mr. GEE. Yes.

Mr. LYNCH. So you are not doing that with every single panel in

the tunnel. You are not going through with non-destructive testing,

making sure there is no flaw, no defect or deficiency within the

panel.

55

Mr. GEE. Yes. At this point in time, the inclusions are obvious

in terms of visually seeing those. OK? And if there is a leak, obviously you will see a wet wall.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Capuano.

Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, I am going to ask you precisely the question I said

I was going to. I know that some of you addressed it, but I want

to make sure I hear it again. Based on what you know today, understanding that things can change tomorrow, but based on what

you know today, is the tunnel safe today?

And on the presumption, I would imagine, Mr. Gribbin, I had

heard before that you had suggested a national bridge-like inspection for this tunnel, which will be the first tunnel in America, if

I understand, that would be on such an inspection. And I hope and

presume and will do everything I can to assist you to make sure

that gets enacted.

But on the presumption that ordinary maintenance and everything gets done, which to me that is a presumption, that every

bridge I drive over has ordinary maintenance—on the presumption

that ordinary maintenance gets done, is there any reason to suspect today that these tunnels will be unsafe in the near or distant

future? Mr. Gribbin.

Mr. GRIBBIN. There is no reason to believe that these tunnels

will be unsafe in the near or distant future. We have had a good

number of experts looking at this, and all of them have concluded

the same thing.

Mr. CAPUANO. And that today they are safe to your knowledge?

Mr. GRIBBIN. That is correct.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Gee.

Mr. GEE. Yes. I have nothing to add to that. That is true. That

is my opinion also.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Mead.

Mr. MEAD. Yes. As I said before, the structural integrity of the

tunnel I have no problems with. I think it is safe for the traveling

public. I do think, though, that a very compelling case could be

made that when you consider all the circumstances here that every

one of these wall panels ought to be scanned.

It is going to cost some more money. But given what has happened here, given that picture, given the fact that this was a latent

defect that nobody saw until, I mean, once the thing was built, they

identified the problem, did nothing, I want to make sure that there

is no others out there like that.

So I would go to the expense of scanning every one of the panels

in this tunnel before we put this to bed.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Attorney General.

Mr. REILLY. Congressman, my understanding is that the tunnel

is safe. But there is a bottom line here, and the bottom line is that

there is too much water coming into this tunnel, far more water

than anyone anticipated. We also know that in the winter months

there is more leakage than at other times of the year. And, you

know, the last time I checked, winter comes every year here, and

it comes harsher in some years than others.

Now, with that water in the tunnel, at places it shouldn’t be and

in amounts it shouldn’t be, we have—there is a maintenance probVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:52 Jun 23, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21590.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
56

lem, and in terms of driving conditions, yes, it is not a good situation until we get to the bottom of this, find out what is causing the

leakage, what is causing the water, and correct it.

So is it safe? Yes. But let us get to the bottom of it.

Mr. CAPUANO. But to your knowledge at the moment, the tunnel

is safe, and there is no reason to suspect——

Mr. REILLY. Oh, yes.

Mr. CAPUANO [continuing]. That it won’t be safe for the near future.

Mr. REILLY. What you have heard—and, again, I am not an engineer, but all of the information I have had, it is structurally sound,

it is safe, but there is too much water coming into that tunnel.

Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you. Mr. Inspector General, first of all, I

want to thank you for coming today. I also want to thank you for

the assistance you have given both in this project and other

projects with my office and me personally. And for those of you who

don’t know, the Inspector General is a son of Massachusetts. He is

a proud product of us, and I am very pleased that he is back home

today for a little while.

Mr. Inspector General, in your written report, and I think you

also said in your comments, you had suggested an independent

commission for this, and I had agreed with you. And I just want

to know, in your perfect world, if you were the emperor of the universe tomorrow, right this minute, would you still stand by an

independent commission?

Mr. MEAD. I am very encouraged by the fact that Attorney General Reilly has stepped up the Commonwealth to a place to control.

I ought to say, to begin with, why—we came up with this idea of

the independent commission. Why did we come up with it? Well,

I am not a real good student maybe of Massachusetts politics.

But I did—I could see that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which is—has this huge project and isn’t part of your State Department of Transportation. First of all, that was kind of unusual.

And the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority had a cost recovery effort set up inside itself, and I thought that was kind of strange because the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority itself may have been

some—may bear some of the responsibility for the problems here.

In addition, their consultant, their partner, was the one that the

cost recovery effort, or a large part of it, was directed against. We

came up with the idea of the commission, sir, because it seemed

to us that it needed to be defanged of politics. And it was our idea

that, if you had a commission that was bipartisan, they could work

with the attorney general, who is endowed with these enforcement

powers, and proceed.

The decision was made that the attorney general, who has the

legal authority, who has the skill set in his office—and we wish

him well. I support the effort. We will continue to coordinate. And

we were just trying to break a log jam by pushing the independent

commission.

That is a long-winded way of saying I am not wedded to the idea

of an independent commission.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Inspector General, I am a student of Massachusetts politics. [Laughter.]

57

And I supported, and I still support, the concept of an independent commission. But I want to make it clear, it is not because of

a lack of confidence in the attorney general or his office. I think

they do a great job of everything that I am aware that they do. I

think they will do a good job on this.

My concern is the future. Everybody in this room knows the attorney general is more than likely to run for Governor, and I wish

him well. And everybody in this room knows that I thought about

running for Governor and decided that Washington needs me more.

[Laughter.]

So I don’t—I am not trying to hide anything here, and I am not

trying to play footsies about it. My concern is in a couple of

months, or a year, or 2 years, whenever the attorney general’s office comes up with whatever findings they have on any of these

issues, it is going to be the middle of a gubernatorial campaign.

At this very moment, I myself am personally aware of only—I

haven’t done a whole full-blown research—two news articles already where the Governor himself or his people have already attacked the attorney general and his process when the attorney general hasn’t done anything yet except begin the process. He has already been attacked on political—my opinion, politically motivated

purposes.

And my concern is exactly what you repeat throughout your entire testimony, your written testimony, is the main aspect here is

to restore public confidence. And as a student of Massachusetts,

and probably international politics, when politics is involved—and

I am a politician, there is a place and time for it—public confidence

goes out the door.

And when the time comes, if the attorney general does everything perfectly correctly, and comes up with the perfect answer, no

matter what he comes up with, it is going to be subject to political

second-guessing and headline-grabbing. So, for me, I still support

the independent commission, because I want politics out of this

once and for all.

Mr. MEAD. Yes. I did think also—and I didn’t say this in my response—another thought that went through our minds on the independent commission is what happens if it turns out that cost recovery is not possible, given some of the factors that Chairman Davis

alluded to.

An independent commission, in our heads at the time, the—that

would have taken—it would have made it so that the expectations

of success wouldn’t have carried a political implication if it was bipartisan. And I still think it is a very hard road on cost recovery.

And you’ve waited many, many years on some of the claims that

are—Mr. Reilly is going to be pursuing here.

And that is going to be a very hard road to tow. That is why I

say, Mr. Reilly, I wish him well. [Laughter.]

Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you. I see that my time is up. Thank you

very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. Well, I am not a student of

Massachusetts politics, but I won my first election here to the

Freshman Council at Amherst College. I was elected that, and then

I was elected president of the Young Republicans and that ended

my career in politics in Massachusetts. [Laughter.]

58

Mr. CAPUANO. You should have stayed. You could have been Governor. [Laughter.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I hope everybody works together on this,

regardless. Mr. Reilly, I am sure you will work with the Governor’s

office. I mean, this is—this really rises above politics at this point.

There has been—so many bad things have happened to this, whatever our views, we just need to pull together.

But let me ask you this. Your MOU with the Turnpike Authority

ends in 2006, is that right?

Mr. REILLY. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And this is all not likely to be finished by

that time. Obviously, you want to tie up as many loose ends as you

can. What is the strategy to tying up the loose ends after that?

Just to renew it?

Mr. REILLY. That is the end of my term, and I did not feel that

it was appropriate to bind anyone else. I have accepted this responsibility. Someone else would decline it, and I understand that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And obviously you would love to wrap it

up, but I doubt it. You know, if it happens, then—you don’t think

there will be a problem in renewing, though, do you, with whoever

your successor is?

Mr. REILLY. No, I don’t. But I should tell you what our strategy

is, and we have shared it with everyone. The termination of the

leaks and how we go about this and who pays for it and who has

responsibility in finding a solution is going to go a long way.

We have indicated that if we get by that point, we are willing

to enter into negotiation for a global settlement for all of the cost

recovery efforts, if we get beyond that. If we do not, the likelihood

would be litigation, which would be costly and very time-consuming. So, you know, I am not ruling out that these matters can be

resolved.

The reason we stepped up here is I think you need, I think the

American people need, the taxpayers need Massachusetts’ decisions. A decision in an office and someone that is willing to accept

responsibility for those decisions, and then what will come will

come, and we will accept that. But that is what we are trying to

be about.

We are trying to get into a point where we can make decisions,

good decisions, fact-based decisions. And I agree with you that this

is beyond politics. This is far beyond and far too important for politics. It involves the future of this State in terms of not just the immediate project but other projects that are coming down the road.

I take that responsibility very seriously.

We will work in a bipartisan fashion, both the Federal and State

officials, and with the Governor’s office. You want results, and we

are going to try to give you those results. And then people can

measure them at the end.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Sure. Let me ask another question. The

individuals who approved the payments—I think, Mr. Mead, we

talked about how close everybody was up here. The contractors

were close to the people that were overseeing it, and how really

outside the box—how unusual it is for people to just approve these

change orders and not really get resolved who was to blame and

what was within the scope of work, and that kind of thing.

59

We don’t know yet if there is evidence of collusion. But is it possible, as we look back at these payments that were approved, is—

if we find evidence of collusion or somebody acting in an ultravirus

way of approving things they shouldn’t have and money went out

the door, that individuals could be held responsible who were in basically the State or Federal lines of authority?

Mr. MEAD. Yes. This project has been remarkably scandal-free

from the standpoint of hard evidence of criminal activity at least

to date. I think that this project, when it started, a lot of hard

questions that should not—should have been asked were not asked.

A lot of change orders were approved, that had the project been

properly scoped to begin with, I don’t think they would have—I

don’t think they would have occurred.

I don’t think the jury is in yet on whether—the extent of—that

we might find malfeasance on this project. You know, the tail on

this project of claims was—I mentioned the $400 million. That is

going to take some time to resolve, long after the project is complete.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I understand. General Reilly, would you

agree? As you look at some of these—some of the approvals that

were given early on for these change orders, you are going to be

looking behind it. Are you going to be looking for evidence that

maybe people were—I don’t want to say on the take, but the closeness of the people involved in this, is that going to be a factor as

you look at this?

Mr. REILLY. Obviously, it will be a factor. But you have to bear

in mind the very structure of this project, the way it was organized,

integrated project management encouraged that type of——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Collegial.

Mr. REILLY. Now, people did not think this thing through when

they set up this structure, because now we are at the point where

we are allocating and determining accountability and responsibility, and that is very difficult under the organizational setup. And

if there are lessons to be learned, that is one of them. I am not sure

you want to do this again on a project of——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Right.

Mr. REILLY [continuing]. Of this magnitude. But, again, this is

one of the things that we will have to deal with, but that is a lesson that should be learned.

And the last thing, in terms of some of the liability limitations,

in terms of capping that, the insurance situation in terms of the

amount of insurance for a project of this magnitude, it is totally unacceptable. And we will be speaking to that down the road, and I

am sure you are aware of it and you will want further briefings.

But there are a lot of lessons to be learned.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Was that partly Federal responsibility,

the fact that the insurance levels, the bonding was so low?

Mr. REILLY. Well, I think on both—you know, it is a shared responsibility.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

Mr. REILLY. But there are insurance problems in terms of the amount; $50 million obviously is not sufficient. There is a gap in

that because of the failure of Reliant. That is a problem. There are

a lot of problems, but they need to be dealt with.

60

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I understand.

Mr. REILLY. And we are going to try to do it.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. MEAD. And, you know, you asked about—this is not—this is

not something I would characterize as collusion. I know you would

be interested in this point. This project had an insurance program

where they would bill the Federal Government for premiums, and

it is an allowable expense under the Federal law to pay the premiums, a certain percentage of them.

It turned out that after we were billed that the insurance company would notify the project that the premium for the period that

we had paid for was not as high as had been billed. That they

had—and that was an annual review they would do of the claims

experience and they said, ‘‘So the premium isn’t as high.’’

And an arrangement was in place on this project where those

premiums were retained and put in a trust account where they accrued interest. And the Federal Government was not aware of this

particular arrangement.

In effect, I think they had an insurance program in place here

where we were paying premiums for insurance billings, and we

should have been refunded a great deal of the money that was kept

in a trust account. That wasn’t evidence of collusion, but I think

it was evidence of an impropriety.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Yes. I am sure the attorney general will

look at that, among other things. Is that——

Mr. REILLY. We will take whatever information that is——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

Mr. REILLY [continuing]. That we have, and then call it as we see

it at the end.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. My last question—Mr. Gee, with the

number of leaks and the type of leaks in a tunnel, with the engineering issues of this complexity, is it about normal? Is it more

leaks than normal? Is it fewer leaks? I mean, how would you take

a look at how it is complied from an engineering perspective and

the construction basis, with what would be expected? I am not talking about the cost overruns. I am just talking about the performance.

Mr. GEE. Well, I guess that answered two parts. As we talked

about—the picture you saw here, we would not expect that to happen. That is clearly a problem, and that was a—I would characterize that as a construction defect.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is a good answer, yes.

Mr. GEE. A latent defect. [Laughter.]

But we do expect some type of water to get in. When you build

tunnels underwater, that is expected. The concern we would have

in the long term is that water doesn’t lie there and corrode the

steel. That is when it becomes a problem.

Through our research, we have indicated—and we use as a gauge

about 1 gallon per minute per thousand feet of tunnel as a rough

estimate of the amount of water that we would expect that

wouldn’t be a problem. But even that amount could be a problem

if it is left to corrode the steel. OK? So it is not actually the number

of leaks, but the amount of water that could penetrate the tunnel

and sit and allow it to corrode the steel. That would be a concern.

61

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And what you are saying is today—you

think after you are through with everything you are going to probably render a decision that the tunnel is safe. But we don’t want

to be back here in 10 years looking at a $5 billion repair bill because of things that have corroded and——

Mr. GEE. No. We would expect through a maintenance and inspection program that any water that does come through would be

a minimal amount and would not cause any problems, corrosionwise or safety-wise.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What are the maintenance costs for the

tunnel? Do you have any idea?

Mr. GEE. No. I really do not. That would be something that I

think the next panel, the Turnpike Authority——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

Mr. GEE [continuing]. Would be able to answer.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. Just a followup, Mr. Gee. You said that you thought

that this tunnel was placed under the National Bridge Inspection

Program. Is it, or isn’t it? I was told that it was earlier, but——

Mr. GEE. No. What I—excuse me if I state something incorrectly,

or misstate. We are proposing to institute a tunnel inspection program similar to our National Bridge Inspection Program.

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. GEE. The bridges on this project are subject to the bridge inspection program.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. Right. But you were going to include the

tunnel——

Mr. GEE. Right.

Mr. LYNCH [continuing]. Which is not necessarily required, but

under the circumstances is a good idea?

Mr. GEE. Right. Actually, the Turnpike Authority has been

proactive in helping us design such a program, because of the complexity of this project and the scale of the project.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Thank you. Attorney General Reilly, can you

give us a snapshot on—I understand this is ongoing litigation, so

you can’t really—I wouldn’t want you to disclose anything that

might undermine your negotiating position with respect to cost recovery cases that you took over from Judge Ginsburg.

And I understand that for the first 8 years of this project—there

was a cost recovery program instituted in 1994. And up until 2002,

it had recovered a total of $35,000, is that what we are saying?

$35,000?

Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir.

Mr. LYNCH. And we are at about—it was about——

Mr. MEAD. I was $5,000 off before. Let me correct the record. It

was $35,000 not $30,000.

Mr. LYNCH. All right. And we are up to—on a project at that

point that was $10.8 billion. So we had recovered $35,000.

And then, Judge Ginsburg came in under the directorship of Mr.

Amorello. Now you are taking the cases that were begun by the

Judge, and also you are handling any other aspect of recovery that

we might hope to succeed in.

Mr. MEAD. Yes, sir.

62

Mr. LYNCH. All right. Can you give us a—without, again, divulging any sensitive information regarding the liability of certain lawsuits, could you give us a snapshot of where we are today?

Mr. REILLY. Yes. One lawsuit has been stayed that had to do

with financial management. That lawsuit has been stayed.

Mr. LYNCH. Stayed on your part.

Mr. REILLY. Stayed on our part.

Mr. LYNCH. In other words, you made a determination that it

was not viable and you pulled back.

Mr. REILLY. No. We made a determination to hold on that case

to see where the overall effort goes.

