WSDOT says no, it’s not time to bury Bertha

After a year-long stall and another week of bad press, KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson asks the head of the Washington State Department of Transportation again: Is it time to bury Bertha?

Secretary of Transportation Lynn Peterson told Monson that most of the project is complete, so killing the whole thing over drilling delays would not be prudent.

“The inherent risk of stopping now is greater on so many different accounts, including not having this infrastructure available to the ports and the folks of the Puget Sound region for the long term,” Peterson said.

“What we see right now, is that we have a contract that we are providing oversight on that the public has bought … the contractor has the responsibility to provide us a completed tunnel and we will be not be paying for the repairs of the machine.”

Despite Bertha’s year-long stall, Peterson said the project is not over-budget.

“There is a financial cap on the project and we are not over that cap,” Peterson said.

There is still $50 million in the contingency fund, according to Peterson, and she believes it will cover this final phase of the project.

“The risk right now to the project, in terms of financial, is on the contractor to fix their machine,” she said. “It is their machine to repair. They are responsible to pay for their machine fix.”

Monson still worries the contractor won’t be able to cover the repair costs.

“What if they do what they’ve done many, many, many times on past projects and use their lawyers, use their cleverly written contracts, possibly use bankruptcy? If Seattle Tunnel Partners had to declare bankruptcy, then all of this goes on the taxpayers. What if one of those scenarios play out because they have a history of that?”

Peterson said the contractor and the state have insurance in that event.

“In the contract, we have required the contractor to carry $500 million of insurance and we have our own insurance,” she said.

In a previous conversation, Peterson would not offer Monson a 100 percent guarantee the project would ever be complete. Now, several months later, she told Monson she is confident it will be finished. It’s more a matter of when, and that ‘when’ depends on the timing of the contractor’s repair.

“I think that we will be able to have a better conversation when the machine has been fixed and underway to determine when the project will be complete,” said Peterson.

Monson reasserted his belief that the tunnel would never be finished, but asked Peterson, “Am I being irresponsible when I continually say on the radio that I don’t think this tunnel will ever get built?”

“I think that, that is going beyond information that we have right now,” Peterson said. “I believe the tunnel will get built.”

“We are managing a contract, as the state, to make sure that we get the final completed project from the contractor, that we make sure we do not pay for the fix of their machine, and that we provide that cost-effective project in the end, under the cap,” Peterson said.