Contractor files claim over Milwaukee sewage work

By Marie Rohde

A tunnel contractor has filed a claim for more money for work done on the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District’s $138 million Harbor Siphons project.

Michael Martin, director of technical services for the district, said the project contractor — a joint venture of J.F. Shea Construction Inc. of California and Kenny Construction Co. of Illinois — filed a claim asserting workers encountered unexpected geological conditions while boring through the bedrock under the harbor.

“We found merit to the claim and agreed,” Martin said. “The additional costs are being negotiated.”

The Harbor Siphons is a pair of tunnels bored through bedrock 250 feet below the harbor. Large interceptor sewers flow into the siphons that lead to the Jones Island Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The project was designed to correct a bottleneck of the siphons leading to the plant and maximize its ability to treat effluent during heavy storms. The project also reduces the amount of wastewater that has to be stored in the Deep Tunnel during storms.

The construction project was undertaken after a 2002 Legislative Audit Bureau report criticized the district because the old system could deliver only 260 million gallons of effluent a day to the treatment plant, which has a capacity to treat 330 million gallons a day.

Most of the work on the siphons was completed in 2009 but some is not scheduled to be completed until March, Martin said.

Excluding this claim, modifications and change orders to the Harbor Siphons project have boosted the cost by $111,536 so far, Martin said. Of the total project, payment to Shea/Kenny was $87,366,536.

Representatives from the joint venture of J.F. Shea and Kenny Construction were not immediately available for comment.

Shea/Kenny recently filed a similar claim against the district related to work done on the $65 million North 27th Street inline storage system, a two-mile extension of the Deep Tunnel system that was completed earlier this year. No dollar amount was listed in either claim.