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. REILLY. There are other—some eight section design lawsuits

that are in effect. Those are going forward. I think the first one is

scheduled for trial later this year, but they will proceed on a regular basis.

The strategy here is that we will either come to some resolution

on the leak situation, both short term and long term, and allocate

a dollar figure to that we believe is fair to both the Federal Government and the State government and the taxpayers, or this is headed for litigation, all of it, including the potential for additional lawsuits.

But we are—we believe it is in everyone’s interest to resolve this

matter if we can, but with no expense to any taxpayers and to recover as much money as we can. What that time table will be, I

can’t promise you that, but——

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. REILLY [continuing]. We would set a date on that, except

that we are—we are proceeding with the leaks as No. 1. No. 2, we

are setting up a structure for a global negotiation, if we get beyond

this point. If it goes that way, it will go that way. If it doesn’t, it

is headed for litigation that will be very costly, and it will be long

term.

Mr. LYNCH. All right. Well, that is in your hands, and it would

be overreaching on my part to suggest how you might do it. But

as an editorial comment, I would just like to say that settlement,

if it were to occur, or the litigation were to occur, would depend

greatly on the assessment of real damages within the tunnel and

how much water we have in there and the prospective maintenance

costs that we—the delta between what we should have had with

the tunnel as it was advertised and what we end up with at the

end of the day. That should be a factor in those settlements.

And all I am saying is that there is a pretty good audit going on

right now, and I would just—my own—and, again, I don’t want to

influence you, but I would not enter into any negotiations with

these folks until we get all of that information.

And, you know, based on what I have seen so far and the lack

of willingness to negotiate in good faith, I would just say, you hang

tough, and we are with you. And we realize that you didn’t have

to take on this case, and that you did it out of a spirit of good government and protecting the taxpayer.

I have a bad feeling about this. I think that the numbers that

we are seeing here for—you know, just counting heads down in

that tunnel, the number of people that are fixing those—that are

63

plugging those holes, and the number of leaks we have, and it

didn’t get any better this summer than it did last winter, I just

think we have a whale of a problem down there.

And I would just not want to settle short and then end up with

a huge bill later on behalf of the—you know, the taxpayers of the

Commonwealth.

Mr. REILLY. I am in total agreement with you, Congressman.

There will be no settlement, and there will be no detailed negotiations until we get the information that we need to make an assessment whether the problem has been fixed, to what extent it has

been fixed, whether there are long-term maintenance, and what is

that going to cost. And until we get to that point, we are not going

far.

We expect them to do the job that they were paid to do. And

until they do that—there is an old saying, if you broke it, fix it.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. REILLY. Fix it, and step up and take responsibility for it, and

pay for what you broke. And then we will move on. If we don’t get

to that point, then there will be no negotiations.

Mr. MEAD. Congressman Lynch, I would just like to

supplement——

Mr. LYNCH. Sure.

Mr. MEAD [continuing]. Or amplify on something you said. In my

statement, you will notice that we stress some cautionary notes

about running to the bank with a $17 million estimate. I think that

when we first started hearing about——

Mr. LYNCH. Now, let us—just for clarity, the $17 million is regarding leak——

Mr. MEAD. There was an earlier——

Mr. LYNCH [continuing]. Patching or waterproofing, right?

Mr. MEAD. Yes. And patching and—the early estimates were that, well, $7 million had been paid to fix leaks, and another—

there might be another $10 million out there. And our testimony

deliberately expresses some cautionary notes on taking that figure

and running with it, and that is because, as you know, we have

been working with the Artery and the Governor’s office and the

Federal Highway Administration to have Deloitte & Touche do an

audit of the costs. They are reporting in mid-May.

Now, I think a lot of people with these leaks—their frame of reference is somehow the month of September in 2004. But if we all

remember, in 1997, the Artery set up a task force called the Waterproofing Task Force. There was a reason they did that in 1997. By

the year 2000, that task force was called—there was a new task

force, and this one was called the Leak Task Force.

So we started out with a waterproofing one in 1997; in 2000/

2001, we had a leak task force. So the costs associated with this—

the cautionary note I am raising here go back longer in time than

we had initially thought.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. And, you know, I noted that in my notes, that

in the reports we are reading at some point in time—and I am not

sure what precipitated that—but the Waterproofing Task Force became the Leak Task Force. And, you know, it begs the question.

One thing I wanted to ask both of you, it seems that in this longterm construction schedule—and this goes back—this is about 16

64

years that it spanned where we have had people actually on the

site on this project. It was always my understanding that, well, on

the average project, usually the completion of the job triggered the

statute of limitations.

But I understand, now that you are explaining it to me, that

phases of this contract were completed years ago, and that the statute of limitations was too old on some of these—some of the aspects

of this.

It would make sense, don’t you think, for Congress to have a special statute of limitations for work performed on long-term construction projects like this? Say, that they would go on beyond 8

years or 7 years, or some longer period of time that would not be

properly addressed by the normal statute of limitations under contract law.

Mr. REILLY. A couple of things on the State side, and it certainly

is worth looking at on the Federal side. The State statute of limitations has been extended for this project. We expect that to be contested, and that is—that will be an issue. But, you know, this business should have been taken care of, and we are all dealing with

something very late in the game.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. REILLY. And we shouldn’t have to deal with the situation we

are dealing with. But the State—on the State level, there is a State

law that extended the statute of limitations to allow us to proceed.

Mr. LYNCH. All right.

Mr. MEAD. I would have to get back to you on the statute of limitations. But what was fundamentally wrong here is their closeness.

Any project of this size—in fact, even smaller projects—there ought

to be an independent part of the project that is watching.

What you had here is you had a partnership between Bechtel/

Parsons Brinckerhoff and the Artery management. And now the

Commonwealth is trying to get recovery against Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff, who has been partners all these years with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

So I think that you needed to have more checkers in place from

the beginning on all these change orders that we are now going

back and saying, ‘‘Well, should we have paid these or not?’’ You

should have had an apparatus in place then.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. MEAD. That is a lesson learned. I don’t want to keep coming

back to the Wilson Bridge, but that is one of the things that the

Wilson Bridge started doing right from day one. Well, not exactly

from day one, but shortly after it got underway. And I know it

costs the taxpayers a little bit of money to have some auditors

around, but I think at the end of the day we will be very happy

that we did so.

Mr. LYNCH. I agree. This integrated project organization, the

IPO, that is sort of the source of a lot of problems that we are looking at today, under that—based on previous testimony in some of

the pre-conference—prehearing conferences, it was Bechtel’s responsibility to report to the Turnpike Authority.

But since they were so close that in many ways that reporting

was internal, because their organizations were blended. And there

was no reporting to an independent—as you describe, an independVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:52 Jun 23, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21590.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
65

ent agent on behalf of the taxpayer. And I was mystified that there

is no requirement that there be an independent agent there that

gets reports on a monthly or biweekly basis, so that they can track

the project on behalf of the taxpayer, because that is who is ultimately paying the bill here.

And I am just wondering if there is any office or any structure

that you are aware of that would allow us to provide that parallel

reporting requirement, so that it is not all in-house. Either of you

gentlemen.

Mr. MEAD. Well, no, I am not aware of an explicit such arrangement. I think perhaps there ought to be one. You do have the Federal Highway Administration.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. MEAD. These people are getting taxpayer dollars. I mean,

they are getting a lot of money from the Federal Government, and

I don’t think it is inappropriate to establish some reporting line.

And you can go back in history on this project, and Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff knew and did go and brief the head of the Central Artery about where the costs were headed on this project.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. MEAD. And it sure would have been nice in—with the 20/20

hindsight we have today, if Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff had come

to my office at that time, or come to the Federal Highway Administration and said, ‘‘This project is headed north to the neighborhood

of $13 or $14 billion.’’

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. MEAD. But that did not happen.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Well, that is maybe something we can address

in the regs with the Federal Highway Administration.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. Mr. Capuano.

Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, I would like to just pursue—I mean, one of the—I am

not an engineer, and I know that the next panel is supposed to be

a little bit more technically oriented, except for Mr. Gee. But nonetheless, the engineering parts are one thing, and that is what the

attorney general is going to do over the next several months or

years, try and determine who is responsible for what engineering

issues.

In the final analysis, though, let us assume that you find somebody is responsible for something. There has to be money on the

table, and there has to be money to get. And in my limited experience, there is two places to go. No. 1 is holdbacks, money that was

not paid to the contractors pending whatever negotiations you

have. And No. 2 is to the surety bonds, which every major contract

is supposed to have. I don’t know if it is a regulation, but it certainly should have, never mind whether it is required or not.

And I guess I have a couple of questions, and my guess is that

they would be addressed both to Mr. Mead and Mr. Reilly, most

importantly. Are you satisfied now that either there are enough

holdbacks on this general project to address, if not every dollar, you

know, the bulk of the—well, and I know that some of these—much

of these costs haven’t been estimated. But are you comfortable with

the percentages?

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As I understand it right now, the Federal Government is just holding I think it is $81 million. That is 1 percent of the Federal

dollars. So, in my mind, I mean, my uneducated mind, that is not

enough. But it is what we have.

And as I understand it—and, again, I would like to be corrected,

I am not the insurance expert. But as I understand it—and I think,

Mr. Attorney General, you just mentioned it, that Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff only has $50 million, with $10 million not even necessarily there, probably more like $40 million worth of insurance

on this issue.

And Modern Continental, which, first of all, doesn’t exist anymore, but the company that has taken them over, I guess as I understand it, picked up their insurance, which is $252 million, but

that $252 million, as I understand it, may be subject to claims on

Route 3, may be subject to claims in a Long Island project that

may take up the whole thing, and probably other projects that

Modern Continental is involved in.

And I guess, No. 1, are you satisfied that the numbers of dollars

that are available to settle these issues are there? And, No. 2, are

you looking at both the surety bonds, the other contractors, not just

Modern—that is the big one at the moment—the subcontractors,

the manufacturers—I mean, we have items that were manufactured, both roofing materials that may or may not come under

scrutiny, some of the computer and some of the software issues and

some of the intelligent transportation issues, etc.

And I guess for me, are you satisfied at the moment that the

money is there on the table? Subject to debate and liability and

lawsuits and negotiations, is it there for us to get?

Mr. REILLY. I can’t say that at this point. I can tell you right now

there are serious questions on the insurance, on the amount of insurance, and there is a gap in that insurance because of the failure

of Reliant. And that is a problem.

In terms of what money will be available from what source, we

are currently exploring that. But I can’t represent to you right now

that there is enough money that we are going—there is money that

is being withheld by the project. Whether or not that will be—that

will be enough in total to resolve these claims, I can’t tell you that

right now. I can tell you that we are looking at every source and

every potential source.

And as I said, and as—there are bottom lines in all of this, and,

yes, there are problems with the setup and the IPO and all of that.

But we feel, and we feel very strongly, that the ultimate responsibility here lies with Bechtel. And we intend to hold Bechtel accountable, and they have represented to the public that they are

willing to accept responsibility for what they did, and let us see.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Will the gentleman yield? And I guess the

question is that if the bond money isn’t there, or if the money

hasn’t been held back, you can sue them directly, correct?

Mr. REILLY. Pardon?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You could sue them directly and ask for

the money back.

Mr. REILLY. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You always have that option.

Mr. REILLY. Yes. Yes.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. And, of course, GSA or Federal Highways

or anybody else always has the threat of debarment. There are a

lot of—depending what you find, there are a lot of ways to get the

money. It is not as easy as if we had the bond, as I think Mr.

Capuano indicated. If you had the bond, or you were holding money

back, it is a lot easier. But——

Mr. REILLY. It is a lot easier.

Mr. DAVIS [continuing]. We are not without having some remedies here.

Mr. REILLY. We have some remedies, and I believe very strongly

that it is——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Good question, though.

Mr. REILLY [continuing]. In everyone’s best interest to step up

here and accept responsibility for what they did and pay for what

needs to take place in terms of fixing this problem. I believe that,

and we will see. They made those representations; we will see.

Mr. MEAD. I concur with the attorney general. There is a thing

called a retainage, that the Artery does have some retainage accounts for some of these contractors. Like Modern Continental,

there is a retainage account. My recollection is that there is $15

or $20 million in it. But that probably—I don’t know how sufficient

that is going to be.

I do not believe in the case of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff that

there is a retainage account. But the chairman is right; I mean,

there is any number of different avenues for getting the money.

The $81 million is what the feds owe the Commonwealth. You

know, it is just money that is owed the Commonwealth. And by

law, it will go to the Commonwealth when they get their finance

plan in order, which I hope is soon.

Mr. CAPUANO. I hope so as well. I understand that there are

other routes to take, but we all know that those routes get more

difficult, particularly when you are dealing with the largest general

contractor, the one with the most questions, at the moment is

bankrupt.

And you are going to have to get in line, unless—I can’t imagine

we have a priority here somewhere that I am—and, again, I am not

an expert in any of these things, but I am not aware that we would

have any priority ahead of any other debtor or claimant against

Modern Continental.

And if they are gone, that is my biggest concern. I mean, that

is why I asked about subcontractors and other contractors, especially, as I understand it, this particular—the major breach that we

are talking about, the one that everybody likes to show on TV, that

was Modern Continental.

I understand they were the largest contractor on the project, and

that is why—that is the main reason I asked the question is because, with them bankrupt, that adds a whole other layer of serious questions as to whether we will ever get the money, never

mind the judgments.

Yes, Mr. Gee.

Mr. GEE. The only thing I would add is that on each contract

they have a surety bond. So if they default on one, it might not affect the Route 3, because they have a separate bond on Route 3.

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Mr. CAPUANO. I understand. I guess maybe I wasn’t clear, but

one of my concerns is, for the sake of discussion—again, I am no

expert, but it just strikes me that a $50 million—well, it is not a

surety bond, but a de facto surety bond, on Bechtel/Parsons is pretty small for a company that made—correct me if I am wrong—in

the $2 billion range, which, fine, if the project works, maybe they

are entitled to $2 billion.

But if you have $2 billion—I know that if a guy were building me a $2 billion house, I would want a little bit higher insurance

rate than $50 million. And if that is all that is there, to me it is

not whether they have it or not, it is how much.

And I understand that the attorney general would be the one

hopefully that will pursue our interest to determine how much is

ours. But if he gets a settlement for—pick a number, $100 million—if it is there in the surety, we don’t have to go through the

next rigmarole of trying to sue the individual company that may

or may not have bank accounts. Who knows whether they are in

Switzerland. I don’t know any of those things.

But we all know that if it is in a surety, it is a lot easier. And

I know I, for one, am tired of this whole dance, and we all want

it over. And when it gets time to get it over, I don’t want to have

to go through another 10 years of chasing the money. But I guess

we are where we are, and that is why I wanted to ask those questions.

Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Very good questions. Thank you all very

much. I think this has been very illuminating for us.

Mr. LYNCH. May I ask one last question?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Mr. Lynch wants the final question.

Mr. LYNCH. You know, it just kind of stuck in my head, you were

describing—Inspector General Mead, you were describing this

transaction where the Authority was overcharged for insurance,

and they got a rebate back. They got the money from the Federal

Government, right?

Mr. MEAD. I was——

Mr. LYNCH. Paid their insurance.

Mr. MEAD. Yes. The government——

Mr. LYNCH. Then, the insurance company says to them, ‘‘You

overpaid. Here is a chunk of money back.’’ I don’t know how much

money that was. They put it in a trust account, and then you never

said what they did with the money in the trust account.

Mr. MEAD. Right. In fact, they had this accounting technique—

I think it is an accounting gimmick—where the actual cost of the

Artery, say just hypothetically, was known to be $10 billion. But

if there was $800,000 of interest in this account, they would deduct

the $800,000 and say, ‘‘Well, the project is only really costing $9.2

million instead of $10 million.’’

Mr. LYNCH. So it was a setoff. They are using it that way anyway.

Mr. MEAD. Yes. I mean, and later on, as I think Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff notes in its testimony, they had to make an accounting adjustment where they had to reflect the fact that all of this

money had accrued in this insurance trust.

Mr. LYNCH. Any idea how much money we are talking here?

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Mr. MEAD. It might have been in the neighborhood of close to

$800,000 or $900,000—$800 or $900 million.

Mr. LYNCH. $800 or $900 million?

Mr. MEAD. It might have been in that neighborhood.

Mr. LYNCH. You guys want to confer on that?

Mr. MEAD. It is not there now.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. No, no.

Mr. MEAD. I mean, they fixed it.

Mr. LYNCH. But——

Mr. MEAD. But I do think that it resulted in a fairly large accounting adjustment to reflect the change in the cost of the Artery—it might have been in the neighborhood—my recollection is

it was around $1 billion.

Mr. LYNCH. Around $1 billion.

OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, this panel, very much. It has

been very illuminating for the committee, and I appreciate your

time. We will take a 2-minute recess as we move to our next panel.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We have Chairman Matthew Amorello,

who is the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, the entity charged

with overseeing the Big Dig. Thank you very much for being with

us. We have John MacDonald, chairman of the Board of Control for

Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the management consultant for the

project.

