Greenfield St George Airport, Utah

St George, Utah, United States

One of the select few new greenfield airport projects in the United States

Greenfield St George Airport, Utah is one of the few new greenfield airport projects in the country, the project was almost entirely funded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and was designed and constructed to FAA standards. The first phase consisted of rough grading the site to the approximate subgrade layout. The earthwork contractor moved approximately 3.5 million cubic yards of material, of which about 300,000 cubic yards was anticipated to be a select structural material. It claimed that the City misrepresented the character of the onsite soil requiring use of portable crushing plants to manufacture the specialty material onsite. Further, the contractor claimed its planned hauling distances were greatly exceeded. The contractor’s claim exceeded the initial contract value by more than 100% including a long distance haulage.

Brief

Instructed by Holm Wright Hyde & Hays on behalf of the city’s attorney, provide a technical review, claim evaluation and expert witness services.

What we did

Reviewed the original subsurface investigation, pavement design, project plans, inspector’s reports, materials test results, standard specifications, and special provisions. Detailed analysis of the contractor’s actual earthwork operations versus their claimed inefficiencies by the changed conditions. The team proved quantitatively that the contractor's average haul distances did not change despite the claim to the contrary.

Outcomes

Rebuttal all of the contractor’s assertions. The original US$ 8 million claim was settled in 2010 for less than US$ 1 million.

"Despite the assertions of the contractor we were able to use their own records to demonstrate that there was no merit to the vast majority of their claim.

In our wider experience poor planning of earthwork movements can lead to productivity shortfalls and attempted recovery through long haul claims. Whilst these can often appear to have merit detailed analysis normally demonstrates them to be baseless."