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January 25, 2011

No Duck River project manager

Instead, city hires St. John as 'owner's representative'

By Trent Moore The Cullman Times

CULLMAN — After some initial questions about what role a project manager should play in the proposed $70 million Duck River dam, city officials have now decided to not hire a project manager at all.

Instead, the Cullman utilities board has tapped Bill St. John, with Cullman-based engineering firm St. John & Associates, to serve as the owner’s representative and consultant on the secondary reservoir project. St. John has worked for years as an engineering consultant for the city, and also designed the original pipeline for the Duck River dam. St. John’s firm will work on a per-hour basis — paid approximately $80 - $120 depending on services rendered — according to a motion approved Friday at a specially called meeting.

Project liaison Dale Greer said the decision evolved after the utilities board heard various pitches from potential project managers, and noticed some redundancies in services. Originally, the board had considered a project manager who would also oversee construction and provide inspections and oversight — duties engineer of record CH2M Hill will likely assume.

“As we’ve listened to project managers about what they were proposing, we tried to fine tune what we were looking for out of that,” Greer said. “We talked to Bill [St. John] and he agreed that there was some duplication there. We think this will eliminate some of that, and it made sense to have Bill take on this role with us, because he is someone with engineering and construction knowledge who can answer those questions.”

St. John said his firm would essentially provide oversight and guidance throughout the construction process, and review all payment requests and change orders.

“I think we can really help y’all go through this process, because it will be very complex,” St. John told the board. “I believe because of the nature of this job, in most cases, the person best suited to handle the construction process would be the design engineer, which in this case is CH2M Hill. This way, you’re not bringing someone in who is less familiar with the project.”

In late 2010, CH2M Hill assumed responsibility as engineer of record for the project — taking over for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers — and in doing so assumed much of the liability involved. Taking that aspect into consideration, St. John said the most logical option is for CH2M Hill to handle construction.

“I think the duplication comes in with CH2M Hill having so much liability and stake in this project, that they would be doing a lot of those things anyway,” he said. “If something comes up along the way, I think it’d be best to keep that liability in one place. As long as they are able to manage construction, I think that would be your best bet.”

Utilities board chairman Wayne Fuller said this arrangement should allay some of the members’ initial anxiety about oversight during the construction process.

“During our discussions, I think our main concern was if the engineer is the construction manager, who watches over the invoices?” he said. “But here, that would be you.”

The proposed 640-acre Duck River reservoir will be located east of Lake Catoma and north of U.S. Highway 278, and will include a six-mile pipeline with a 32 million gallon-per-day capacity. Land acquisition is scheduled for completion in the comings months, and officials hope construction can begin by the end of the year.



‰ Trent Moore can be reached by e-mail at trentm@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 220.

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