Mr. MacDonald, you are accompanied, I understand here, by Mr.

Morris Levy, the senior vice president at Parsons Brinckerhoff, and

Keith Sibley, the program manager for the project. Thank you all

for being with us.

And we also have Mr. George Tamaro, who is a partner at

Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers, and a former engineering

consultant for the Big Dig. Mr. Tamaro’s extensive experience in

slurry wall technology and major infrastructure projects provides

valuable insight to this committee’s oversight efforts.

It is our policy we swear everybody in before you testify. If you

would rise with me, raise your right hands.

Let me just identify the people in the back row who may be

called on, so we can get your names on the record.

Mr. SWANSON. Mike Swanson, chief of operations and chief engineer for the Turnpike Authority.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. LEWIS. Michael Lewis, project director for the CA/T project.

Ms. BREEN. Marie Breen, CA/T chief counsel.

Mr. WILEY. Matt Wiley, former program manager.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. Tony Lancellotti, former engineering manager.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Thank you all for being with us. Now

I am going to swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Amorello, we will start with you. You have a key role in this.

If you need to take more than 5 minutes, we certainly understand.

But your entire testimony is in the record.

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STATEMENTS OF MATTHEW J. AMORELLO, CHAIRMAN, MASSACHUSETTS TURNPIKE AUTHORITY; JOHN MacDONALD,

CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF CONTROL, BECHTEL/PARSONS

BRINCKERHOFF, ACCOMPANIED BY MORRIS LEVY, SENIOR

VICE PRESIDENT, PARSONS BRINCKERHOFF, INC., AND

KEITH S. SIBLEY, P.E., PROGRAM MANAGER, CENTRAL ARTERY/TUNNEL PROJECT, BECHTEL/PARSONS

BRINCKERHOFF; AND GEORGE J. TAMARO, PARTNER,

MUESER RUTLEDGE CONSULTING ENGINEERS

STATEMENT OF MATTHEW J. AMORELLO

Mr. AMORELLO. That is great, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I have a brief opening statement. I would like to

read it into the record.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That would be great. Thanks for being

with us.

Mr. AMORELLO. Mr. Chairman, welcome to Massachusetts. Welcome home to Congressman Lynch and Congressman Capuano.

My name is Matthew Amorello, and I am the chairman of the

Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. I welcome this opportunity to

appear before you to discuss the current management of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project and the steps we are taking to ensure

that this project fulfills its promise to the citizens, taxpayers, and

tollpayers of this region and the Nation.

My mission upon taking office a little over 3 years ago was challenging, and I come here before you today to say that I believe we

have met those challenges and continue to meet them on a daily

basis. My first mission was to bring order and stability to a demoralized and chaotic Turnpike Authority.

We have done that, and today’s Turnpike Authority is a well-organized, efficient, and highly motivated public authority focused on

delivering quality service to the people of Massachusetts in a costeffective manner. In fact, Moody’s Investor Service has said that

the turnpike ‘‘Board has shown strong commitment to rebuilding

the Authority’s financial position.’’

My second mission was to maintain the costs of this project and

restore credibility to our financial management of the Big Dig.

Again, I am pleased to report that we have accomplished these

goals. This project, like all public projects, must be conducted in a

transparent and forthcoming manner. I have made every effort

since becoming chairman to ensure that our Federal and State

partners and overseers have received all of the information they

need, when they need it, in order to do their jobs effectively.

The project’s budget today is exactly the same as it was when I

took office—$14.625 billion. I think it might be useful to briefly review where and how these funds were spent. Approximately $6 billion was for the extension of the I–90 interstate, including the Ted

Williams Tunnel and Four-Point Channel Tunnel, which now connect the Massachusetts Turnpike directly to Logan Airport and

points north, diverting traffic away from downtown Boston. This

part of the project has dramatically cut drive times to Logan and

decreased traffic in the central corridor.

Approximately $8 billion has been spent building the new tunnel

and ramps from Charlestown and Interstate 93 to the Tobin Bridge

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and Route 1, the Zacamb Bridge, and the ramps connecting

Sturrow Drive and Interstate 93, and, of course, the construction

of the I–93 tunnels, which are still being completed beneath the

city.

This project has expanded capacity and eliminated a dangerous

choke point for the motorists traveling through the city. It is expected to reduce carbon monoxide levels in the metropolitan Boston

area by 12 percent, and has removed the elevated highway which

for 50 years separated the city’s financial and historic centers from

its waterfront and several of its neighborhoods.

In addition to holding the budget, we have taken several initiatives to protect this public investment, including the first meaningful effort in the history of the project to recover costs for design errors and omissions.

My third mission was to ensure that the project did not lose sight

of its primary objective—to replace the old, ineffective highway network, which threatened to destroy mobility and economic growth in

the city and region, with a modern, safe, and efficient interstate

highway system for those who live, work, or visit New England.

I am pleased to report that we have opened almost every major

component of this project to the public, who are now enjoying the

benefits of this important investment. In 2003, we met three major

milestones that marked the turning point toward completion of this

project—the opening of the extension of Interstate 90, the opening

of the Interstate 93 northbound and southbound tunnels. The entire project will reach substantial completion this fall.

I note these achievements, because I understand this project is

often in the news, and the news, as reported, is not very encouraging. It is sometimes easy to forget all of the positive steps we have

taken over the past 3 years.

The significant strides that have been made to set this project

back on track, to keep faith with our Federal and State stakeholders, and to deliver on the promise of an urban interstate highway

system, that when completed will be one of the marvels of this Nation’s long and sustained effort that began with President Eisenhower over half a century ago, creating a national highway network second to none in the world.

As you came to this chamber today, you no doubt noticed that

the old elevated highway is gone. It is being replaced by the Rose

Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway—a magnificent public amenity

above ground and a modern, efficient interstate highway underground.

Let me now address two specific areas that are in the forefront

of our current project oversight efforts. The first area concerns the

issue related to leaks in the tunnels. The second concerns our efforts to establish a meaningful program for cost recovery.

With respect to the issue of tunnel leaks, the first thing I need

to emphasize is that the tunnels are operating well, and, Congressman Capuano, they are safe. Earlier this month we received a report from the Federal Highway Administration as part of that

agency’s independent and ongoing oversight of the project. Federal

Highway affirmed what I have been consistently saying; the tunnels are safe and structurally sound.

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Slurry wall breach that occurred last September was an unacceptable result of poor workmanship and failed project oversight.

The responsible parties are being held accountable by the Turnpike

Authority, and they are undertaking to repair the slurry wall in an

appropriate manner. After the September breach, I ordered an inspection of each of the 2,000 slurry wall panels in the I–93 tunnels,

and I initiated a weekly update on the inspections and the identified defects in order to keep the public and our overseers informed.

This thorough investigation of the entire slurry wall system was

undertaken to ensure that any additional defects are identified and

corrected. At our insistence, each contractor to date has taken responsibility for identified defects, and is correcting those defects at

their own expense.

The FHWA report notes the differences between slurry wall defects and the various low-level leaks that are largely attributable

to the fact that this project is not yet complete. Federal Highways’

report states, ‘‘The project is adequately addressing the tunnel

leaks. We have confidence in the plan that is being followed by the

Turnpike Authority and project staff, and we can expect that the

work will be completed as offered by the Massachusetts Turnpike

Authority.’’

Based on some media reports, public perception has been that

the low-level leaks at the roof wall joints were ‘‘discovered’’ after

the September 15 breach. This is false and has unfortunately confused two very different issues. On the evening news in the Boston

area, we routinely see video of the September 15 slurry wall breach

and hear talk of hundreds of leaks, leaving the impression that

there were hundreds of issues like the breach, which is not true.

As I have said, the two breaches and more minor slurry wall defects are absolutely unacceptable, and the contractors must fix

them at their own expense. With respect to low-level leaks, they

are part of an ongoing construction, and contractors have been

sealing them, doing injection grouting for some 4 years.

The FHWA report’s first finding states that chronic low-level

leaks were noted and expected to some degree due to the depth of

the tunnel, and the sealing of all leaks is expected to be completed

later this year.

I want each of you to be assured that I have insisted that project

staff and consultants spare no effort to ensure that all water infiltration issues are identified and resolved to my satisfaction and the

satisfaction of the Federal Highway Administration as promptly as

possible. We are insisting upon a high level of attention to detail

and quality control, as expected by FHWA, in the resolution of

these issues. And we will continue to be completely transparent

with the public and our Federal and State partners and overseers

as we undertake this work.

We are currently inspecting the entire tunnel system for possible

points of water infiltration, something that is part of our historic

ongoing inspection protocol. I have with me today the project director, Michael Lewis; the turnpike’s chief engineer/chief operating officer, Michael Swanson; his deputy chief engineer, Helmet Ernst;

and John Christian, the technical advisor to the Massachusetts

Turnpike Authority Board of Directors, along with the project chief

counsel, Marie Breen and other turnpike senior staff, in order to

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respond to more detailed questions that you may have on this subject.

There are many misunderstandings and false assumptions associated with the number and nature of the leaks that we will be

happy to address in more detail.

The second area I would like to discuss today is our effort to take

meaningful steps toward cost recovery. When I became chairman,

the project had a weak record in recovering costs. I moved quickly

to correct that. First, I hired the National Academy of Engineering

from Washington to provide me with an objective study and report

on the overall status of the project.

Next, I established an independent cost recovery team to begin

an unprecedented effort to identify areas ripe for cost recovery and

to take action. Led by a retired Massachusetts Judge, this cost recovery team built a strong foundation for this ongoing effort.

The team’s work was fully supported by the Turnpike Authority,

and if I may quote from the team’s final report to the Federal

Highway Administration, ‘‘Massachusetts Turnpike Authority

Chairman Amorello created the independent team to hold the design professionals and construction managers of the Big Dig accountable for costs caused by their errors or omissions. He backed

us up with a substantial budget, which gave us the ability to hire

world-renowned engineers to assess the work and uncover deficiencies, and to hire the legal firepower to aggressively prosecute

lawsuits.’’

Today, those cost recovery efforts are being ably led by our

State’s chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Tom Reilly.

The transition from our cost recovery team to the attorney general

this February was the right thing to do, once a proper foundation

was laid.

I have come to recognize that with a project of this size and notoriety, many will second-guess these efforts. But this project needs

cost recovery oversight by an individual and an office of irrefutable

independence with the clout to back up their work. That is why it

was so important to transfer the responsibility for cost recovery to

the attorney general.

I believe that Attorney General Reilly’s leadership and commitment will bear substantial fruit for the taxpayers and restore public confidence and our efforts to ensure that we are getting what

we paid for. He has, and will continue to have, our full cooperation

with his ongoing efforts.

Like each of you, I am a public servant, and I take my responsibilities very seriously. The work we do will be judged in the short

term by the motoring public, but it will also be judged by the history and by our children and grandchildren.

I am keenly aware of the obligation to close out this project in

a way that ensures the delivery of a high-quality product that captures full value for our public funding agencies, and I am also

aware of the generational responsibility we have to ensure that

this project is completed to a standard that will stand the test of

time.

I can assure you that we are working and will continue to work

day and night to fulfill our responsibilities in this regard. We are

here today to respond to any questions you may have, and I thank

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you for the courtesy and allowing me this opportunity to make an

opening remark.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Amorello follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. MacDonald.

STATEMENT OF JOHN MacDONALD

Mr. MACDONALD. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity

to appear before the committee. I am John MacDonald. And since

mid-2001, I have been chairman of the Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff Joint Venture. With me, Morris Levy, my fellow board

member from Parsons Brinckerhoff, has been with the board since

its inception. And on my left, Keith Sibley, who has been with the

project since 1988, and has been our project program manager

since mid-2004.

In my written statement, I have addressed broad topics of interest to this committee, including B/PB’s responsibilities as management consultant on the Big Dig, the history of project costs, and

our work with the State to accurately estimate and control costs.

For the next few minutes, I will focus on leakage in the I–93 tunnels and the implications for project quality, cost, and schedule.

As much as half of the water intrusion in the tunnels is simply

precipitation that enters through openings that remain while construction continues. Part of the genius behind the original concept

of the Big Dig was allowing construction to progress while keeping

the Central Artery open to the huge daily traffic flows.

And until construction ends and the tunnels are fully sealed later

this year, water will continue to enter down uncovered traffic

ramps and through manholes and utility conduits. Even so, these

tunnels already conform to industry norms for water intrusion in

completed tunnels. And when construction is finished, the I–93

tunnels will surpass these norms.

Only a small percentage of roof wall joints in the I–93 tunnel

shows signs of low-level leaks. We and the MTA understood that

sealing such seeps would be a normal part of the construction process, and that grouting is the industry standard practice for sealing

these leaks.

Today, 13 crews are injecting wet locations with high-tech grout.

The Federal Highway Administration reported this month that the

process for sealing seeps is effective and should be continued

through completion of construction in late September. Construction

contractors who built the tunnel sections undertook the responsibility, as part of finishing their job. They, and not the taxpayers, will

pay for the cost of the grouting program.

Last September an 8-inch hole opened in the I–93 northbound

tunnel, temporarily flooding two lanes of traffic and closing one

lane during rushhour before being plugged that evening. This wall

breach reached—resulted from a series of construction contractor

errors compounded by inadequate oversight.

We inadvertently missed an opportunity to direct the contractor

to correct the specific wall problem earlier. We have publicly acknowledged our responsibilities, and we will pay our fair share of

the costs of the permanent repair. We have worked closely with the

MTA and the contractor to identify and analyze permanent repair

options. A decision is pending by the MTA.

We are also working vigorously to avert similar problems

through extensive physical inspection of the tunnel walls and thorVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:52 Jun 23, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21590.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ough review of our records. In fact, we have added personnel at our

own expense to expedite this process. The inspection should be finished early next month, and repairs are now underway.

As we knew from the start, and as Federal Highways recently

confirmed, all tunnels built below the water table experience some

seepage throughout their life, including other slurry walls in Boston. After the I–93 tunnels are completed to standards, future leakage will be controlled by the owner as part of a normal maintenance program.

This program should cost well within industry norms, given the

tunnel’s length and their extensive traffic management and safety

systems. We are confident that with normal care and proper maintenance these tunnels will provide excellent service to Boston into

the next century.

In conclusion, our goal is to complete this project as quickly and

as efficiently as possible. Already this project has delivered enormous benefits to the Boston area motorists and reshaped the urban

landscape of the city.

We and our dedicated employees are extremely proud to be associated with this project, and having brought through innovative engineering and management the most complex urban project ever

undertaken in the United States.

So, again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and we

look forward to responding to your questions.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. MacDonald follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. MacDonald, thank you very much.

Mr. Tamaro, thanks for being with us.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE J. TAMARO

Mr. TAMARO. Yes, thank you. I would reduce my presentation a

little bit in the interest of brevity for the committee.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

Mr. TAMARO. Slurry wall construction is a particularly useful

technology for installation of underground walls for both permanent and temporary construction. It is particularly useful in urban

environments and difficult ground conditions.

It, in my opinion, was particularly appropriate for the construction of I–93 Central Artery and Tunnel, and perhaps was the only

technology available. Slurry wall construction—its end product, by

its very nature, is very rough textured, it is an unfinished concrete

wall, and the end product is even more regular and could be more

problematic if attempted by unskilled contractors.

The slurry wall work is started from ground level. It is carried

down to predetermined depths. The work is done in the blind from

ground level, and it requires intuition and a good deal of monitoring and testing of the process as it proceeds. Slurry wall construction can be expected to have some flaws as a result of this in the

blind process.

These flaws are usually observed during the general excavation

when the walls provide temporary support for the construction. Defects are usually repaired as the excavation is carried downward,

and should be completed prior to the incorporation of the slurry

wall and to the permanent construction. This is the procedure that

should have been followed for the I–93 tunnel.

Of immediate concern with the I–93 tunnel are the problems associated with a number of slurry wall panels. The area of concern

is the portion of the slurry wall exposed from the top of the walkway to the underside of the roof, where a defect in the slurry wall

would permit flow of water and/or soil into the tunnel.

The defects are primarily in the slurry wall concrete. The steel

beams that are the vertical spanning members are not affected by

the defects in the concrete that spans horizontally from beam to

beam. These structural concrete defects cannot remain and must be

repaired as uncovered. The portions of the slurry wall above the

roof and below the roadway are of no concern and have essentially

been abandoned.

Field inspection records for one slurry wall panel, E–045, indicate that the panel was not constructed in accordance with specifications, and, furthermore, the wall was not adequately repaired

during general excavation. This defective panel remained stable

until September 15, 2004, when the defect could no longer resist

the external water pressure.

The defect in the wall gave way and permitted the flow of water

and soil into the I–93 tunnel. The defect in the panel is currently

temporarily protected by wooden wedges, grout, and a steel plate.

