Radio Boston received this email from Fioravante on Friday 1/25/08:

I listened to part of your interesting comments about the recent multimillion $$ Bechtel/Parsons settlement that was broadcasted today, the 25th of January.

I got involved with the project first in 1976 when initial design was started by Parsons-Brinckerhoff.  My experience constructing slurry walls started in 1962 through the first application of them for the construction of 4 km of metropolitan subway in Milan, Italy.  Since, I have managed or have been involved with the construction of other slurry walls in many parts of the world, the latest ones, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (local subway) and the Diavik diamond mines in the NW territories in Canada.

In 1991 (or thereabout), I joined the Central Artery Conservator team in charge of protecting all historic buildings situated along the alignment of the CAT (Central Artery and Tunnel) project from damages caused by the construction of it.  The team successfully completed its mission on or about the year 2000: no serious damages occurred to historic buildings.

Talking about the CAT is not easy.  Too many interests were involved and protected.  However, the major faults of the management of the project were:
Not hiring experienced people. 
As a consequence, unexperienced people could not properly supervise construction operations and foresee the easily predictable outcome of deviations from specifications.
Construction relied too much on low prices and very seldom on quality-performance.
Nobody ever stopped the evident “Ponzi”-type scheme of one of the major hired contractors that used the next CAT job to finance the losses suffered on its previous or ongoing CAT jobs.  The contractor kept bidding at ridiculously lower prices, beating better qualified competitors and eventually trying to cut all kind of corners to perform jobs for which it had insufficient revenue.  Until, finally, it went belly-up because there were no more portions of CAT to underbid…
Management allowed the same contractor to begin constructing slurry walls, a highly specialized type of construction it did not have any previous experience of.  This was another disastrous attempt at cutting costs by this contractor, i.e., avoid paying for the experience of whomever knew how to properly construct them. The results are visible now as the leaks afflicting the tunnel.
Financial politics made so that the State had all or most all contracts going out for bids in a very short period, in many cases, prior to the full completion of design.  This necessitated expensive, last minute changes in the field for lack of final design.  Contractors enjoyed submitting (expensive) “change orders” caused by it.
Politics and politicians’ promises, forced the project to stick to a schedule that the lack to full design made impossible to maintain except by paying for expensive “work acceleration orders”.
As one of your listeners underlined, there was no final, authoritative, single and responsible “supervision of the project: “the buck would not stop anywhere”…  A man who had been instrumental in pushing for the implementation of the project, who had authority and competence, was kept out.  On the other hand, the State supervisory people relied on the supposedly higher and available (and dearly paid!) experience of the Contract Manager, Bechtel.  Which was not there, but they not being fully conversant with many of the construction features, did not realize it.
I believe that the slurry walls will not eventually fail.  In my life I fixed and waterproofed many other leaking slurry walls, occasionally very seriously leaking and each one is still standing and performing the functions for which it was constructed.
While the amount that Bechtel agreed to pay to the State is (surprisingly) substantial, the eventual cost of fixing all problems showing up or that will show up in the project could be higher.   
I enjoyed your show.  Keep up the good work!

Kathleen sent us this email on Saturday 1/26/08:

I logged on too late to get this to you during the show but I still want to put this question out there…Will Bechtel et al all be able to just write off the 450M off as business expenses on their taxes? I believe I heard that is what happened in the Exxon Valdez disaster. If so, there is even less motivation for these corporations to behave in a responsible manner.