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SS9701-CS 931029To' From: Frank Trando, Interim City Manager Kenneth M. Griffin P.E., City Engineer Grapevine Creek Sewer Trunk Main SS 93-01 Charles Seraphin property Date: October 29, 1993 As requested by the City Council at the October 26, 1993 City Council meeting this memo represents a follow-up to Mr. Seraphin's concerns voiced at the October 12th, 1993 City Council meeting. In general, Mr. Seraphin has been disappointed in the progress adjacent to his property on Crestview Court, the time it has taken for the contractor to construct the sewer line adjacent to his property and the fact that numerous deadlines have been given to him on when his property would be restored. Those deadlines have yet to be met. On May 27th, 1993, the contractor, Kenko, Inc. began clearing west of Mockingbird Lane. This is the area adjacent to Mr. Seraphin's house. It began raining on May 28th. On June 7th, the contractor began stringing pipe and setting stakes and started micro-tunnelling beneath Mockingbird Lane. On June 9th, the contractor began stringing pipe immediately north of Mr. Seraphin's property. The pipe was not strung adjacent to Mr. Seraphin's property because that section was micro- tunnelled. On July 23rd, the contractor began the micro-tunnelling adjacent to Mr. Seraphin's property. The progress was slower than anticipated due to shale that was encountered and to several mechanical failures. On August 9th, Southland lost alignment of the micro-tonnelling and in essence they could no longer control the machinery from the surface. Because they could no longer control the micro-tunnelling process, they were forced to excavate to locate the machinery and fix the problem that had caused the machinery to loose its alignment. As fate would have it, the pit to excavate the machinery was adjacent to the pool on Mr. Seraphin's property. On August 11th, Southland provided and set up two seismograph machines and excavated down to the machinery. During the excavation to the machinery, it was noted that there was some trash in the top six to eight feet of the fill on Mr. Seraphin's property. The trash was made up of rubble, 2x4's, wood, PVC pipe, etc. It is my understanding that Mr. FreUinger of Kenko, Inc. visited with Mr. Seraphin on Saturday, August 14th and at that point informed Mr. Seraphin that the operation behind his house would be completed in approximately three weeks. On August 17th, the problem with the machinery had been corrected and tunnelling was resumed. The micro-tunnelling adjacent to Mr. Seraphin's house was completed on August 28th and on September 1st the pit that was excavated to retrieve the machinery was backfilled. On that date, density tests were taken in the excavated pit to insure that all material t~laced met minimum density requirements. The minimum density requirement is 95 % of maximum density. Because it had been noted that there was trash in some of the areas where the pit was excavated, it was decided to take some density tests on some undisturbed portions of Mr. Seraphin's backyard in the vicinity of the trench. The trench pit itself was located at approximately Station 39+40 and samples were taken on the natural ground in Mr. Seraphin's yard at Station 39+30. The density of the undisturbed natural ground on Mr. Serpahin's property was 81.2% and 82%. This fails well below the density requirements. The lowest density noted during the backfill of the trench was 95.2% and the highest density was 104.1%. It is obvious to see that the backfill of the trench site is much better than what the existing f'filing of Mr. Seraphin's property was in this area. When a sewer line is installed, it has to be air tested to insure that proper joint connections have been made. The first air test on the section adjacent to Mr. Seraphin's property failed and the second air test on September 27th passed. Also, a sewer line is televised to ensure that there are no problems with the installation prior to acceptance. Tapes were received for this sewer line on September 29th, however, on September 30th the tapes were returned to Kenko, Inc. because there were some missing. The missing section was in the vicinity of Mr. Seraphin's property and had to be retelevised. The fmai televised tape was reviewed October 9th, 1993. On October 12th, 1993, Mr. Seraphin appeared at the Council meeting voicing his displeasure with the progress of the project and requesting that something be done to expedite the work adjacent to his property. He aiso stated that rain was moving into the area. It did rain that evening and toward the end of the week heavy rains began falling. Prior to the rain, Dan Frettinger with Kenko had promised to have people onsite to begin working on the area around Mr. Seraphin's property on October 18th. With the