Alternative permanent repair schemes are currently under review.

As a result of the incident of September 15, the project engineering team has inspected slurry walls, as we have heard. Several

major problems have been discovered, and a large number of minor

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leaks have been identified. In addition, due to defects in the slurry

wall concrete there is a problem of leakage at the contact between

the roof—concrete roof and the slurry wall. At several locations,

water has flowed down—flowed down the face of the wall and onto

the roadway, where in the winter there is an icing problem.

There is also potential for corrosion at the roof girder connections. This is a long-term problem that has to be attended, and we

have heard discussions about the inspection program that has to be

undertaken. These connections are the main support of the roof

system and will require regular inspection and maintenance

throughout the life of the tunnel.

There is currently disagreement on the extent of the leaks and

whether the leaks will be permanently sealed at the conclusion of

construction. It is uncertain that a permanent sealing of the tunnel

roof joint will be fully achievable.

There has been a lot of discussion about quality, and I would like

to just make a comment—that there is an old adage that states

that quality will be long remembered after schedule and the costs

is forgotten. As a casual observer, I am forced to conclude that

there has been a tremendous amount of potential cost overruns and

schedule, and I am concerned that it may have had its effect upon

attention to quality.

It is now necessary that the project assure the public that quality

control issues have been addressed, and that they can use the tunnel without concern for their safety. This is going to take a bit of

time to do. It will not happen overnight, because there has been

this constant droning of difficulties associated with the tunnel.

Thank you very much for permitting me to testify. If you have

any questions, I am available to answer them.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tamaro follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. So, Mr. Tamaro, how safe is it going to

be?

Mr. TAMARO. That is a question I always hesitate to answer,

because——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, you are the independent guy here.

I mean, you are the——

Mr. TAMARO. I am not really, because I am not working. I have

not been working on the project for about 2 months now. I can

only——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. How safe was it 2 months ago?

Mr. TAMARO. Two months ago, I saw nothing that was of concern

to me.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

Mr. TAMARO. The safety question has—it is a difficult one to answer, because there are other things that occur within the tunnel

that could cause concern to the public—the falling of debris into

the tunnel for an example, which is totally unrelated to the question of the structure. The structure is safe, in my opinion.

There may be some leaks occasionally. There are problems that

have to be addressed. I think that the structural safety question is

not there. But there can be other problems.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, from your work on other large-scale

projects, like the World Trade Center recovery efforts, what are the

major mistakes that we made here, and do you think they are at

least technically corrected?

Mr. TAMARO. I think one of the biggest problems is when you

have an integrated team, and you do not have someone who is very

aggressive for that issue that he is responsible for. For example,

quality control—the quality control issues begin to take a second

step or begin to take a second role.

My experience at the World Trade Center was that I was responsible for schedule and costs for the construction of the slurry wall

and the quality of the work. The Engineering Department felt that

the schedule and costs may begin to take a more important element in my thought process, and assigned an independent engineering staff to oversee the quality control that I was responsible

for.

So I had a totally independent quality assurance group overseeing what I was doing, and they had the authority to stop the

work at any time, if quality was being violated in any way.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Mr. MacDonald, Federal Highways

rewarded your company with the Excellence in Highway Design

Award for the Ted Williams Tunnel portion of the project back in

1996. And to my knowledge, there have not been leak issues in

that part of the project that we have seen in the I–93 tunnel.

In your opinion, what is the difference between those two? Were

the specifications and requirements for the I–93 tunnels more difficult to complete? Or did we just have some oversight issues?

Mr. MACDONALD. I think there are two different types of tunnel

construction. I think the tunnels leak. The Ted Williams Tunnel

leaks, but it is within normal industry practice. And I think we

have with the—you know, with the high profile issue that we had

on I–93, there has obviously been a lot of attention, a lot of media

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focus, a lot of other focus on the slurry wall construction and the

I–93 tunnels.

So I think that is the primary difference—a very high profile, a

very high——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. But the Williams Tunnel didn’t have the

kind of leak that Mr. Lynch put up there in construction, to my

knowledge. I think that was——

Mr. MACDONALD. I am going to refer that one to my colleagues

who were here at the time. Keith.

Mr. SIBLEY. Thanks very much, John.

As John said, the tunnels are two different types of structures.

The I–90 tunnel is what we call a cut and cover box tunnel. That

is, we excavated a deep trench in the ground, and we cast a floor,

walls, and roof, all of reinforced concrete. As John described, we did

have some leakage. There were cracks. Certain joints——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You always get leakages below water,

right? Don’t you?

Mr. SIBLEY. That is correct. And the leak injection program, very

similar, slightly different materials that we are using on I–93 was

used there. I–93 is so different because it has the slurry walls. The

slurry walls are cast, as my colleague Mr. Tamaro identified, in the

blind, and you see what you get as you then excavate out.

So it is a different character of a wall to start with, and then the

floor is joined to those, the roof is joined to those, and it is a different detail.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Nevertheless, the kind of leak we saw

here probably shouldn’t have occurred, all things considered,

should it in a case like that?

Mr. SIBLEY. Oh, absolutely correct. I think that has been clear,

that the breach should not have happened.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. And the I–93 tunnel just—it is more

complex, because of the nature of the slurry. Is that fair to say?

Mr. SIBLEY. Yes, correct.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Mr. Amorello, you state in your testimony that the Authority has opened nearly every component of the

project to the public, who are enjoying the benefits of the investment. At this point, the press has not been that good on this issue.

A lot of this predates your being there, in terms of the cost overruns and everything else.

What are we doing at this point to keep this process open, to

keep the public informed, to try to restore that confidence, you

know, in the project in the future? And, you know, I am not up

here. I just catch this occasionally, but that one picture is worth

1,000 words. And that hole in the I–93 tunnel literally blew a hole

in the reputation of the integrity of the tunnel.

And I think we have had explanations today for what happened,

but what are we doing to make sure that doesn’t happen again,

and to make sure that when this tunnel opens it—when it is completely opened to the public, they are going to be satisfied that it

is safe?

Mr. AMORELLO. Mr. Chairman, I am as upset as every resident

of Massachusetts that event occurred on September 15. And it is

repeated almost nightly on the evening news, as I mentioned in my

testimony. The event was unique, as was mentioned in the Federal

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Highway report. It was an isolated incident. It should not have occurred.

The tunnel system that the public is driving on today is safe for

them to use. I wouldn’t have authorized it, the chief engineer or

the Turnpike Authority wouldn’t have signed off on it, nor would

Federal highway officials have signed off on opening these roadways for the public to use.

We have taken every step to be transparent in the process that

we have started. Every last Thursday of the month we give a

project monthly update on the costs of the project, our safety

record, our employment record, the status of uses of contingency,

to keep the public fully informed in terms of some of the discussions that were held by the earlier panel.

Lessons learned—I think clearly that was one of the most important lessons that this project implemented after the 2000 price escalation was in the financial report submitted to Washington every

year to reassure our partners that this price—this budget was real

and the budget was holding. And for the 3-years I have been chairman, that has been the case.

And at every—as I said, every last Thursday of the month, we

have a public meeting, open to the public, where project officials

come out and discuss the issue of the inspections. Every Thursday

of the week we provide an update on the status of the inspections

that we are carrying on.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask you this. I mean, I hear everybody saying, you know, mistakes were made. OK? When did the

Authority become aware of the construction problems that led to

that breach?

Mr. AMORELLO. The Authority, in a 1999 memo to project officials, was circulated with a cc to the public employee in charge of

that particular construction contract. It is my understanding the

field records indicated that these steps were going back and forth

between Bechtel/Parsons and the contractor to repair the E–045

breach, and the understanding was that wall was repaired.

The breach that occurred on the 15th, there was no awareness

on I think anyone’s part immediately that breach would—or should

have occurred given that there was repair work done at that site

I believe in the year 2000. I could be—stand to be corrected on the

particular—that particular aspect, but there was repair work that

was conducted, obviously inadequate repair work.

The breach blew out on the 15th, and turnpike officials, Bechtel,

and our contractors immediately stepped in to repair it. And we are

now in the process of evaluating the correct method for repair. I

brought on board John Christian, an MIT engineer, geotechnical

engineer, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering,

a Massachusetts resident, to advise and consult me on the repair

method.

We have also recently retained STS out of Chicago, Clyde Baker

who is also here today, to evaluate the repair method that we put

in place. Inspector General Mead was very clear when he and I

have had several meetings in the last many months talking about

the repair method that we put in place, and to make sure the public is assured that we have done everything possible to make this

wall safe and secure for the longevity of the tunnel system.

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These engineering experts that we have brought on, along with

turnpike staff—Mike Lewis, Mike Swanson, and Helmet Ernst

from the public side—to review the final proposal for the repair

method.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Right. And it is going to be a whole series

of inspections, obviously, before it is finally opened to the public at

that point.

Mr. AMORELLO. Correct.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You never know what you will find, but

at this point there is—things seem to be on track.

Mr. AMORELLO. Correct.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. MacDonald, what do you think—can

we talk more specifically about what happened on that major leak

in September?

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir, we can.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What happened?

Mr. MACDONALD. What happened? You go back to the construction reports at the time that panel was poured. There were several

things identified on those construction reports that should have signaled—well, they shouldn’t have happened. They should have

stopped the work. That is No. 1. No. 2——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Who was asleep at the switch? Was it

both—was it the State? Was it you all? Was it a subcontractor?

Was it a little bit everybody? Federal Highways?

Mr. MACDONALD. It was the contractor and Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff. So that was mistake one, allowing the panel to be

poured with the deviations that were identified during the construction process.

The report, then having identified those things, went up the

chain through the resident engineering process, and that was the

second opportunity to catch those things, that something here was

amiss. And a flag should have gone up, and that should have resulted in a very focused, very specific inspection of that panel as

the Artery was excavated. That didn’t happen.

The contractor, then, self-reported the issue when it discovered

a leak, as when the wall was uncovered and water intrusion came

in, and brought it to our attention.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Now, was this the evening of the big leak?

Mr. MACDONALD. Oh, no.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. This was before this.

Mr. MACDONALD. This was 3 years perhaps in advance of that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Oh, OK.

Mr. MACDONALD. Construction was still underway. The engineer

responded, per procedure, to produce some non-destructive examination of the defect, to get the full scope of the defect, and then

to submit a repair procedure based on those findings. That never

happened.

What appears to have happened is the contractor went away and

repaired it in an ad hoc manner. That should not have happened.

That whole series of things that led to that breach should not have

happened.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Now, is that contractor still with the

project?

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Mr. MACDONALD. Yes. Yes, he is. He is still working on the

project.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Has he been appropriately reprimanded?

Mr. MACDONALD. He has been that. He has also stepped up to

his responsibility for making the fix.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. All right. Those are my—I think

those are my questions.

I am going to turn the meeting over to Mr. Lynch—I have to

catch a plane back to Washington—to chair the meeting.

I want to thank all of you for being with us. I just want to say

this. You obviously have a serious responsibility, and the media are

all over this issue, and the public, and everything else. You know,

all of us I think have a joint responsibility to make this thing work

from here on out.

We will sort out the money downstream. The attorney general is

going to be looking into that, the IG, and who owes what. But the

safety of this project has to be a priority over the next few months,

and the—we can’t compromise with that at all. I think if you have

any other episodes like you had on September 15th, I think it is

going to seriously jeopardize the contractors in terms of future government contracts and the like. So everybody understands what is

at stake.

Parsons Brinckerhoff has—and Bechtel have great reputations

with the government traditionally. We have had a couple of things

go wrong here, but I just want to tell you how serious this is. That

this has reverberated not just throughout Boston and Massachusetts, but throughout the Federal Government as well.

So let us all work together and just make it work. And I appreciate your attentiveness to this.

Thank you.

Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you for your

leadership on this, and I do want to say just one thing before you

leave—is that what I am looking for here among the responsible

parties, not necessarily to lay the blame at one person’s door, but

to admit that there was a shared responsibility here.

And how to make this right is to make sure that the people who

are obviously blameless here, the taxpayer and the people who pay

the tolls, are held harmless. That is the goal that I have, and that

is going to require the cooperation of you all and all of the contractors and insurers and designers and everybody else to step up and

do the right thing here.

So that is—I just didn’t want you to think that was something

I said after the chairman left. But that is my stated objection—my

stated objective here, and that is what I am going to pursue. That

is what I am going to pursue, and I know the chairman is of like

mind. So I just wanted to get that out there.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Mr. LYNCH [presiding]. OK. Why don’t I pick up right where the

Chairman left off. Mr. MacDonald, on most job sites that I was on

over 20 years—and I know it was different on this one—concrete

inspection was usually handled by—a firm would come in indeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:52 Jun 23, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21590.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pendently and check the contractor’s work, check the quality of the

concrete, and, you know, the performance according to the specs.

In this case, from reading the documents, apparently you had

your own field engineers. Is that right? Bechtel had field engineers

go down and do their own inspection?

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, we had field engineers do our own inspection. I also think, on the concrete testing, we would have had a

subcontractor perform the inspection.

Mr. LYNCH. Maybe you could explain that division of labor.

Mr. SIBLEY. Certainly. As John said, we have a field engineer

that is assigned to do the quality monitoring of that work. First

and foremost, the contractor has a quality control program. Their

engineer would identify the mixed designs that they are using,

would all be approved submittals before they start. They would do

a checklist that everything is ready, and they would submit that

to us for verification as part of the assurance step.

Our field engineer would perform those assurances, also sign off

on the checklist during the concrete placement. The project has a

certified laboratory. The laboratory has been certified in accordance

with ACI and the governing standards. We would have a person

come onsite, do in-place testing such as air content slump, that sort

of thing, do some monitoring of the actual placement, and then we

would break the cylinders, and so forth, to verify strength later.

So it was a double effort of assurance, with our field engineer at

the point of placement and with the laboratory checking the materials. The contractor is quality controlled, and they are actually

performing the placement and verifying they are doing it correctly.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. At some point—so that is—the concrete coming

out of the truck, if you are pouring it out of a truck, is inspected

by the contractor. You have somebody there that is going to the lab

and all of that.

But after the pour, maybe we could go to—just to kind of make

sure everybody is following along here—I think it is A1 or—I think

it is the first slide. This is the excavating machine for the slurry

wall, is that correct?

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, sir, it is.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. And that clamshell bucket is digging that trench

in between the soldier piles, is that correct? Is that——

Mr. MACDONALD. The soldier piles are not installed at this—well,

I can’t tell if they are installed at this——

Mr. LYNCH. Yes, I can’t either, to tell you the truth.

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes.

Mr. LYNCH. In any event, after the pour, after the pour is complete, and you wait a certain amount of time for the concrete to set

up, and then you begin excavation. Whose responsibility—was it

the contractor or was it Bechtel’s engineer—to go down and just inspect the face of the wall for any voids or inclusions or any defects

that were visible to the naked eye?

Obviously, somebody had to have the responsibility for going

down and checking the work after the excavation.

Mr. MACDONALD. First of all, the excavation takes place some

time later.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. Much later.

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Mr. MACDONALD. So it is much later when that opportunity is

available to it. It is the contractor’s responsibility to check his own

work under the quality control process that is set up for the

project. It was our responsibility to assure that work by a layer of

auditing of the contractor’s process to make sure that he had accomplished that.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. So it was theirs initially, and then, if I am understanding correctly, you followup.

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes.

Mr. LYNCH. You assure that they have done that. OK. And my

concern is that, 5 years after they poured the section that we had

the breach in, for 5 years that wasn’t the—I mean, what is the date

on which that section of wall was excavated? That had to be 1999

or——

Mr. MACDONALD. If I may, I would like to turn that over to Keith

to answer. He is more fluent with the facts on the panel.

Mr. LYNCH. Sure.

Mr. SIBLEY. You are right with the date of the placement. The

excavation would have been in mid-2000. I don’t have those precise

dates. I would be happy to get a specific answer and provide that

for the record at a later time, but I don’t have the exact date when

that was excavated.

Mr. LYNCH. Yes, OK.

Mr. SIBLEY. It would have been done in stages. This is among the

very deepest part of the job. The particular excavation that Modern

conducted here was working north to south, and they worked toward a bulkhead from the adjacent contractor to the south. This

would have been toward the end of their excavation.

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. SIBLEY. But I can get you that date.

Mr. LYNCH. I do have some notes here about—that the engineer’s

report indicated on April 2 that the slurry was deficient. Now, that

is not the concrete, but that the slurry was deficient and did not

meet standards, did not meet specs. But I assume that it was some

time after that you actually did excavation, so it was after April

2, 1999. Would that be——

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, that is correct. The slurry report refers to

the—I believe it is the——

Mr. LYNCH. The pour date?

Mr. MACDONALD. It is before the pour date actually.

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. MACDONALD. Shortly before?

Mr. SIBLEY. Yes.

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. That is fair enough. I just want to—you know,

what mystifies me is that it was somebody’s job to go down there

and inspect the face of that slurry wall, not just to walk by it but

to actually go down and inspect that, the entire length of that wall.

