Brunswick County has filed a lawsuit against the contractor the county hired to upgrade and expand its Northwest Water Treatment Plant.
The county on July 25 terminated its contract with Oscar Renda Contracting and filed suit, citing breach of contract and repeated delays on the expansion, which is to include a reverse osmosis, or RO, system capable of removing PFAS and 1,4-dioxane.
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The Brunswick County Board of Commissioners on July 21 amended a contract with CDM Smith Inc. for about $1 million to continue overseeing the site while county officials search for a new contractor, Port City Daily reported.
The lawsuit follows an announcement the county made in mid-June informing residents that the initial anticipated completion of the more than $122 million project was being pushed because the contractor had repeatedly failed to meet its performance milestones.
The RO system is designed to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and 1,4-dioxane from the plant’s water source, the Cape Fear River. Such manmade, chemical compound pollutants have for years been discharged into the river by upstream industries and municipal wastewater treatment plants.
The project also includes doubling the water treatment plant’s capacity from 24 million gallons per day to 48 million gallons per day.
Brunswick County is seeking damages that include covering costs associated with hiring a new contractor and remediating insufficient work on site, legal fees associated with the lawsuit, and liquidates damages to the tune of $5,500 a day going back to June 30, according to Port City Daily.
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County spokesperson Amber Merklinger told the newspaper in a statement that the county was “actively exploring the best legal methods to find a new construction contractor to continue the project as quickly and realistically as possible.”
“Brunswick County is committed to making sure the expansion and reverse osmosis project at the Northwest Water Treatment Plant is completed exactly as planned and designed,” Merklinger stated. “This action was necessary to protect the best interests of our residents who have waited far too long for a solution to removing PFAS from our drinking water.”
