Liberty Mutual has agreed to pay all cost overruns associated with delays in the completion of Clearfield Municipal Authority’s new waste water treatment plant, announced CMA Engineer Jim Balliet of Gwin. Dobson & Foreman.
In May 2014 CMA began a $35 million project to construct its waste water treatment plant. But in early 2015, the original contractor, NVP of Jeanette, defaulted on the project.
Liberty Mutual, who was the bonding company for NVP, took over the project and hired a new general contractor, Lobar Construction Services of Dillsburg, to complete the job.
However, the default delayed the completion of the project by about a year causing cost overruns among several of the subcontractors. For example electrical contractor Church & Murdock incurred additional costs of $123,216 due to the delay.
However, initially Liberty Mutual refused to pay the bill, and Church & Murdock threatened to walk off the job last year if they weren’t paid.
CMA decided in June 2016 to pay the electrical contractor and litigate the matter with Liberty Mutual once the project was completed to avoid any more delays in the completion of the plant.
Now that the project is done, Balliet said Tuesday that Liberty Mutual has agreed to pay all the costs associated with the delays as a result of NVP’s default.
“It’s good news,” Solicitor John Ryan said.
The final closeout from Liberty Mutual was $1.378 million, according to CMA Chairman Russell Triponey.
Balliet also reported that Lobar is essentially done with all of its contract work and any work after this point would be under the two-year warranty.
The CMA voted to make its final payments of $124,915.42 and $1,378,138 to Lobar and $93,817 to Church and Murdock to closeout the project.
In other business, CMA Manager John Williams reported that the state Department of Environmental Protection has asked to have a training seminar for its water plant evaluators at the Moose Creek Reservoir. Williams said they agreed to host the training and in return the CMA will have both the Moose Creek Reservoir and the Montgomery Run Reservoir plant evaluations completed early this year by the DEP.