And, you know, we have a list now of 102 spots, 102 problem

areas on the slurry walls, and there are still 400 panels that have

yet to be inspected. And a considerable amount of time here—5

years went by—and if this hadn’t burst, this would all be buried,

if this panel hadn’t been burst. It just—it troubles me greatly, the

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lack of quality assurance and quality control on this project with

respect to these panels, I have to tell you.

And I am hearing that there are wet patches and there are inclusions, and, you know, why don’t we—Leah, if you have a second,

I just want to run through—maybe we can dim the lights again.

These are some—well, actually, why don’t we go to—why don’t we

run through all of them.

There aren’t a whole lot of them, but I am just going to note

some of—now, the reason I included this is I understand this process—this is—they are removing the panel so they can get at the

wall behind it, right? And this is—this is part of the repair project.

It looks like September 15, so this would have been the major

breach.

The cost must be prohibitive to keep removing those panels and

going back behind there. I don’t know if something can be done to

reduce the cost of these continual repairs that we are doing in

these areas, but it is something you ought to think about.

All right. Next slide. Again, that is the waterfall. That is—we

have seen that already.

Go ahead. Next, please. This is another shot of the same breach

that occurred on September 15.

We can go to the next one, please. I was a little surprised at this.

This is apparently the method, the temporary patch that was used.

I understand it is just temporary, so I guess I am not as concerned.

But driving oak wedges in there to try to stop this.

Go to the next—there is another shot of the oak wedges they are

using to stop the flow of water. You know, it just appears to be a

Mickey Mouse situation. I don’t know, guys.

But go ahead. Go with the next one. This is, again, I guess there

is some grouting going along in the area as well as the oak patch,

the oak plug, rather.

Please, again, Leah. And I understand that this is, again, a temporary patch. That shows the metal plate going on over the wooden

form there, which I guess is bolted to the soldier pile. But, again,

I guess I am not as concerned now that I know it is just a temporary patch, and something more permanent is going to be put in

place.

The next one, please, Leah. And this just shows that—let us see,

this is September 21, so this is a week later. This is the patch that

they just put on, and there is a stream of water, and it looks like

maybe some of the—some of the grouting is actually coming back

out.

Next one, please. This is a void at the base of a soldier pile. It,

you know, could create tremendous problems.

Next one, please. These are all different areas here. As I am told,

that is actually a hammer that—in the middle of the picture there,

there is a hammer that fell down into the pour. And there is a

huge void at the bottom, and they explained to me that the void

is filled with paste and soil that was still soft when probed to 16

inches. So these are—these are deep and significant inclusions and

voids within the slurry wall.

Next one, please, Leah. This is a—there is not—that is actually

just to demonstrate. That is a trowel that was placed in the wall

just to show how soft the material was. This is a clay inclusion in

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the—clay and soil inclusion of unsound material, and it states that

a 6-inch tool can be inserted to its full depth. So that concerns me

greatly.

Next one, please. This is all exposed rebar along the slurry wall.

No coverage there. This must be the area around the Federal Reserve Bank. As I understand, that is the only area that has rebar

in it. But, again, there is no coverage. It is exposed to water, and

it concerns me as well.

Next one, please, Leah. Now, this is the roof joint. This is one

of the roof joints. Mike Capuano and I actually last February did

the walkthrough there, and we saw the work going on. But I have

to tell you, and I know you are going to say that, you know, we

haven’t buttoned it all up yet, but in the meantime, you know, we

already have the oxidization of a lot of these structure members,

and I am just very concerned about it.

Next one, please, Leah. That is the last one.

I just want to read to you. This is contract language for the I–

93 mainline tunnel. And it states that—this is a technical spec relating to water tightness of slurry walls. It states that, ‘‘Slurry

walls shall be watertight, defined as free of all seeping water leaks.

Moist patches shall be considered acceptable for slurry wall construction.’’

‘‘B) Repair of leaks shall be in accordance with Section 727.915,

which says that simple surface patching, or shallow injection, shall

not be allowed.’’ And the contractor—this is what gets me. It says,

‘‘The contractor shall inspect for water tightness of all slurry walls

on a monthly basis, starting within 2 weeks after the first exposure

of the wall panels during excavation.’’

This is what brings me back to April 2 or some time in 1999,

some time thereafter. And starting within 2 weeks—so it will be on

a monthly basis, starting within 2 weeks and continuing until final

acceptance. The inspection reports shall be submitted to the engineer—I assume that is Bechtel—within 1 week following inspection.

So it is not that we missed a couple of opportunities to pick this

up. It is—you know, if you—if it should be monthly for 5 years, we

missed 60 opportunities—60 opportunities to pick this up under

quality control and quality assurance. And that troubles me greatly. Somebody just mailed it in on this. No one was out there protecting the taxpayers’ interest.

Mr. Tamaro.

Mr. TAMARO. Yes, sir.

Mr. LYNCH. Could you tell me, now, I was an iron worker for

about 20 years, did some heavy highway work and bridges, and all

of that. But you are a lot smarter than I am; I promise you.

The level of water tightness—now, first of all, this tunnel, what

did we buy here in terms of the U.S. taxpayer and the Massachusetts taxpayer? How long is this tunnel supposed to be in service?

What is a reasonable expectation?

Mr. TAMARO. It should last 70 to 100 years. It shouldn’t be a

problem.

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. TAMARO. With regard to the water tightness, I would like to

just kind of bifurcate the question.

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Mr. LYNCH. Sure.

Mr. TAMARO. There are two elements in the water tightness. One

is the wall itself, and it has been my experience that you can get

these slurry walls very watertight except for occasional flaws. And

then, during construction, once they are exposed, you go back and

you fix the flaws. Once they are fixed, they should not have running water down the face of the wall. That has been my experience

on most of the walls I have worked on.

Mr. LYNCH. And if I could ask you, the fact that these are 42

inches thick, that is a fairly thick slurry wall in my estimation. I

don’t know, maybe that is—maybe you are used to that, but 42

inches of concrete would seem to be fairly impervious to water

seepage.

Mr. TAMARO. It is more a matter of the installation procedure

rather than the thickness. A very thin, properly executed wall can

be more watertight than a thicker wall that has not been done with

the same level of care. So the thickness is kind of irrelevant. The

concrete is usually, if it is put in correctly, it is water tight. And

it is only the jointing and the construction aspects of it that can

really create the leak.

Mr. LYNCH. Well, based on the spec I just read, do you believe

that these specs have been met on this project based on what you

have seen down there?

Mr. TAMARO. The panel E–045 is a clear example that it did not

meet that specification.

Mr. LYNCH. And what about all of the others where there is

water coming through and voids and——

Mr. TAMARO. Panels that contain inclusions of material, soil-like

material or defective concrete, are just not acceptable. They do not

meet the specification.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Let me ask you about—now, if you say the reasonable expectations of a life span for this tunnel is 75 to 100

years. What effect does continual play of water on the structural

members, whether it be seeping through the slurry walls and, acting on soldier piles or inducing some type of breach because of the

inclusion in the wall, or the roof joint that you mentioned could be

a lifelong problem in this tunnel, what does that have—what effect

does that water play on these structural members have on the

overall life of the tunnel that we bought?

Mr. TAMARO. That was kind of why I bifurcated the question.

The slurry wall concrete itself should not be significantly affected

by seepage. The loss of soil from behind the wall can be a problem,

but the concrete itself should not be deteriorated if it is there and

it is sound.

The steel beams should not be affected by corrosion. The slurry

wall soldier beam should not be affected by corrosion as long as—

the majority of them is buried in the concrete or outside, so, therefore, it is not exposed to oxygen. The inside face could corrode, and

I have seen most of these eventually stabilize themselves with a little bit of build up of rust, and you don’t have a major corrosion

problem with the soldier beams.

The real concern is the roof connection where your whole street

structure is resting on that connection, and that connection is exposed to water that is seeping in through the roof wall joint. And

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that is the critical element. It is not an immediate problem; it requires resolution.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. All right. Thank you. I want to turn it over to

Congressman Capuano for a while.

Mr. CAPUANO. Thanks, Mr. Lynch.

Mr. MacDonald, you had both written and oral testimony. In the

written testimony—if I remember correctly, it was on page 11—

there was something along the lines of—you are talking about the

wall panel repairs, and there is a written statement here that they

will all be repaired at no cost to the public or to the project. Do

you stand by that written comment?

Mr. MACDONALD. I stand by that statement. Yes, I do.

Mr. CAPUANO. OK. And during your oral testimony, if I heard

you right, and I would like to clarify it, I believe I heard you say,

in talking about the—because, again, we have two different types

of leaks. In your written testimony, I don’t recall that you addressed the roof and wall joints, but I believe I—and, again, correct

me if I am wrong—I thought I heard you in your oral testimony

say that when it came to the grouting program there will be no cost

to the taxpayers. Did I hear you correctly?

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes. Yes. I think the grouting—the grouting of

the roof is—we are still in construction. We are not done. And

when we are done, we firmly believe that we are going to meet the

specifications for this—for the roof wall joint. We believe it is the

responsibility of the contractors to achieve that under the specifications that are in there.

And if I may just comment on the picture that you showed of

that joint—and I fully agree with Mr. Tamaro that it is critical that

we don’t get corrosion in there, and we are not seeing signs of any

significant corrosion in these girder beams that you see in the roof

base. What you saw in that photo was algae. It wasn’t rust. So I

just want to be clear about that.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. MacDonald, your company—both the companies have been involved with the construction, I am sure, of many

tunnels of different types and different locations and different

depths, and all around the world is my estimation. Have you ever

been involved with a tunnnel that didn’t have leaks?

Mr. MACDONALD. No, sir. All tunnels leak.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Tamaro, have you ever been involved with a

tunnel or any other similar aspect that doesn’t have leaks?

Mr. TAMARO. I have been involved with tunnels that do have

leaks, and they are processed for collecting water.

Mr. CAPUANO. But have you ever had any one that doesn’t have

a leak?

Mr. TAMARO. Yes. Yes.

Mr. CAPUANO. One that is below the water table?

Mr. TAMARO. Yes.

Mr. CAPUANO. Where was that?

Mr. TAMARO. Puerto Rico, the Minnia Tunnel.

Mr. CAPUANO. And there is no leaks in that tunnel today?

Mr. TAMARO. There are no leaks in the tunnel.

Mr. CAPUANO. Good.

Mr. TAMARO. To my knowledge.

Mr. CAPUANO. To my knowledge?

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Mr. TAMARO. To the last of my knowledge.

Mr. CAPUANO. All right. Fair answer, because I was under the

impression that there were no tunnels anywhere that don’t have

leaks. But that is a very interesting comment, because I will go

check that now, just because you have piqued my interest. That is

good to me. I mean, that changes some of my opinions of tunnel

construction.

I guess I am going to ask all of you the same question I have

asked before, and I think most of you have addressed it, but I am

going to ask it again, nonetheless, to be clear. To the best of your

knowledge as of today, is the tunnel, all of the tunnels, are they

safe? And to the best of your knowledge today, is there any reason

not to believe that they will not continue to be safe in the future

on the presumption that they get ordinary and adequate maintenance programs. Mr. Amorello.

Mr. AMORELLO. Yes, and no to the second question.

Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. MacDonald.

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, the tunnels are safe. The tunnels will continue to be safe long into the next century.

Mr. CAPUANO. OK. Mr. Tamaro, I know that you have said earlier that you haven’t been involved with the tunnel directly for the

last several months. But as of the last time you knew it, was there

any reason to think that the tunnel wasn’t safe then?

Mr. TAMARO. I found nothing that would make me say that it

was unsafe.

Mr. CAPUANO. Fine. Thank you.

Mr. Amorello, Mr. Mead, who was up earlier—I know that you

are working with Mr. Gee and others relative to putting the tunnels under a new comparable program to the bridge inspection program.

Mr. Gee was very clear, which I knew before, but he said it—

publicly stated it here that your agency has been very cooperative

in trying to come up—since you will be the first tunnel in the history of the country, if I understand it correctly, to subject itself to

this kind of inspection process, you are breaking new ground, and

he suggests that you are being very cooperative in that. And I congratulate you for that, and I hope you have great success and lead

the way for the rest of the country to follow.

But Mr. Mead here also suggested, with some of the questions

that are involved relative to the inspections of these panels, he

clearly suggested that each and every one of these panels be subjected to a full inspection. I think Mr. Lynch asked earlier—and I

am no—I have no clue what is involved with inspecting these, but

Mr. Lynch suggested—and I am sure he is right—that there is visual inspection, there is hand inspection, there is sonar inspection,

there is—I am sure there is all kinds of methods that I have no

clue what they are all about.

But Mr. Mead was very clear in stating that he believes that

each and every one of these sections should be inspected to the best

of our technical ability. First of all, do you agree with him? And,

second of all, if you do, is that our plan to get this done?

Mr. AMORELLO. I think the inspection process that had been put

in place after the September 15 breach is addressing each and

every panel and identifying it to date. To correct the record, there

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were seven found yesterday, so it is 109 panels that are defective

in some fashion. Again, only two with a major defect is similar to

the September 15, including the September 15 breach.

If I may, I would like to defer that both to Mr. Sibley from Bechtel and to Mr. Lewis from the project, in terms of how these inspections take place. And then, if I might, Mike Swanson who is here

is the chief engineer for the department—for the Authority working

on the protocol for the future inspections. I think it goes to——

Mr. CAPUANO. Fair enough. But I want to make it clear—I am

not an engineer, I don’t want to be an engineer, so speak English.

Mr. AMORELLO. Let me—if it is—Mr. Sibley and then Mr. Lewis,

but the inspections that are ongoing now and how it—how that is

occurring, and then Mr. Swanson, who is looking at the protocol—

and I think Congressman Lynch, anticipating his questions on warranties and how we go out into the future—some of the costs that

we have budgeted, one of the questions by—that was asked of the

earlier panel, the budget for the operation of a metropolitan highway system—that is everything inside of 128, the I–93 tunnel system, the Logan connection, some—the Viaduct south of the city, the

Zacamb Bridge, the Kana tunnels, is $76 million; $25 million of

that is O&M costs associated with just the Interstate 93 tunnels.

And at some point, when the questions get to that stage, if Mr.

Swanson could talk about how we anticipate the inspections, the

cost of the inspections that we built into our budget anyway, the

logic in the 1997 legislation turning the project from the State

Highway Department—I wish Chairman Davis was here. Taking

the project from the State Highway Department, transferring it to

the Turnpike Authority, was because of our expertise in tunnel

management and the fact that we have resources to maintain these

tunnels. Having that, that is why we are the authority charged

with——

Mr. CAPUANO. Fair enough. But I want to make it clear, I just

asked basically what time it is. I really am not interested, because

I am not qualified to know how the watch is made. You know, I

mean, so I just really want to make it as simple as you can. All

the technical stuff, talk to Mr. Mead. But the simple stuff, I am

happy to listen to, but I want to make that clear.

Mr. SIBLEY. Simply, the investigations we are conducting since

the September breach are twofold. One is we have been going

through the documentation. When we went back and looked at the

history of the panel in question, as John identified earlier, there

are irregularities in the documentation of that panel.

So we did a search through all of our field records for all of the

panels to see if there were other strings of documentation that

would indicate troubles, and we put those on a specific list of panels to take a close look at.

Second, then, we have identified—or we have been initiated a

100 percent inspection of all panels. There is a section where the

wall is readily accessible above the tile panels that were in some

of the photographs. The stainless steel grills are up there. We can

look through those grills and remove some of those grills, and do

a 100 percent inspection of all panels.

We are looking for any indications that may need further followup. The team identifies those indications, and then we take a senVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:52 Jun 23, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00114 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21590.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ior engineer out, we remove more of the steel in the area, make a

thorough investigation. If it appears to be something worthy of followup, we actually take the tile panel off and do a complete review

of that panel.

The photographs that Congressman Lynch went through come

right out of our reports. Those are panels that the investigation has

located. Most of these more serious issues are in areas that are

fairly deep in the project. Both of those areas, incidentally, are in

areas where there was dewatering surrounding it during construction. We are now getting full water tables back, so now we have

a better chance to see some of these issues where water is coming

through.

So it is a two step—documentation, check those specifically, visual everything, followup indications, go progressively forward. It is

a conservative review.

Mr. CAPUANO. Since Mr. Mead is still here—Mr. Mead, I

wouldn’t want to call you back, because I know you have had a

long day already. At some point, I would hope that we could get

some answers, so maybe at a later point, to tell me whether what

you just heard and what you may find out in the future satisfies

the suggestion you made, because, for me, though I love you guys

dearly, the only guy I really care about is Mr. Mead, because he

has no vested interest whatsoever in the answer, and he is the guy,

as far as I am concerned, that has to be satisfied.

