Pike was told about faulty wall section

A senior Massachusetts Turnpike Authority engineer was infomed in 2001 that the Big Dig wall section that sprang a massive leak this fall was substandard and leaking, but Turnpike officials apparently took no action to make sure it was properly repaired, documents obtained by the Globe show.

A letter from Modern Continental Construction Co. -- copied to the Turnpike Authority's John J. "Jack" Wright, who oversaw construction of the northbound tunnel and now serves as deputy project director -- described the leak when it was discovered during excavation in December 2001 and sought advice for repairing it.

The memo, addressed to Edmond F. Hunter, engineer for the private firm overseeing the project, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, included a drawing showing the area affected by the leak as about 4 feet in height and a foot deep.

The document is significant because Turnpike Authority chairman Matthew J. Amorello has said that the agency's top officials did not learn of the leak until this September, and that the private contractors, rather than taxpayers and tollpayers, would be forced to foot the bill for the blowout.

But if senior Turnpike engineers were aware that the wall was compromised and did not make sure it was fixed, the state may bear some responsibility for the repairs and may be hampered in its legal efforts to obtain compensation for poor workmanship from the private contractors.

The issue is key because, as the Globe reported this week, independent engineers say they have found evidence that more than 400 other leaks exist in the tunnel system and that there are as many as 12 other tunnel wall sections that could potentially sprout leaks as large as the September breach.

In the case of the September leak, the independent engineers said this week that debris had been left in the section of wall when it was first constructed in 1999, making it vulnerable to a blow-out later. Such debris -- clay, bricks, and sand -- creates pockets of weakness in the walls through which groundwater can seep.

Two years later, when the wall was first found to be leaking, the documents show that Modern Continental merely covered it over with a concrete patch, rather than pursuing the more expensive and effective course of excavating the debris from the wall and refilling it with solid concrete.

"We do not find in the records any report that that contractor was stopped when problems occurred during his panel excavation, nor that the contractor took corrective work to perform the work in accordance with the contract specification," states the report from the lead consulting engineer, George Tamaro.

The Turnpike Authority issued a statement last night insisting that, even though a senior agency official was notified of the leaks, the private-sector managers and contractors were still responsible for the problems that ensued.

"Project policy required that, as area manager at the time, Jack be cc'd on all memos from the contractor to the joint venture [of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff]. However, it's the resident engineers and the field offices [of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff] that are responsible for tracking and closing out all deficiencies discovered during construction. The bottom line is that the repair that was performed on this slurry wall was insufficient."

Wright, reached by telephone last night, acknowledged in a brief conversation that the letter appeared to be copied to him, but declined to be interviewed.

As the top state overseer of the I-93 northbound tunnel construction, Wright would have received thousands of memos, raising the possibility that he simply did not pay close attention to the correspondence regarding the wall.

The purpose of the Modern Continental memo, a so-called non-conformance report dated Dec. 7, 2001, was to alert Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and the Turnpike Authority that "a leak has developed on the east slurry wall at station 104.5303," and asks for their "review and comment."

On Dec. 13, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff engineer Paul C. Bergquist replied to Modern Continental that a Bechtel engineer had examined the leak and concluded: "The concrete blow out has been plugged; there are clay pockets in the panel; and water is leaking at this blow out."

Bergquist, however, did not copy that response to the Turnpike Authority's Wright, raising the possibility that state officials were not kept informed about the response to the leaking wall.

That same memo from Bergquist ordered Modern Continental to run tests on the concrete in that section of wall, but said to take no action to repair it until Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff gave its approval.

Tamaro told the Globe that a search of project records has unearthed no further communications regarding the leaking wall, and, given that the debris remained in the wall, it appears nothing further was done.

There is also no further correspondence from Wright or anyone else from the turnpike about the matter.

In addition to the 2001 correspondence, construction records compiled in 1999, as the wall was first being built, show that both Modern Continental and Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff were aware of the flaw at that time.

Yesterday, Governor Mitt Romney, though unaware of the memos obtained by the Globe, told reporters that he fears taxpayers may ultimately get stuck with the tab for the tunnel repairs.

"I could sit here and say the taxpayers should not pay, but that presumes that no one with the taxpayers' paycheck, if you will, is responsible for this," Romney told reporters.

"That presumes that the contractors and the engineers are responsible. Well, we don't really know who's responsible, so we'd like to find out who the responsible party is. If it's the Turnpike Authority, for instance, that was aware of this, then it's an open question who should pay."

A spokesman for Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly said that his office is investigating the situation and poring through documents to determine who should he held financially responsible for the leaks. Reilly said he wants to learn "who knew what, when."

However, Romney suggested yesterday that it is the Turnpike as an institution that should be reined in, and he called the leaks in the Big Dig's tunnels an "embarrassment to the Commonwealth" that "suggests mismanagement" by the Turnpike Authority.

Amorello, a fellow Republican but a political enemy of the governor's ever since he became a target of Romney's overhaul efforts, has insisted that he is very much in charge of the situation, hiring world-renowned engineering and tunnel experts and an indepedent legal team.

Sean Murphy's e-mail address is Smurph@globe.com. Raphael Lewis's is Rlewis@globe.com. Globe correspondent Elise Castelli contributed to this report.