It's been down less than three months, but officials at the Utah Department of Transportation are ready to rip up most of what remains of the Syn-crete surface that was laid earlier this fall on I-15 between 5900 South and 3300 South.
UDOT Director Eugene Findlay said he's personally devastated that the experimental surface has come off so quickly and will recommend this week that the state road commission approve as much as $900,000 in additional tax money to grind most of the material off the freeway. The project has already cost $1.3 million"We'll recommend to the commission that we take out 100 percent of the outside (right) lane, 75 percent of the middle lane and 30 percent of the inside lane," Findlay said. "I really feel we need to make a decision soon. We've got to do something before winter sets in. I don't want to have the hazards out there longer than we need to."
Early estimates by UDOT were that the project was only a 20 percent failure. But time and weather - two factors Syn-crete was supposed to resist - have boosted the deterioration of the thin-bonded overlay that officials had hoped would put Utah on the map for innovative highway rehabilitation.
Findlay estimated that about 50 percent of the Syn-crete has failed to hold. But because of the hopscotching that motorists must do to avoid ever-widening holes in the road surface, Findlay said he would characterize the project "closer to 75 or 80 percent failure."
Added to the disagreement over failure rate is disagreement over who is liable and, more importantly, who will pay for the failure.
Cost
Legislative auditors are poring over records at UDOT to determine why and how the $1.5 million experimental project was approved and what the results have been.
Wayne Welsh, legislative auditor general, said the Legislature's audit subcommittee of the legislative management committee requested an audit in mid-October. Senate Minority Leader Rex Black is chairman of the group.
As it stands, taxpayers could foot the bill for the entire project, and the road still needs to be resurfaced. Originally estimated at $1.5 million, the state has paid out $1.3 million on the contract to date, along with an additional $200,000 for patching various areas. Findlay said removing most of the remaining material will cost anywhere from $300,000 to $900,000.
Liability
Welsh said he's not sure whether the committee gave a specific charge to look at the lack of liability in the contract for Syn-crete supplier, Hodson Chemical Construction Corp., "but I think that's something that we have to take a look at."
During a recent meeting, legislators asked Findlay why UDOT didn't ask for some performance assurance from Hodson, requiring that the company bear at least some of the cost if the resurfacing material didn't hold up.
UDOT is "in the process of negotiating with Hodson Chemical and will look at the other contractors to see if there's liability that they should share," Findlay said.
"There is nothing specifically (about liability) in the contract. Nothing could have been written in the contract because it was realized from the beginning that we were talking about an experiment. I guess what we're relying on is the implied warranty for the product - i.e., if we put it down according to Hodson's specifications, then is there an implied warranty there that we can rely upon? That's a very technical field of law, and I'm not sure whether we can or we can't," Findlay said.
But Owen Hogle, vice president of Hodson Chemical, is adamant that the company has no legal obligation for any costs associated with repair work on the failed project and doesn't intend to pay. Because the project was experimental, the state agreed up front to assume the liability, he said.
Despite early declarations by Hodson officials that the project was 90 percent successful, Hogle told the Deseret News Wednesday that his company is now characterizing it as a failure - "minimum 30 percent, maximum 50 to 60 percent." Hodson originally predicted a 2 percent failure rate.
Still, Hogle insists that Syn-crete - the chemical his company supplied - did not fail. Rather, he said, it was myriad factors involved with getting it onto the roadway - including the temperature of the slag added to the Syn-crete and the amount of water added to it - that resulted in failure.
"Our product has not failed. Our product has performed to what all the previous (UDOT) tests showed it should. The procedure failed. We did not control the procedure. Now many companies will come in and when an experiment is done - where the manufacturer is the contractor and they call all the shots -they do everything. We were not allowed that under this. Instead, UDOT insisted that the construction work on the project be put out to bid."
Such bidding is required by state law. Though Hodson Chemical is a licensed contractor, it was not one of the four companies that bid on the project.
Yet, because Syn-crete itself didn't fail, Hogle argues, the company should be paid in full for its product. Last summer, UDOT authorized the purchase of more than 35,000 gallons of Syn-crete at $25 per gallon, for a total of $897,900. UDOT is now holding up $383,000 of that payment, pending negotiations with the company. *****
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Syn-crete blues
UDOT believes most of the Syn-crete on I-15 should be ripped up - at a cost of $300,000 to $900,000. Some $1.3 million has already been spent on the failed project.
Failure rates on the strip between 3300 and 5900 South are:
-Right lane 100 percent
-Middle lane 75 percent
-Left lane 30 percent