And, again, what you just said sounds fine to me. But I haven’t

got a clue. And so I appreciate the answer, and I appreciate the

brevity, the clarity, the simplicity, but I would still hope that at

some point you have a lengthy discussion with Mr. Mead and his

office, so that he can be satisfied. Or, if not, to notify us that you

are not satisfied.

I guess for me—you know, I have heard a lot about slurry walls.

I am not a contractor. I am not a construction guy. I haven’t had

the experience of Mr. Lynch. They get a little complicated to me.

And, you know, I mean, I think I understand it. I am not sure. It

sounds—you guys have made it relatively simple, I think, but I always try to bring things back to what I understand.

One of the things I understand is basic construction, not a lot,

but a little bit. And, you know, we have two kinds of leaks. You

know, you have a hole in the wall, that is a problem, you have accepted it, you are fixing it. Whether it is temporary—I will be honest, I was a little concerned myself when I saw that the way to fix

a temporary leak is exactly what I would have done, is basically

you stuck a cork in it. [Laughter.]

But I guess I will trust you, because I drive through the tunnel

and I go by that cork, so I hope it holds. And I also understand

that there is some discussion now as to how to make that permanent, and I respect that and I will leave that alone.

But there is also leaks at the top, and I have been educated as

to how all of this has happened and how you couldn’t do it—a different kind of roof because of the width limitations on the buildings, and the like, and that you had to do a roof basically that, in

my mind, is almost inevitable to have leaks.

My house has an overhang. Every house in New England that is

wisely built has an angled, steeped roof. Nobody in their right mind

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in New England has a flat roof. There are some, but those are the

people that I think less of than others. [Laughter.]

There is a reason for that. We want rain, we want snow to get

off and go away, and I understand that. I also understand that you

couldn’t do some of these things, and so within the limits you had

to come up with a system.

But I have asked, and the Authority has granted me—I have it

here, and I have the prop, and all of that—but basically asked,

well, what is on the top of this roof? Where is this water coming

from? Not so much the slurry walls. I am talking about the socalled low-level leaks, because those are the ones that strike me as

a bigger concern.

I mean, you are going to have holes in the walls, you are going

to fix them, and that is not—everybody—I have heard everybody

say that is not acceptable, and it is going to get fixed. But there

is going to be a question on the roof. And the reason I say this is

because, when I was mayor, we built several schools. Every one we

built we had to fight with the contractors about what was on the

roof—how thick the rubber was, whether the rocks were this,

whether this was this, how the drain—every single roof there was

an argument.

So I asked about roofs, and I got a nice little thin piece of basic

rubber here that is this thick that I am told is sitting on top of the

cement roof. OK. That sounds neat, except, I have to tell you, this

thing is pretty flimsy. It doesn’t strike me that this is even comparable to the roof that is sitting on my house.

So I have to ask: is this sufficient? Is this normal? Is this what

you have used in other tunnels? And if not, why do we get this?

Mr. Amorello, I guess I will start with you.

Mr. AMORELLO. Let me—again, these were decisions made in the

waterproofing, if I can defer to Bechtel, we will respond to that

question.

Mr. MACDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I ask Keith

to comment on the detail of it, the roof system was the subject of

a thorough review back in 1990. The systems were evaluated with

a lot of input from ourselves, section design consultants, the suppliers of materials that went into the specifications.

There was a thorough review of these processes initiated in 1997

when there were some challenges in getting the construction satisfactory during the installation of the roof membranes.

So with that said, Keith, maybe you could fill us in on more details.

Mr. SIBLEY. I am very tempted to talk about the thing you had

in your hand or the polyuria sprays or the preapproved 300’s, but

I recognize your watch analogy, so we will start with——

Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you.

Mr. SIBLEY [continuing]. With waterproofing functions essentially

as a liner. The concrete roof is placed on the steel roof girders that

have been talked about. The roof, before we backfill with the material, then it goes up to the surface, sometimes 4 feet thick, sometimes 40 feet thick. We put down this liner. It is loosely called waterproofing.

We did have a wide variety of waterproofing materials in our

early specification. It is a performance specification. The supplier

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is chosen by the contractor. They are to make sure the supplier reviews the geometry of the tunnel, how deep it is, what kind of

water is in the area, the water chemistry, the details of the construction, and come up with a material that they will certify will

perform in a waterproofing function at that location at that depth.

In the 1997 task force, we were recognizing that some of these

materials apparently weren’t robust enough, or had sufficient installation problems that we were having to review a lot of leaks

and waterproofing issues. We were concerned about the continued

use of those materials.

Initially, to restrict the marketplace, was not well received, but

this combined task force involving State authorities, Federal Highway, some experts, and ourselves, we wound up eliminating a few

materials.

Mr. CAPUANO. Is this the Waterproofing Task Force or the Leak

Task Force?

Mr. SIBLEY. This is Waterproofing. We are selecting

waterproofing——

Mr. CAPUANO. So before leaks.

Mr. SIBLEY [continuing]. Materials. Correct. And we limited the

number, then, of materials that were allowed to be considered

under this performance specification. The details and requirements

of the spec remain the same. The contractor chooses the material.

The manufacturer is required to have a rep onsite while it started to train the people, test certified installers, and basically to assure that the materials such as the one you had in your hand will

function at the depth and locations called for in the tunnel.

Mr. CAPUANO. OK. Am I right to understand that this has a 5-

year warranty? Do you know?

Mr. SIBLEY. I don’t know, but——

Mr. CAPUANO. OK. Let us——

Mr. SIBLEY [continuing]. I can check that for you.

Mr. CAPUANO. I am pretty sure I am right. It is a 5-year warranty. My roof has a 20-year warranty. Why does this only have

a 5-year warranty? And let us assume everything is done perfectly.

I have to replace my roof every 20 years, because it leaks. Material

gets old.

Let us presume everything is done well. Six years from now the

warranty is gone. I won’t even ask the question what happens

within the warranty; I don’t know how you replace it. Six years

from now, this is done, the warranty is done, and you have another

71 to 94 years left. How do you fix it?

Mr. SIBLEY. Morris, do you want to take a stab at that one?

Mr. LEVY. Well, I think there is a slight difference between the

house and the underground tunnel.

Mr. CAPUANO. I hope so.

Mr. LEVY. Yes. I mean, the material in a house is subject to a

lot of the variations in the temperatures, the variations in rainfall,

ice, and so forth. The material that you have underground, it would

not be subject to this. It is just staying there, and there is no

change to it.

Mr. CAPUANO. So, then, theoretically they should be able to warrant it for 100 years.

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Mr. LEVY. Well, as we said, it should stay for that long, but I am

not sure about the warranty——

Mr. CAPUANO. Do you mean even the material?

Mr. LEVY. I am not sure about the warranty of this particular

material, and Keith would be——

Mr. CAPUANO. Well, I am pretty sure it is 5 years. I mean, that

is fair enough. Again, I guess I will leave it to people who understand construction better than I. I have kind of gone to the limits

of my understanding.

But I will tell you that it raises concerns for me, not because—

I understand the engineering problems about you couldn’t get

wider things, you couldn’t extend the roof in a different way. I

know—I understand that, it makes sense, that is life. But I have

to tell you, forgetting everything else, whoever picked this—and,

again, not being a contractor it raises questions to me.

I guess relative to the—who is going to be responsible for what—

and, again, I am just continuing on the roofing analogy. Let us presume everything seems to be done well. To get to this—just this,

and get it on the roof, somebody has to design the tunnel. Somebody has to draft the specs for the material that goes in the tunnel.

Somebody has to select the contractors, choose the process,

choose the material, choose the supplier, prepare the surface because, as I understand it you, can’t just throw this on a piece of

cement, you have to prep it and all that kind of stuff, select the

adhesive, and then apply the material.

If I have those right, and if I haven’t missed anything, you have

an architect who designs it, a general contractor, at least one subcontractor, maybe several subcontractors, the material supplier

himself, the manufacturer of the material, the manufacturer of the

adhesive. Then, you have quality control, quality assurance, and

then you have the Turnpike Authority themselves.

Maybe I am counting it wrong. Maybe I am missing something.

But just to get this on, you have eight potential parties who have

responsibility to get that done. Sometimes I am sure some of those

would be the same people, so maybe it is a little bit less than eight,

how are we going to determine who is responsible? And the reason

I ask this is because, very carefully worded, wisely carefully worded, that Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff will accept your fair share of

responsibility, and because—and, again, correct me if I am wrong—

all I am aware of is a $50 million performance bond, or whatever

the term might be—insurance.

Are we going to have to hold everybody liable, all down the line?

Or is that your job?

Mr. MACDONALD. The liability flows primarily two places. It

flows to the contractor, and many of those parties that you described are subcontractors to that contractor. And some of it would

potentially flow to us. Correct me if I am wrong on this, Morris,

but I don’t think the section design consultants, for the most part,

are involved in this.

Mr. LEVY. Not in the choice of the roofing material. But, Congressman, I think until today—I am not sure that the water is

coming from the roof. In other words, there is water at the joints,

and it could well be that the roofing—that the waterproofing is still

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intact, and that the water is coming through the concrete, because

the concrete goes up the sides.

Mr. CAPUANO. But as I understood the way this was supposed to

be applied, it is supposed to be applied, what, up a foot——

Mr. LEVY. That is correct.

Mr. CAPUANO [continuing]. On the soldiers. And, therefore, there

shouldn’t be any water.

Mr. LEVY. The outside wall of concrete is exposed to the water.

The top of the wall is exposed to the water. And the water is coming through the concrete from the top or from the side, instead of—

that is why we are grouting. We are not grouting the waterproofing. We are grouting the——

Mr. CAPUANO. Well, one of the reasons I picked this, because,

again, it is simple for me—and, you know, you get into slurry

walls, but the same issue applies to slurry walls. I mean, you don’t

just have one guy come in and drop a slurry wall in. Somebody has

to design it, somebody has go to do this, somebody has to pick the

slurry.

I mean, I understand there are different kinds of slurries. You

have to pick which one you have to do, you have to have it inspected, you have 8, 10, 9, 12 people or entities that are responsible

for any aspect, not just this. Same thing with the intelligent transportation system, same thing with the concrete selection, same

thing with every aspect of it. This was just a simple one to me, because it makes sense, something I understand.

And I guess for me, I go through all of this to make sure that

I am not on the wrong track, that the liability for all of these

issues, regardless of how they are repaired in the future, the liability is going to be a long-term discussion, unless what you have

said, Mr. MacDonald, is—turns out to be accurate, that you will

stand up and accept your responsibility, whatever that may be.

And I take you at your word, but I also understand that when

the time comes this is still going to happen. And when it happens,

my hope is that each and every one of these people who is on this

list is going to be held responsible for their aspect of it, and that

includes you.

Mr. MACDONALD. Congressman, let me respond by again saying,

yes, we will step up to our obligations under our contract. Absolutely. The situation that you described is normal. A contractor,

section design consultants, a management consultant, those are the

three principal parties involved in this conversation, so it is sort of

a normal circumstance.

The disputes are, unfortunately, a normal circumstance in this

environment. I, frankly, believe that the issues that you are concerned about will show themselves in the near future. I don’t think

it is going to take years to discover potential issues that are subject

to cost recovery or subject to back charges against contractors. For

the most part, we are going to know that in the near future.

I think there is a robust process in place now under the attorney

general’s purview. We are committed to work through that process.

It is a process that has the attributes that we have long sought.

It is one voice on behalf of the Commonwealth, the legislature, the

administration, MHD, MTA, a fact-based process. So we will fully

engage in that process.

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Mr. CAPUANO. Well, I am going to end with one last thing. As

I understand it—and correct me if I am wrong—there is currently

a lawsuit pending relative to notification from 1994 on some issues

relative to the tunnel that—it is kind of interesting.

Even in your written testimony, you suggest that, in 1994, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff was under a contractual constraint basically to lie relative to the cost of the tunnel. That is what your

written testimony says, that you couldn’t have public commentary—well, I can read it to you.

Mr. MACDONALD. Well, our testimony said that we had an obligation to tell our customer what we knew.

Mr. CAPUANO. Right.

Mr. MACDONALD. And we did that.

Mr. CAPUANO. Maybe you shouldn’t lie. You are right. I should

correct myself that you were constrained to not correct a lie publicly given, repeatedly given, by your employer—namely, the Turnpike Authority, not Mr. Amorello, but one of his predecessors.

The contract prohibited Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff from making any unauthorized statements, and that is relating to an earlier

statement—in 1994, you provided the Governor and State officials

with total cost estimates of almost $14 billion. I have to tell you,

if I were a prosecutor, I would not let you off the hook because you

had a contract that basically said you had to let a lie happen. Different issue; others will decide that.

But as I understand it—am I wrong to think that there is a lawsuit pending relative to whether you did or did not inform State officials on these issues?

Mr. MACDONALD. There is a lawsuit pending on that matter.

Again, I don’t think your characterization of this thing is accurate.

I don’t think that is what the contract says or that is what we did.

We went through that process in 1994. We continued to give our

best advice to the Turnpike Authority throughout that period of

time.

Mr. AMORELLO. Could I just interject that in 1994 the State

Highway Department, then the Department of Public Works, was

in charge of the project, not the Turnpike Authority.

Mr. CAPUANO. Either way, it wasn’t you. [Laughter.]

Mr. AMORELLO. No. Just in terms of clarification.

Mr. CAPUANO. Well, I respect that, Mr. MacDonald, but I would

suggest—I will tell you that as—well, as a non-practicing attorney

now, that if I were advising you, and I—you had a client who was

telling you, ‘‘Look, we know we are 40 percent—minimum 40 percent over budget,’’ and you know it, and your client—in this case

the State Highway Department—is telling you to shut up, my advice to you would have been to walk, because you can see—you can

feel the anchor coming around your neck.

Guess what? Here it is. Your client, based on your—again, I am

not going to—I don’t know what the truth is, but based on your

written testimony, you knew then that your client, the Highway

Department, was perpetrating a public lie and, one, they violated

FCC regulations, never mind anything else, that you knew was

wrong.

And I think by doing that, even presuming that what you say is

true, you told the Governor and you told the State officials, I still

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think you have some liability issues on that, because you should

have walked. You should have walked, knowing that your client

then was engaged in something immoral at the very least, unethical, clearly, and probably illegal.

Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Thank you.

Mr. Tamaro, I want to go back to you for a second. How do I determine what—the normal amount of water that we should expect

in this tunnel upon completion?

Mr. TAMARO. As far as the slurry walls themselves are concerned, you should have no water. You should not have running

water. There will be an occasional seep that requires repair.

Mr. LYNCH. All right.

Mr. TAMARO. The roof joint appears to me beyond what you

would normally expect. I am going to go a little beyond perhaps

where I should with a comment with regard to the membrane.

From what I have seen of the roof, up between the girders, I think

the membrane is performing on the flat, and the problem is exclusive to the turn of the wall and the wall contact.

I would suspect that the membrane will last the life of the structure because of its being protected. I assume, and I don’t know if

you have the proper protection boards and the like, as long as it

didn’t get punctured by whomever was walking around on top, the

membrane on the horizontal should be satisfactory. It is that joint

detail and turning up the wall that is really the culprit in this

problem. And the question is: how does that get resolved at this

point?

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Let us see. Why don’t we talk for a moment

about what you described, Mr. MacDonald, as being fairly normal.

In Attorney General Reilly’s testimony, he indicated there were 134

issues outstanding for claims against the project and a total of

$400 million in claims.

Now, I understand that there is always that back and forth, and

there are claims. But at this late stage of the process and the

project, is that something that is normal, where a lot of contractors

have completed their responsibilities and are no longer on the

project and have been paid and now are going—we are trying to

resolve these things and doing cost recovery on top of that?

Mr. MACDONALD. I would like to separate it a little bit. If I understood the attorney general correctly, he indicated there was 134

items for cost recovery. To me, that would translate into issues that

are potentially at our doorstep or at the doorstep of the section design consultants. With respect to the $400 million in claims from construction contractors, this is the pending amount of claims from the contractors

for their construction work, some that have finished and some that

are still ongoing, that is going through a claims resolution process,

a process which is directly managed by the MTA.

I am not aware that—of anyone who has been paid in advance

of getting an agreement. So I think there is a little

miscommunication there about paying contractors for claims.

So this is a significant amount of money. The fact that we have

some disputes and this project has had a long—a fairly long history

of disputes with the construction contractors, I think is—you know,

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is kind of within the normal expectation, maybe a little more than

we would like to see. We would like to get it—we would like to get

it resolved as quickly as possible, so it is not around for a long time

to come.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Mr. Tamaro, now I remember what the question

was I wanted to ask you. The idea that we have this slurry wall

that is 42 inches thick, and normally—well, let me put it this way.

Along the stretch of the—of the Artery Tunnel in front of the Federal Reserve Bank, apparently the engineer that was—or the engineer representative for the Federal Reserve Bank required that reinforcing steel be put—maintained in the slurry wall along that

stretch in front of the Federal Reserve Bank. Am I correct on that?

Keith Sibley, how about you?