heavy rains on the weekend prior to Monday, October 18th, it was impossible for crews to work on the site. Because of the rain preventing the contractor from working on the site, a portion of Mr. Seraphin's yard sloughed off. The portion that sloughed off was adjacent to his pool generally in the area between Station 39+30 and 39+50. This is in the general area where we had previously taken densities and found the existing filling in of the yard to be less than acceptable. Several items contributed to the inability of Kenko, Inc. to immediately respond to Mr. Seraphin's request to have his property restored. There are no excuses but the following represents some of the problems with restoring the site. First and foremost, the area was not ready to be hackfllled until after October 9th, 1993. That date represents the day that the sewer line had passed the air test and the TV tapes had been reviewed. The reason that you do not want to completely restore the area until after those two items have been completed is that if a problem shows up during the air test or if the TV tapes show a problem, the area has to be reexcavated and the problem corrected. To completely restore everything and then go back and remove it is not an efficient way to conduct business. When Kenko, Inc. was awarded the project, they were informed that we would not allow them to hopscotch on the project and jump ahead of the micro-tunnelling. Kenko, Inc. finished laying the open cut portion of the pipe on July 28th, 1993. Because we would not allow them to move ahead to the intersection of Bethel Road and Denton Tap, Kenko, Inc. was forced to move their crews off site and actually out of state to other projects. Southland is the firm performing the micro-tunnelling as a subcontractor to Kenko, Inc. Again, Kenko, Inc. could not move forward, therefore, they moved their people to other job sites around the nation. However, it should be noted that at no time was there inactivity on the project or was this portion of the project abandoned by the contractor. The current status of the project is that the immediate bank adjacent to Mr. Seraphin's property has been restored and compacted (see attached photograph). The contractor is currently making the final tie ins to the manholes constructed adjacent to Mr. Seraphin's property and will be working the weekend of October 30th to restore the remaining area adjacent to Mr. Seraphin's property to it's preconstruction condition. This timetable is obviously barring any rain in the a/ea. Staff has also been frustrated dealing with this issue as certain timetables and dates have been conveyed to staff and in turn those were conveyed to Mr. Seraphin. Obviously, those dates were not followed through with. However, as can be seen there was not a tremendous amount of time lag from the time when eve~n, hing was in place and the property could have been restored until the time that the restoration of the property actually had began. With this memo I am attaching a copy of the following: in place density tests for both baclff'dl of the trench and the undisturbed backyard of Mr. Seraphin's property; a photograph showing the status of the bank as of October 28th, 1993; and a photo copy of a section of the construction plans that show the general location of the trench and the area where the bank sloughed off. I will be happy to discuss this issue with you further if you should have any additional questions. However, it is anticipated that this issue will resolve itself barring any rain in the near future. file/grpvn/seraphin.mm / ,,'?'," 't' I1~. ,.!/ I '~/ ! MAXIM ENGINEERS, INO. IN-PLACE DENSrrY OF SOR, (.,~ Fibene ® p O. 5eK 6,~.,~ ® DaJJM, 'tX 78~28 O89~0O826 Baok ya~, East ~lde Reid, ltlt~on ~8+40 Back yard, East Side Reid, Kation Back yard, Ba~t 8ide Road, ~flon .18+80 Trench pit, MAUMI 89+40 Trenoh pit, ~ltJon 39+40 Trenoh pit, lblflon ~g+40 Trench pit, .mti~n ~e+4o Trenr. h pit, em. lien Trenoh pl~, eMI]on ~g+40 Tmnoh p& el~tlofl Trench pl~, milo. Tmn~ pit, el~tion 80+40 * Teem t~ken on undi~tumed ground for reMrin~l purpeiei ~nly. Technician: P. Butler/hR C~ M Coppell - Jim R. C~ of Coppell - Gerreth Campbell, Sr. Dr/DeM#y Mcielum 111.8 t6.0 108,8 16,9 107.0 15.9 110.$ 8,8 % M Mmdrnum I~y I>m~y 101 `9 99.1 95.0 * 95,2 112.5 8,4 * 96.8 95.5 8.9 * 82.0 94.5 0.5 * 81,2 107.0 16.8 M.0 108.0 15.7 95,9 104.0 16.8 113.0 15.0 108.5 112.8 14,9 102.8 111.5 13,9 102.1 118.8 18.0 104.1 112.2 14.~ 102.7 t 12.7 14,9 103`9 Teet Mi/alii Number N<Jmber 13 I let 14 1 g. nd 15 I Srd 16 2 Netuml Ground 17 2 Natural Ground 18 2 Natural Ground 19 2 Natural Ground 20 I 4th 21 1 5th 23 t 7th 24 1 mh 25 1 9th 26 I 10th 27 I 11th 28 I F'mal Repmt DM- 09/18.108 ~ample DoM ~ro~ ~e Gmp~ine Creek 8~ Bmn~, ~.e I and II - ~ M18 - Qmp~lne, Tai Mate~l P~ R~u~ I Da~ bm~ ~ndy =~y ~h ~]~ul n~ul~ 1~.2 16.0