Field construction to go on, despite setbacks
Board of Education members say project has been going fine overall
BY JAY BODAS Correspondent

METUCHEN - School officials believe they have averted what could have been a costly snafu in the reconstruction of a side practice field at Metuchen High School.

"Our plan is to proceed with work as soon as possible in the hope that the field will be ready for use next fall," said Board of Education President George Trapp at its Nov. 13 meeting.

In August 2006, school officials observed that the side practice field, which had been rebuilt earlier that year, was not draining properly, and the sod was beginning to deteriorate, he said.

"At that time, we stopped work on all the fields, since essentially the same specifications used to build the practice field were to be used on the front and back fields," Trapp said at the meeting, reading from a prepared speech.

After investigating the problem, it was found that the soil that was used for the practice field did not allow adequate water flow from the surface to the drainage system below, he said.

As a result, a different type of more water-permeable soil was used in the front and back field construction that followed, but school officials still had to decide how to solve the issue with the faultily constructed side practice field.

The BOE retained the engineering consulting firm of Pennoni Associates of Cranford to investigate the problems with the side field. The firm's report was delivered to the board earlier this summer.

"As part of their investigation, Pennoni had four pits dug in the field and photographed the different layers beneath the surface," Trapp said at the Nov. 13 meeting. "What this showed was that while the specifications may have been faulty, the field was not built according to the specifications, and pointed to a threefold problem: faulty design, faulty construction, and faulty management."

The Cedar Knolls-based architectural firm of EI Associates was responsible for the field's design, Stirling-based A Juliano and Sons was responsible for the construction, and the firm of EPIC Builds of Piscataway was responsible for the management of the construction.

Trapp reported at last week's BOE meeting that EI Associates had agreed to redraw plans and specifications for the side field "at no cost to the district."

A Juliano and Sons will remove the soil that currently makes up the field and rebuild it using the same soil that is in the front and back fields, he said.

"The cost to the district will be for those items which are value-added, or not part of the original plan," Trapp said. "That includes the tree removal, new root zone mix - expensive dirt - the perimeter drain, and regrading the area between the practice field and the track."

The total cost of these new items is $97,000, Trapp said.

"We have agreed with EPIC, our construction manager, to end their engagement on this project, and to handle the closeout of phase two internally," he said. "That will save the district about $78,000 in the remaining fees to EPIC."

The remaining $19,000 would come from a large contingency fund that had been set aside for Phase I, Trapp said.

Thomas J. Andrasz, vice president of Client Development at EI Associates, admitted the faulty specifications represented an "oversight," but that faulty construction made the problem worse.

"It was an oversight on that part, but then to exacerbate the problems, the construction was not designed to the specifications," Andrasz said. "There were certain other drainage issues that also had to be addressed. We don't have anything to hide, and we agreed to mutually resolve the issue."

Representatives from EPIC Management Inc. agreed that the field needed to be redone.

"If the contractor did not do his job on the side field, then, yes, we were part of that process, but we do think the overall project went well. There is a need to redo the field. Because the overall project was at a point where it is all coming to a close, by doing this they would save $98,000 and it was in everyone's interest to do so," said Joel Lizotte, the firm's vice president.

Representatives from A Juliano and Sons could not be reached for comment for this story by press time.

Despite this issue, after the meeting, Trapp said that the project had "gone fine overall."

"By the end of January, the second phase of construction will be complete," he said. "Then what we will be left with is phase three, which will be done in the summer."