Mr. SIBLEY. Originally, several of the slurry walls were preliminary designed with reinforcing steel in them. As the final dimensions—a real driving dimensional item here is the soldier pile. It

is 3 feet. When you add the cover, you get a 31⁄2 foot wall. That

wall thickness is not really required for the soil and water to be

held back, but that is what is required to swallow the pile that is

inserted in the trench as we build these walls and then carry the

roof loads.

Once we had that much design in place, we realized that we did

not need to reinforce the walls in many locations. Two locations we

do have the walls reinforced. It is along the side of one financial,

and it is along the side of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Those are adjacent to critical buildings. We did review this information with their consultants, and they preferred we remain with

a conservative design to keep that reinforcing steel. We had it

there. They preferred we not take it out when we realized we didn’t

need it in many other areas. They didn’t require that we put it

there, but they preferred we not take it out.

Mr. LYNCH. How much of the rest of the—apart from those two

spots—one financial and the Federal Reserve Bank—how much of

the remainder of the Artery Project had preliminary rebar design?

Mr. SIBLEY. Actually, I do not know the answer to that——

Mr. LYNCH. Take a stab.

Mr. SIBLEY [continuing]. From the study——

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. We pretty much wanted the original standard

to have the walls reinforced as——

Mr. LYNCH. OK. So it was the norm.

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. The norm.

Mr. LYNCH. The norm in the preliminary design was to have

rebar in the slurry walls.

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. I can’t say whether it was the preliminary design or the conceptual design. But in the early stages of the project,

that is the standard we were discussing. As Keith pointed out,

later on we backed off of that, and only required that——

Mr. LYNCH. Can you move up to that mic, sir. All right. Let us

take that from the top again, please.

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. During the early stages of the project, we did

have, as our concept, reinforced slurry walls. Later on, as Keith

pointed out, as we went into more of the analysis and the design,

we determined that it was not needed in all locations. We kept it

in certain locations.

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I think there are a couple of isolated cases beyond Federal Reserve Bank where either we had an air rights issue or a heavy load

issue where we kept the reinforcing in. But generally, we took it

out because the analysis and design showed it was not necessary.

Mr. LYNCH. Now, let me see if I understand you correctly. Because the walls were so thick, you didn’t think you needed reinforcing steel?

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. Correct. Based on the loads that they would

absorb or would be imposed on the wall, it was not necessary. That

is correct.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Now, as I understand it, concrete is great under

a compressive load, but the steel is added because of, you know, a

moment or a lateral load. In this case, it would be from the soil

and the water on the side of the panel. Is that correct?

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. That is very—you are a good engineer. That

is absolutely correct. It is usually from tension, either from moment—primarily from moment. It is primarily from moment or

bending.

Mr. LYNCH. So it wouldn’t be the case where if we had left the

steel in, if we had left the steel in—in the slurry walls—and I am

not sure if there was a whole lot of steel in here in terms of, you

know, the size of these panels. But if you had left the reinforcing

rods in the thing as originally designed, we might not be—we

might not have had that blowout problem for one.

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. Actually, that panel has reinforcing steel in it.

Mr. LYNCH. Well, it was placed properly, is what I am saying.

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. And it still blew out, so I would not say it is

related to the reinforcing steel.

Mr. LYNCH. Yes. Now, was this a cost-saving measure, to pull the

steel out?

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. That is correct. It was part of a cost containment initiative; that is correct.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. But you left it in for the Federal Reserve

and——

Mr. LANCELLOTTI. And some other isolated areas where the

stresses warranted.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Let us just go—I want to compare these two

pieces, because I think it is important. Mr. Tamaro, given the dynamic here with this 31⁄2 foot wall, what is the impact on a lateral

load like we were just talking about, with no rebar in there and—

but say there is a substantial inclusion of soil or clay or a hammer

or brick or just a complete void within that panel, what does that

do to the structural integrity of that panel?

Mr. TAMARO. It diminishes the integrity. What happens is that

the reinforcing goes in sort of as a grid.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. TAMARO. And if there is a void, a hole, a defect, there are

alternative paths around the defect. And in the case of this particular panel, there is concrete missing for a significant height of the

element. So that you have a piece of reinforced concrete to the

north of the defect, you have a piece of overpour concrete to the

south, and you have a defect between the two.

Had there been reinforcing and concrete, you would have an element expand from beam to beam. What you have in the case of E–

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045 is you have an element sitting out in space with no support

at the Perini end of the panel.

Mr. LYNCH. I see. OK.

Mr. TAMARO. So having reinforcing or not having reinforcing

would be immaterial. If the panel had been constructed to the

flanges, behind the flanges of both of the soldier beams, and there

had been reinforcing and there was a hole, there would be an alternative path around it, and we wouldn’t have the same structural

concerns that we have for E–045.

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. TAMARO. It would have just been a sealing of the leak, and

that would have made life a little easier.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. Now, let us go to the general situation. Mr.

Amorello tells me that we have 109 panels now that have inclusions, defects, of—you know what? Can we get a definition on—I

know the No. 1s classified in the report are the severe situations

like the breach, and there are only two of those.

What constitutes a moderate or a No. 2 type defect that we have

in these walls? I guess there are 33 of them? Or actually maybe

more now.

Mr. AMORELLO. They changed with—34 panels with modest repair and 73 require patching or a type of repair. I could have Mike

Lewis, project director, speak to that, or Keith Sibley, if it is easier

on the mic.

Mr. LYNCH. Yes, either one. Either Mike or Keith, go ahead and

tell me what a No. 2 involves, and then I have some questions for

Mr. Tamaro.

Mr. SIBLEY. The No. 1 defect, we had two of those, those are the

breaches. The No. 2 type of defect is something that there are indications in some cases of a piece of an end stop left, which would

indicate that there is not full engagement of a pile for a short section.

There is an inclusion of material between a primary and secondary placement; that is, a vein of material. I think Mr. Tamaro described just recently how that is important to the performance of

the panel.

Mr. LYNCH. Could that be clay or sediment or something that?

Mr. SIBLEY. That is correct.

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. SIBLEY. Some foreign material. Clay is the most frequent,

where a joint was not fully cleaned off before the next one. Sometimes it goes well into the panel; sometimes it is toward the surface. Basically, it requires thorough investigation. We have been

doing this.

The contractors are starting to hydroblast the material out to

confirm precisely the dimensions of what we have, and then recommend methods of doing proper repairs. In some cases, this will

be primarily filling with concrete materials. In other cases, it may

involve structural consideration for the reasons that Mr. Tamaro

outlined a moment ago.

The other 73 minor ones are—we think of as patching. These go

no less—no more than, say, half the depth of the wall and involve

some reinforcing steel and concrete repair patching, typical of concrete structures.

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Mr. LYNCH. Didn’t that spec say that simple surface patching or

shallow injection shall not be allowed? Does that fly in the face of

what you are telling me now, that you are going to do minimal

patching here?

Mr. SIBLEY. Simple surface patching would be like a cosmetic repair. What I just described is a structural repair. I mentioned similar that you would do in reinforced concrete structures—for example, if you were repairing bridge abutment, if you were repairing

a retaining wall, something of that nature, you clean out the surface, you prepare it to receive new concrete, bonding agents, etc.,

or saturation, you dowel in appropriate reinforcing steel, and then

you cast additional concrete on it.

If it is relatively shallow, it can be done by——

Mr. LYNCH. Is this shot crete? Is that what you are talking about

now?

Mr. SIBLEY. That would be only in relatively shallow situations.

In deeper situations, the contractor puts up a form—there are some

of these in progress right now—and casts the appropriate material.

If it is large, it can use a large aggregate. If it is small, you might

use, say, a peastone concrete, that type of thing.

Mr. LYNCH. Yes. Who is paying for this?

Mr. SIBLEY. I think, as John said earlier, the contractors are

doing these repairs.

Mr. LYNCH. And they are paying for it on their own dime. They

are not going to come back to the taxpayer to be paid for this,

right?

Mr. MACDONALD. That is my understanding, sir, and we are paying for our inspection services.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Mr. Tamaro, based on what you have heard,

that there are voids next to the soldier pile, and there are examples

that were shown earlier where it looks like sidewalk bricks actually. Let me ask you about that.

They are doing slurry wall construction. They are pumping slurry into this open trench that is the form basically for the eventual

slurry wall. And it appears that in many, many places along this

slurry wall, for the length of the Artery, that there are things dropping in—you know, a hammer, some sidewalk bricks, clumps of

soil. It appears that there is clay sediment, and it is creating these

voids or inclusions that have been described here.

Within that panel—within that panel, what does that do to the—

again, I know you said it diminishes it, but is this a serious concern?

Mr. TAMARO. Can I just go back and tell you how it happens?

Mr. LYNCH. Sure.

Mr. TAMARO. So that we can develop it from there?

Mr. LYNCH. Sure.

Mr. TAMARO. These foreign debris come from either an inadequate cleaning of a panel initially—at the conclusion, when you

are all done excavating, you should clean out the panel, make certain there is no debris sitting on the bottom, or due to the collapse

of some material in the fills after the concrete process has begun.

In the event it is a non-cleaning of the bottom, when you put the

tremmie pipe down to the bottom of the panel, the debris is usually

lighter than the concrete, and it is expected to rise through the

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panel and be expelled. When you begin to see pockets of material,

it is indicative that there is a potential sidewall collapse during the

placement of concrete. The material has fallen down.

When you see the condition of E–045, that is specifically attributable to the fact that they had two elements that they were trying

to concrete, separated by a steel beam, and they tried to do it with

one tremmie pipe, and what it did was it pushed all the trash into

that slot.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. TAMARO. And it collected as a vertical defect.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. TAMARO. That is very serious.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. TAMARO. A pocket of material the size of a bag of potatoes

is not a problem, if you don’t have running water coming in. You

go back, you dig it out, and you fix it.

Mr. LYNCH. Well, we do have water.

Mr. TAMARO. But E–045 is an extraordinary——

Mr. LYNCH. No, no, no. But, I mean, I have a list here, and they

haven’t done non-destructive testing on this stuff. This is just the

stuff that is coming up visually. We have inclusions, and we know

we have water behind the wall here. We have wet spots. You know,

in my mind, we have all of the ingredients for a failure further

down the line.

Mr. TAMARO. If there is sufficient waterflow to erode the contaminated material, you have a potential E–045 problem.

Mr. LYNCH. Right.

Mr. TAMARO. If the leak is observed early on, and it is addressed

quickly, you can stop the leak from becoming a major problem.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Mr. Mead was in here earlier. Actually, he

might be still here. He recommended that we do a scan of every

single panel, in light of the pervasiveness of this problem, these inclusions, stuff dropping into the slurry wall. Is that something that

you would agree with?

Mr. TAMARO. I don’t think it would hurt. It is one more piece of

information. I think the visual check is the most important thing

that one can do. The visual check and sounding of the surface,

banging on it, and the like——

Mr. LYNCH. Really? Even though none of that picked up the

problem in E–045?

Mr. TAMARO. I think the problem in E–045 was picked up somewhere along the way. There was shot crete applied. There was

grouting of the leak.

Mr. LYNCH. OK.

Mr. TAMARO. I think it was picked up.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. All right. Chairman Amorello, I just want to ask

you—at the beginning of this hearing, we started talking about this

IPO situation, this integrated project organization that so many

people have now criticized, but at one point apparently it was a

popular idea because we—we adopted it. You came in 2002, is that

right?

Mr. AMORELLO. That is correct.

Mr. LYNCH. Now, I know the Leak Task Force or the Waterproofing Task Force was 1997.

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Mr. AMORELLO. Waterproofing.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. And then the Leak Task Force was 1999.

Mr. AMORELLO. 2000.

Mr. LYNCH. 2000? And you came in in 2002?

Mr. AMORELLO. Correct.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. So you have had a chance, based on the date

that you brought in in 2002, it is still pretty much—well, there are

some safeguards, I understand. Why don’t I let you answer the

question.

What was your experience with this IPO situation? What did you

do? If you did anything differently, or if you are still using the

same system, I would like to hear about your opinion.

Mr. AMORELLO. When I first came in, being new to it, I hired the

National Academy of Engineers to come in and make recommendations. And a panel came up and had several meetings in Massachusetts and in Washington.

And John Christian, a Massachusetts resident who is now an advisor to the Authority chaired that panel of national experts from

the Academy how to finish the project—their recommendation came

back. The management team and structure you have in place is

sufficient to carry you to the end of this project, to 2005 being the

substantial completion date.

But I wasn’t a fan of the IPO, and I think lessons learned from

this—the IPO was not the manner to oversee this project. The instances that the attorney general will speak of in cost recovery, trying to recoup costs back where there is so much agreement, the Inspector General has made it clear in many of his—in his testimony

today and in remarks in the past that we somewhat dismantled

that organizational structure. The public employees report to me

and to the chain of command here at the Authority, and the Bechtel personnel answer to those overseeing them from the public sector.

I would point out that at any given time in the past on this

project, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff I believe had at times approximately 1,000 employees of their firms working or subcontractors for them.

Mr. LYNCH. Not counting attorneys, right?

Mr. AMORELLO. I don’t want to characterize—it is the number of

FTEs at any given time under their work program and the subcontractors they had within their work programs. And on the State

side, I believe at some given point we had approximately 50 employees.

But the IPO, a decision made back in the late 1990’s, I am not

a fan of it, wasn’t when I came in, took the National Academy’s

recommendation to finish the project with the timeline we had left,

manage that, opened roadways, kept the schedule, kept to budget,

at the same time moving public responsibilities on the public side

and treating it more like a standard relationship between a consultant and the public side.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Let me ask you, who signs off on—do you need

to sign off on any payments to Bechtel and other contractors?

Mr. AMORELLO. Contract modifications come in before—at a certain level come into the Turnpike Board for approval. The State

Highway Department also approves them, because these are State

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highway construction contracts. So there are basically two layers of

public approval on these contracts. The State Highway Department

is more of a procedural matter, because the project is administered

and controlled by the Authority given the 1997 legislation.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Well, to the degree that you have any authority

to sign off on this, you know, I assume you were here for my conversation with Attorney General Reilly.

Mr. AMORELLO. Absolutely. And the clarification, in terms of

holding the contractors responsible for their contracts, and to provide a piece of information in regards to cost recovery and those efforts seeking recovery to section design consultants or Bechtel/Parsons as the joint venture.

And then, the claims and change progress, which, I think Congressman Capuano and yourself have talked about, and the chairman was talking about construction claims or changes that we

have instituted as part of the construction process, those are settled with the Authority, and they are not settled as a matter of an

easy decision that we have our own attorneys and our own outside

consultant exponent to review the claims filed by the contractors,

and negotiated settlements where possible.

If we identify in a claim that we are going to pay, because it is

a legitimate, fair claim by the contractor to make it, but we find

that claim was as a result of a design error or omission, then we

submit that over to cost recovery. And those are the items that the

attorney general’s office will be looking at. Those were the items

that the Ginsburg team was dealing with in their cost recovery program.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. While we are on that subject, on cost recovery,

I have to ask you—you came into this situation in 2002, and you

know you are stepping into a problem because the project is already, I don’t know, it is out of sight. It is over $10.8 billion—or,

no, it has to be close to $14 at that point, right?

Mr. AMORELLO. When I came in, it was $14.625. And today it

is——

Mr. LYNCH. That is where it is, OK. So you know we have problems, and there are enormous concerns about cost recovery, getting

some of that money back. And with all due respect to the gentlemen at this table, we, as a Commonwealth, and you on the Authority, we are in a pitch battle, a legal one, with Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff, one of the biggest construction firms in the world.

And in casting about for someone to handle our case and recovering moneys for the taxpayer from this huge construction company,

apparently someone—perhaps yourself included—they did a search

to come up with someone to quarterback our team for cost recovery.

And I understand you found a fine gentleman to do that.

However, from my research, it appears he was a probate judge,

someone dealing with divorce and custody and wills and estates, to

quarterback our team. And I have no—nothing but fine things to

say about that gentleman and—but professionally, as someone who

is responsible for watching out for the Commonwealth, for the taxpayer, I have to ask you: how did you, in a thorough search, come

up with someone who, from my own review and research, I can find

no clear reason why one would—if casting about the best person to

represent us in that conflict? And it was a conflict, a legal conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:52 Jun 23, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00128 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21590.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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flict—I just cannot understand for the life of me why we made that

selection. And I just want to—I have to ask you that, because it

is vexing.

Mr. AMORELLO. I certainly appreciate and respect the question.

Judge Ginsburg is a highly regarded Judge of the

Commonwealth——

Mr. LYNCH. Absolutely.

Mr. AMORELLO [continuing]. Regardless of the——

Mr. LYNCH. An expert in probate law, I might add, and a respected one.

Mr. AMORELLO. And removing the subject matter of his jurisdiction in the courtroom, the credentials of him as an intelligent legal

mind, an individual of the highest integrity——

Mr. LYNCH. Unquestioned.

