Added Work Increases Contract for Townsend’s Inlet Bridge

CREST HAVEN – Freeholders approved a $318,231 increase in the ceiling amount for additional work by Remington and Vernick Engineers, Inc. for construction engineering services to replace seven spans on the Townsend’s Inlet Bridge.
At the Nov. 12 freeholder caucus, Acting County Engineer Robert Church said there were three factors that drove the expanded scope of work. They were:
* A demolition failure Oct. 6, 2018
* Settlement of one of the pilings March 4, 2019
* Accelerated work schedule
“When the contractor was wire cutting pier three, as he got through that pier, it cracked and twisted and fell on pier four, and both those piers rested on the bottom of the channel,” explained Church. “As a result of that, there was extensive effort of underwater salvage that was occurring, with divers, which was beyond the scope that Remington and Vernick had envisioned when they did their proposal.”
Joseph Ragusa, who manages construction services for Remington and Vernick’s Infrastructure Division, noted that the divers “hand cut every piece, so we (Remington and Vernick) had an inspector up there on the barge while the divers were down there, listening to the radio, as far as what they were doing and how the demo was going.”
He said that “where it (the pier) fell was exactly where the new piers had to go, so it wasn’t even like we could start installing the new piers until that was out of the way.”
The salvage operation is ongoing, Ragusa continued.
“They had given up on demoing it by hand, just said drag it out of the way, we got to get these piles in by March 1, so we documented how many divers were in the water, how long they were in the water all day, and then at night, they were working double and triple shifts,” he added. “We were out there at night while they were doing demo, both on the west side and out there in the channel.”
Ragusa explained that man hours spiked in December 2018. “That’s where the contractor went to triple shifts,” he said.
The in-water completion date, mandated by the state Department of Environmental Protection, was Feb. 28, 2019, according to Ragusa, which resulted in a “high spike” in man hours in February.
In March 2019, during the driving of pilings, one settled about 18 inches, said Church, “so, there was an issue with that to find out the cause of what happened, and then to retest the existing piles that were previously driven to certify that we didn’t have the same situation occurring with those piles.”
That process lasted almost a month, noted Church.
“We worked with Greenman-Pedersen, Inc. (GPI) to come up with direction for the contractor, and then oversaw the work,” said Ragusa. “There was about a month of coming up with a plan how to do the testing, and then about another month of work for the actual corrective work that had to be done.”
He noted that additional testing, additional materials, and additional support with GPI were required to manage the settling of the piling. 
Church added that there was a modification that had to be done on one of the piles, “where that had to be driven extra length in order to regain capacity, so that was additional time that was never anticipated in their (Remington and Vernick) contract.”  
Once that was resolved, in late April/May, man hours spiked again. “That was the big push to get the bridge open,” said Ragusa.
“We realized that the contract was lagging as a result of the pile settlement and demolition, so we asked them to work additional hours and adjust their means and methods, so that work could occur concurrently within an accelerated schedule,” said Church. “That required additional staffing for the month of May and July, when we finally did open up the bridge.”
The bridge reopened July 25, two months after it was expected to open Memorial Day Weekend.
“We had six to seven operations going on at a time, and we were tracking everything, from quantities to just the manpower that’s out there, to keep an eye on everything,” said Ragusa.
“It was a big push to get it done as quickly as possible, and we staffed it to make sure we had the inspectors there. It no longer became a one-inspector operation because of the multiple work that was going on,” he added.
Freeholder Will Morey, liaison to the Engineer’s Office, thanked all involved in the effort. “It was a great effort on the part of many folks,” he said. “The contractor was heavily engaged, and really focused on how to open this bridge, as soon as safely and humanly possible.”
“Ultimately, I think we ended up with a pretty good outcome,” he added. “I was really pleased to get it open when we did.”