By Matt Williams
Outdoors Writer
NACOGDOCHES —
Just call it a mountain of a mistake.
After months of evaluation, legal wrangling and dirty work, more than two miles of faulty underground drainage pipe has been exhumed and replaced at the new John D. Parker East Texas Fish Hatchery.
The cost? A healthy $3.3 million.
The state-of-the-art facility is currently under construction below the Sam Rayburn Reservoir dam near Jasper. The projected completion date is early spring 2011.
The drainage system in question is linked to a dozens of production ponds that will be used for rearing about 5 million Florida bass, blue catfish and bluegill annually. Water will flow through the pipe to the hatchery outfall, Beef Creek, then into the Angelina River about a mile downstream.
Funded entirely by Texas anglers via sales of freshwater fishing stamps, the $27 million hatchery project broke ground in July 2008 with a scheduled completion date of March 2010.
The project moved along nicely until April 2009, when inspectors discovered that at least two sections of 60-inch and 48-inch diameter drainage pipe had collapsed 10-17 feet underground.
Further investigation revealed additional problems within the massive drainage system, which warranted a complete overhaul in order to shore up the integrity of the system, and to prevent other problems from developing later on.
TPWD hired an engineering outfit from Beaumont to determine the cause of failure, and to help decide who should ultimately be held liable for the repairs. The facility was designed by HDR/Fish Pro out of Omaha, Neb., while Allco, Inc. of Beaumont was awarded the construction contract.
According Todd Engeling, TPWD’s chief of inland hatcheries, the investigation pointed to the design firm as the party at fault. Engeling said a settlement was awarded once a replacement design was agreed upon. The settlement involved the removal of about 11,000 feet of 60 inch, 48 inch and 30 inch diameter corrugated HDPE pipe, and replacing it with pipe of much higher quality.
Engeling said the 60-inch and 48-inch pipe was replaced with Class 5 reinforced concrete pipe. Meanwhile, the 30-inch pipe was replaced with a more rigid PVC.
The hatchery manager pointed out that HDR/FishPro absorbed approximately $3.2 million of the total cost of reworking the drainage system, while TPWD kicked in an additional $140,000 to complete the repairs performed by Allco, Inc.
“HDR was willing to put up about $3.2 million, which left about $140,000 the table” Engeling said. “Rather than extend the legal deliberation, we (TPWD) elected take on that responsibility and move this thing forward.”
Engeling said the $140,000 paid out of the general project fund was money well spent.
“We came out of this deal with a drainage system that is much more rigid and robust than what we originally had, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “It is unfortunate that all this happened, but on different level we are very fortunate that we were dealing with a large firm like HDR. They really stepped up to the plate and took care of business.”