Mr. AMORELLO [continuing]. That heading up a team of attorneys—and we are talking about a team of attorneys and outside

engineering consultants, able to administer the program, and as

Attorney General Reilly pointed out, you have two avenues in cost

recovery. You either settle the matters or you go to court and litigate them.

I guess there would be a third one. You could just drop it and

not pursue it at all. But looking at the reality of the two matters,

the cost recovery team put into place by me was looking to move

a process that had, as has been mentioned by Ken Mead and others, $35,000 and I believe $770, $35,770 for the cost recovery in the

prior 10 years of this project.

Judge Ginsburg and his team secured back $3.8 million in settlement moneys, and filed 10 lawsuits, and an 11th lawsuit that Congressman Capuano referenced against Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff on the grounds of fiduciary responsibilities and others.

The attorney general in his remarks said that those 10 suits

were for—or 8 of those 10 suits, and if—were moving forward in

the process, and that the 11th suit against Bechtel/Parsons was—

he had stated but did not—dropped it. I think that speaks that the

cost recovery team instituted by the Authority was doing its job,

pursuing it.

When it became a matter of lawsuits only, it was appropriate

that the chief legal enforcement officer for the Commonwealth of

Massachusetts, the attorney general, take these matters over, and

use all of the tools and abilities at his disposal that we currently

didn’t have—don’t have as an authority, other than through the

discovery process in the legal cases.

Mr. LYNCH. In fairness, though, the assessment of the previous

cost recovery team—and I may be wrong, and you are completely

free to correct me if I am wrong—if I count up what we have spent

in cost recovery, I come up with approximately expenses of approximately $8 billion.

Mr. AMORELLO. $8 million.

Mr. LYNCH. I am sorry, $8 million, right. $8 million to recover $4 million. So we spent $8 to recover about $4. You know, if I am

wrong, straighten me out.

Mr. AMORELLO. Well, just in terms of when you talk about the

individual matter of the settlements that were reached with Jacobs

Engineering and some other firms, the dollars invested for those

126

settlements were, I believe—and I stand to be corrected on the

exact dollar amount, but I believe it was about $700,000 to secure

back $3.8 million, $4 million in settlement.

The additional moneys expended by the cost recovery team is

into the establishment of those 10 lawsuits, and I think all of us

know that the foundation now that the attorney general is moving

on are those 10 lawsuits and the amount of work put into putting

a suit before the Supreme Court—the Superior Court of Massachusetts is where these dollars that were expended for lawyers, for

outside engineering consultants, and for the staff attorneys that

were working on cost recovery.

Mr. LYNCH. I understand. But we are looking at an October or

November trial date here, and there is still an enormous amount

of work that needs to be done on these cases based on the attorney

general’s assessment at this point.

Mr. AMORELLO. Well, if I may——

Mr. LYNCH. You may.

Mr. AMORELLO [continuing]. Congressman, just to point out that

in the course of this project, in the 10 years of active construction,

there had been no effort—no meaningful effort in terms of cost recovery. Ideally—and I say this with the Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff folks, you would like to reach settlement and resolve

matters in that fashion and not need to pursue them in court.

I respect the fact that the professional relationship between the

Turnpike Authority and Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff has not materially changed in their effort to continue to complete this project,

while at the same time we filed a lawsuit against them and 10 of

the section design consultants in this course.

The process was not there prior to that, to the cost recovery team

that the Authority established. If you can reach a settlement—and,

again, ideally you want to reach that as the attorney general, and

hopefully the attorney general will be successful in reaching a settlement, but if not, you only have the course to go to litigation, and

those are the steps that we took.

And at the stage where we were finishing up, the court cases had

been filed, natural progression to turn it over to the attorney general, and his willingness to accept it.

Mr. LYNCH. It is a point well taken. But just two points. No. 1,

it is usually the quality and the strength of the litigation that

drives the settlement. It is not the settlement that is the driving

force, and then it falls to litigation as a default measure.

So it leads me back to my original question, which was—I mean,

forgive me, but we are in a construction litigation case against one

of the largest construction companies in the world. And we hire a

probate judge to handle our case. That is my point. I understand

the intelligence of the gentleman, his intellect unquestioned, a fine

human being. It is just I question the judgment of that——

Mr. AMORELLO. But take the fact—and, again, the two law firms

that are representing us, and were representing us—Looney &

Grossman is headed by a former——

Mr. LYNCH. Fine law firms, but who is our quarterback on this?

Mr. AMORELLO. The quarterback was Judge Ginsburg and the

team, and these two outside law firms, the other one having one

of the best legal counsels in terms of construction law—Bill

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Zucker—in the country. So we had the right personnel in place,

and now it is rightly turned over to the attorney general. We fully

support him in his efforts in the cases that were given over to him

to manage and administer and move to either successful conclusion

with settlements or he moves to continuing the litigation.

Mr. LYNCH. Well, I wish I shared your faith. It is just a troubling

development.

Mr. AMORELLO. I hear you.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. I will leave it at that. Maybe I should give this

back to Congressman Capuano, but I have to ask—it sounds, you

know, across the table here that there is a shared assessment that

things are going not perfectly, but things are moving along in the

right direction and that you are—you feel that you are on the right

path, and that, as Mr. MacDonald says, this bridge—this tunnel

will serve the citizens of the Commonwealth well into the next century.

If that is really the case—and I am going to ask each of you—

Mr. Tamaro, you don’t have a stake in this question. But are you

willing to support efforts to hold the taxpayer harmless going forward here? That is my principal concern here—that long after all

of us are gone, and we already see, you know, Modern Continental

is gone, God bless them—bless Marino, but the company is going

under, and Mr. Cashman is taking over his responsibilities.

Reliant Insurance, gone. Other entities that might be looked to

for recourse are also on the ropes, as they say. There are some others that are in shaky condition.

My concern is that in the long term—and I am not saying 5

years or 10 years, I am saying this is a 75-year or a 100-year tunnel, we have a responsibility to the next generation that we give

them something that it is not a continual drain on their resources.

So I am looking to set up a structure; some have called it a warranty. I am not sure that is the correct word for it, but close

enough—a way of protecting the citizens of the Commonwealth

going forward, collectively, meaning the Authority and whatever resources it can garner and retain for that purpose, Bechtel/Parsons

Brinckerhoff in the same fashion, the subcontractors, the general

contractors, the designers, the insurance companies, the reinsurance companies, the bond companies, everyone.

But to hold the citizens harmless from—they are blameless in

this. They are blameless in this, and in fairness they paid for a

first-rate tunnel, and based on what I see—and there are a lot of

reasons for it—I don’t see a first-rate tunnel. We hired a worldclass team here, and I don’t see a world-class product, quite frankly, not yet. We can get there; they are salvageable. But we need

the commitment of everyone involved.

And I know there is a lot of personal pride out there as managers

and as construction professionals. Right across the board, right

through Bechtel and each of the firms involved here, and it goes

right down to the workers on the site. Mike and I walked there.

You know, there is a considerable amount of angst among the

workers that they are being associated with a project that is being

criticized roundly.

And they would like to do everything that they can to work

themselves out of it. And I would just like to see the same commitVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:52 Jun 23, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00131 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\21590.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ment from the firms involved here from the top to the bottom, because I think it is solvable. But it requires a firm and honest and

genuine commitment to getting to that end.

And, you know, I haven’t seen it yet. It looks like this thing is

barreling toward litigation, and I don’t think that is the best for

anyone. And by God, if we get into that, then we will all be involved. We will all be involved, and there will be no easy way out.

It will be take no prisoners from our standpoint in the Congress.

And there will be ramifications, as Chairman Davis said, for those

who seek to acquire other Federal contracts.

We are not playing Tiddly Winks here. This is serious business.

Our obligation is to protect the people that we represent, and your

obligation is to fulfill your part of the bargain. And we can get

there if everyone is fully committed.

I will turn it over to Congressman Capuano.

Mr. CAPUANO. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I guess I only have one

or two more questions and then just a closing statement from me.

Mr. MacDonald, I apologize for not asking this before, but I want

to make sure I get the question asked to you. In your written testimony, you say that the contract prohibited the agency from making

any unauthorized statements to the public. Are you still under the

same contract to not make any unauthorized statements to the

public?

Mr. MACDONALD. We are, sir, yes.

Mr. CAPUANO. But I presume that since you are under oath

today, the oath that you took at the beginning of this hearing supersedes any contractual agreement.

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, it most certainly does.

Mr. CAPUANO. OK.

Mr. MACDONALD. I would also comment that the chairman has

authorized——

Mr. CAPUANO. Fair enough.

Mr. MACDONALD [continuing]. Us to make statements.

Mr. CAPUANO. The reason I ask is because I want to make sure

I ask the question. Though I am hoping—I think I know the answer, I want to hear it. Based on your knowledge today, is there

anything that the general public or that myself or Mr. Lynch

doesn’t know relative to cost, safety, or security, of major impact—

major import, that we should know?

Is Mr. Amorello telling us the truth, unlike some of his—not his

predecessors but the predecessors of the other agency, predecessors

who ran the Big Dig? Are we being told the truth today relative

to cost, relative to safety and security of the tunnel? Again, subject

to all of the litigation. I am not asking you to point fingers. That

will be all worked out. But to the best of your knowledge, are we

currently being told the truth about this project?

Mr. MACDONALD. To the best of my knowledge, I think your

statements are absolutely right. I think you are being told everything there is to know about the project. Mr. Amorello is—Chairman Amorello is running one of the most transparent agencies in

the country right now. You know, everything is on a real-time

basis. From the time we find a defect in the tunnel to when it is

disclosed to the public is within days. So I think it is an extraordinarily open administration.

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Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you. That is the answer I was hoping to

hear, and I am glad I got it.

I just want to close by thanking you all for coming. We have been

here close to, give or take, 4 hours now. First of all, thank you for

staying, and thank you for being open and honest. And, you know,

thank you for sticking with it.

Mr. Amorello, I know you have had some good days and some

bad days on this project. And my hope is that we have more good

days coming than we have had in the past.

And, gentlemen, thank you all. Mr. Lynch, thank you for inviting

me, and I appreciate the opportunity.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Congressman. Just in closing, in a similar note, Mr. Amorello, I reviewed the chronology of this, and I

know you came here in 2002 and that a lot of these problems were

in full bloom before that point. So I suspect that they have laid

more blame at your doorstep than you truly deserve, and I want

to make that—as someone who has looked at this from day one to

the present day, I just want to make that perfectly clear.

I just want to go back to my friends at Bechtel. Again, you understand the mission here and the desire here to find some solution, not to lay the blame and the costs at your doorstep, but to

somehow get your involvement and your commitment to indemnifying the taxpayers, so that the costs are borne by the responsible

parties. And I have no knowledge of the proportionate responsibility among the parties. I suspect it is widely spread.

Mr. MacDonald, are you committed to that process that would

seek to make sure that the construction is completed according to

the specifications and to the highest expectations of the people of

the Commonwealth? And also, the Federal taxpayers that have

contributed here. And are you willing to work with us on indemnifying the taxpayer from any unreasonable costs above what they

should have expected?

Mr. MACDONALD. Congressman, we are committed to giving you

the quality product that you deserve, and we will continue to strive

toward that end. With respect to the commercial matters, at the

closeout of this job, and some of the things that you have talked

about are similar to some things that were asked by the Joint

Transportation Committee of the legislature here back in December.

And we are committed on taking those ideas on board. We followed up with the co-chair, Chairman Wagner LeDoure. Their view

at the time, having the AG—State attorney general in charge of

the program, that was the appropriate process to sustain that dialog through. And so we are committed to sustaining that dialog

through that process.

Mr. LYNCH. But I am looking to find something long term, some

solution to put in place as this project winds down. You may be

right, and the project may perform as advertised. However, there

have been enough events during the course of this project, and

enough problems that have come to light, that lead a prudent person to require some type of assurance.

Whether you call that a warranty or a—whether a policy can be

put together, it is an insurable risk, in my estimation, given the

timeframe for this project and what we know now and what we will

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know especially after May 15 and DeLoitte & Touche comes in with

their report, which may prompt another hearing, by the way.

But are you willing to look at that type of solution collectively

with all of the other partes?

Mr. MACDONALD. Again, Mr. Congressman, the answer is we will

look at that in the context of the overall resolution of these issues,

and we think that the right place to do that is through the process

with the State attorney general.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. All right. If that is your answer.

Do any of you have anything you would like to say in closing?

I should probably offer you that opportunity.

Mr. AMORELLO. Congressman, the commitment on the Turnpike

Authority to finish this project to the level that the public expects

us to, it is delivering on the commitments that were made when

it was initiated back in the mid-1980’s in terms of improving traffic

flow.

We have done the groundbreaking on the north end parks. We

are seeing the greening of downtown Boston and improving transportation. So the project is living up to the expectations. These construction issues that we need to resolve, while we have the contractors in place, while Bechtel/Parsons are here, we will hold them accountable.

Your suggestion in terms of a warranty, I can assure you that

the Turnpike Authority will work cooperatively with the attorney

general, and items that perhaps we project out as additional costs

that the Authority should not have expected to bear on itself as the

owner and operator of this tunnel network perhaps could be added

into discussions in terms of settlements, if it is possible with the

responsible parties from the SDCs and from the joint venture.

This is an incredible achievement. This highway network, despite

all of the negative press that has occurred here, it is an incredible

achievement. The tunnel system under the city of Boston is a marvel that we will all take great pride in that we are a part of and

helped to make it a reality.

These issues, these hurdles that we need to overcome, we will

overcome them. I have the confidence in the gentleman to my left.

I have the conference in the folks sitting behind me from the Turnpike Authority, particularly those of us in the public sector that

want to do the right thing, assure the taxpayers and tollpayers

that their money was wisely spent and that they weren’t spent on

any additional costs that—for leak repairs, or what have you.

But we will hold all our contractors accountable on our end in

terms of claims and changes, and we will work cooperatively with

the attorney general in its efforts at cost recovery, or continuing

the efforts of cost recovery. But this is—it should never be forgotten by any of us in this Commonwealth—an incredible project that

is going to make a world of difference for the future of Boston and

New England.

It has had a great impact for the men and women in the building

trades for 10 years while construction was going on, a rare opportunity of keeping a lot of people that were in a business, as you

know, that was cyclical and depending on cycles. For much of the

1990’s, this project kept the city of Boston and the region healthy

economically, because of the spending that went into it.

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And at the end of the day, we will have a first-rate tunnel network, a first-rate transportation system, first-rate parks on the top,

all because of the investment that has been made by the national

government, by the State government by the Turnpike Authority.

But we have an obligation to you, the Members of Congress, to

Inspector Mead—I agreed with you earlier when Congressman

Capuano said the one person he cares about is—if he is still behind

me somewhere—the Inspector General for the Department of

Transportation, but also our partners in Federal Highway.

Administrator Peters has been very supportive of this project and

efforts, but she is also holding our feet to the fire to make sure that

the panel replacement that comes in meets your expectation and

their expectation for longevity, durability, constructability, and we

will come up with a solution with, again, the folks behind me—

John Christian, Clyde Baker from SDS—to assure the public that

no cost was incurred.

And no cost is being—the cost of repair of this panel is not a factor for us. The Bechtel folks and the people from Modern Continental have stepped up to take responsibility, so we are not calculating

in any dollar value to say, ‘‘This is the fix.’’ It will be the best fix

that works, with the least amount of risk, least amount of impact

to our abutters, and something that is constructable and durable

and will last as long as we expect these tunnels to last, and that

is 75 years or greater.

Mr. LYNCH. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

Gentleman.

Mr. MACDONALD. Yes, Mr. Congressman. This has been an extraordinarily long game for us, as your management consultant.

We have been at this for 20 years. The controversies that we face

today aren’t the first controversies that we have responded to on

this job. These aren’t the first challenges that we have overcome

on this job.

So we will continue to go forward. We will continue to do our

best to complete this project as cost effectively and to a high standard to deliver the world-class project that you are entitled to. We

will do that. The challenges today will be overcome.

We have also done that—and, again, as you get to the tail of

these things, the cost recovery issues tend to take on a rather large

dimension, and that is what has happened here, and it has happened over the past 3 years. It just didn’t happen this year. It has

been an ongoing stress for us, really, since the middle of 2001.

And I am so proud of our people that they have been able to stay

focused on their job and working with the MTA and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to get this job done. And we will continue

to do that while we continue to constructively work through this

dispute.

Thank you.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Well, thank you. And I trust that you will work

with Attorney General Reilly, then, maybe to pursue that indemnification of the taxpayers in some shape or form that is agreeable

to you all?

Thank you, gentlemen. The hearing is adjourned.

[NOTE.—The slide presentation by Hon. Stephen Lynch entitled,

‘‘Digging up the Facts: Inspecting the Big Dig and the Performance

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of Federal and State Government in Providing Oversight of Federal

Funds,’’ may be found in committee files.]

[Whereupon, at 5:55 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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