Dandan Moves Forward With Paid Contractor

Dandan moves forward with paid contractor
Guam News
Monday February 25, 2008
By Gina Tabonares, Variety News Staff

AFTER halting the project for almost a year due to non-payment for an engineering study, the private engineering company contracted by the Department of Public Works for the new landfill at Dandan is confident that it will now meet the schedule presented in the court after receiving payment from the government of Guam.

Tor Gudmundsen, president of TG Engineers, reported to the District Court of Guam that the nine-month schedule to complete the design of the Dandan landfill matches the schedule approved by the court in January.

With the payment received on Thursday, the pre-final design submittal is now expected to move forward. This will be followed by review and approval from Guam Environmental Protection Agency and US EPA.

Gudmundsen said the US EPA, GEPA, DPW and the TGE team agreed to have a monthly conference call to review the progress and discuss the design issues.

The engineering firm was halted from the project last year after the Legislature approved a budget law that prohibits further expenditure on any proposed landfill land that is not acquired yet by the local government.

However, Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood invalidated the budget law provision to allow the payment of the engineering study and further construction works for the next municipal landfill.

TG Engineers proposed that DPW start the final design and preparation of bid documents for a design/build/finance option for the construction and operation of the Dandan landfill.

Gudmundsen stated that with the completion of the access road design, DPW can package the landfill project and issue a bid.

The schedule presented by GovGuam stated that bid documents will be prepared and the project issued for bid by the end of March 2008. The bid document set will include the existing design project documents and information that the next pre-final design submittal will be issued at the end of June 2008.

Once the bids are submitted at the end of July, a contractor can be selected and notified of award by the end of August 2008.

Gudmundsen suggested to DPW that it provide a performance incentive to the contractor to expedite the construction of the long overdue municipal landfill.

* Status hearing *

Meanwhile, the court issued an order over the weekend scheduling a status hearing on March 6, at 8 a.m.

The status hearing originally scheduled for Feb. 27 was moved because of the ongoing medical malpractice bench trial.

The site visit to the Department of Public Works solid waste management transfer stations in Dededo, Malojloj and Agat is on schedule for Feb. 27 at 8:30 a.m.