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NEWS: What’s Going on in Goochland County
Pipes
continued from > page 1
end of Goochland County, stretches an
eight-and-a-half-mile, 48-inch, force main
sewer line.
Most of that line is made up of Flowtite
fiberglass reinforced polymer (FRP) pipe,
made by a company called Amitech at a
plant in Zachary, Louisiana.
Bryant Electric, the contractor that
installed this pipe between 2004 and 2006,
had asked the county for more money and
time to finish the project, saying that the
county was negligent in listing FRP as an
acceptable product for a force main system
with restrained joints: The pipe, claimed
Bryant Electric in a presentation to the
Board of Supervisors in 2005, was prone to
leaks caused by improper joint connections
and uneven diameters.
Bryant Electric originally won the contract
based on a bid of $9.1 million, which
was based on using FRP pipe.
In June 2006, the contractor sued the
county for $9.6 million, citing breach of
contract.
The county argued that faulty installation,
not a flawed product, was to blame for
Bryant Electric’s problems in successfully
laying the pipe.
But in September of 2007, the county
offered Bryant Electric a $1 million settlement
and released the contractor from any
future claims related to the project.
And last January Goochland Public
Utilities Director Gary A. DuVal wrote a
letter to the pipe’s manufacturer, saying that
after a leak was discovered in the sewer line
last December.
“The County has concluded that the
pipe failed in this area due to defects in the
pipe itself,” he wrote, “and we are concerned
with the future of having miles of this pipe
in our infrastructure.”
A force main breaks on
River Road
According to reports obtained by The
Gazette from Goochland County, the
Goochland Sheriff’s Office notified the
county’s public utilities department on
December 9 that a waterline had broken
along River Road, near the Randolph
Square subdivision entrance.
County staff turned off the pumps in
the Eastern Goochland Pump station and
called G. L. Howard, a local utility construction
company, to repair the break and
restore service to a line that serves the
eastern end of Goochland County and a
portion of Henrico County.
In the meantime, the Virginia
Department of Environmental Quality
reported that more than 1,000 gallons of
wastewater overflowed into the ditch line
that leads to the Tuckahoe Creek.
The area was excavated and a rectangular-shaped
break was discovered in the
pipe, which was fixed by replacing a cut-out
section with two repair couplings.
During a preliminary investigation, the
overall circumference of the failed section
“Keep your
fingers crossed,
I hope nothing
happens to it. I
don’t know if there
is enough money in
there or not to repair
it.”
— Supervisor “Rudy” Bultler
was found to have three different dimensions,
all within the one joint of pipe.
The repaired sections were installed,
the couplings were tightened up and the
line was put back in service by 9 p.m. on
December 10.
The final bill from G.L. Howard was
$46,871, which covered labor; the bill from
H.D. Supply Waterworks, which covered
two 48-inch steel couplings, was $4,136.
An extended 10-year warranty from
Amitech USA, LLC, which manufactured
the pipe, won’t cover the cost of the labor
involved, but it should cover any materials
found to be defective, according to a letter
written by former County Administrator
Gregory K. Wolfrey to Amitech in 2007.
“As I believe you know, Amitech provided
FRP that did not meet the County’s
specification, both in its testing and in its
manufacturing of the pipe’s groove,” wrote
Wolfrey when he accepted the manufacturer’s
proposed warranty.
County Attorney Norman B. Sales says
the warranty claim for the December 2009
break is still outstanding and the county
Want more? Visit us on the web at
www.goochlandgazette.com
is currently in litigation to recover those
costs.
When the pipes were laid, Amitech
USA was a subsidiary of Amiantit, a Saudi
Arabian company. Amiantit sold Amitech
to U.S. Composite Pipe South in 2008,
which may jeopardize Goochland’s ability
to collect on its warranty.
But Benjamin D. Hicks, once a controller
at Amitech and currently a consulting
director with New Orleans-based accounting
firm Silva, Gurtner and Abney, said in
a phone interview this week that although
Amitech is no longer in business, an attorney
in Richmond has been retained by the
company and is working with Goochland
to resolve the claim.
The cause of the break
While the county says that defective
materials caused the pipe failure last
December, others stand by Goochland’s
2005 accusation of inadequate installation
by Bryant Electric.
Kenneth L. Glasgow, who was a regional
sales manager for U.S. Composite South at
the time of the force main break, was asked
by the county to visit the repair site the
morning of December 9, 2009.
“From what I could see, and the county
inspector with me agreed, the problem was
poor installation,” said Glasgow in a phone
interview last week. “Put it this way—when
they were digging down, after they removed
the busted pipe, I could hear the bucket of
the excavator pounding on rock at the bottom
of the trench. There’s no way any kind
of pipe would have survived on that type of
installation.”
Glasgow said that when contractors
install pipe, consistent bedding, such as
crushed stone, should be placed beneath
the pipe to keep it from shifting when under
pressure.
“It’s the same concept of having a pebble
in your shoe,” he said. “If you’re standing
on that pebble, it might not be big, but you
have all the pressure of your foot on that
one point and that’s why it hurts.”
Former Utilities Director Doug Harvey,
who was working for Goochland at the
time the sewer line was being installed
in the TCSD, believes that Bryant Electric
started off doing a good job but then ran
into problems due to insufficient staffing.
“In the middle of it, they had a subcontractor
who was laying 400 – 500 feet a
day, but then they let him go,” said Harvey.
“Later, after they announced they were get-
see Pipes> page 10