Sewer pipeline job is off the mark

The Orange County Sanitation District has botched the job of

installing the 108-inch sewer pipeline in Southeast Huntington Beach.

The original estimated time to install the pipeline up Brookhurst

Street, across Banning Avenue and then all the way up Bushard Street

to Ellis Avenue was 18 months.

Since formal groundbreaking in March 2003 contractor Steve P.

Rados has only managed to install the line along this path up Bushard

to just short of Hamilton Street. That’s about one mile out of four

in 18 months. At this rate the project won’t be complete until 2009.

The last I heard the project was running about $8 million over the

$31-million budget with only one mile done. At this rate this

$31-million project will cost the taxpayers of Orange County $63

million.

Sanitation district public relations person Jennifer Cabral claims

all this is the fault of the 108-inch pipe cracking when the

contractor attempts to fit them together. Are we to believe that in

today’s high-tech world making pipe and fitting it together is

something mankind has yet to master?

All the while Southeast Huntington Beach is forced to put up with

detours that change without notice, delays, people cutting through

housing tracks, poorly patched and torn up streets that damage the

suspension in our cars, having to live in a dusty and smelly heavy

construction zone and an apathetic sanitation district blowing off

our concerns.

On top of all that, the Orange County Sanitation District manages

to let 13,000 gallons of sewage spill out onto our beaches, closing

them for Labor Day weekend.

If this were private industry messing up this bad there would be

heads rolling. But since this is a public agency, my guess is that

Orange County Sanitation District management will probably get a

promotion.

* RANDY STEVENS is a Huntington Beach resident. To contribute to

“Sounding Off” e-mail us at hbindy@latimes.com or fax