We currently have a project out to bid for the installation of about a quarter mile of 10-inch water main. As usual, after we release the notification to bidders, we begin receiving requests from companies asking for a list of bidders or plan holders. Our city's policy is to not release this list until after the bid opening because of the potential of affecting bid prices. For example, a potential bidder could submit a different bid based on who the competition is and how many other companies have picked up plans.

With the relatively new FOIA laws in Illinois, we've had companies trying to claim the information as a FOIA request. However, we have been denying the request under the following exemption stated in this law:

(h) Proposals and bids for any contract, grant, or  agreement, including information which if it were disclosed would frustrate procurement or give an advantage to any person proposing to enter into a contractor agreement with the body, until an award or final selection is made. Information prepared by or for the body in preparation of a bid solicitation shall be exempt until an award or final selection is made.

We received a request the other day from a company outside of Illinois and sent them our standard denial letter based on this exemption. They ended up sending a letter to the State of Illinois arguing that we should release the information because they want to submit bids as a subcontractor and the information would encourage a more competitive bid. There are several issues with this.

• First and most importantly, we believe we are exempt from releasing it, although the final decision will now rest with the State.
• Next, if the State determines we must release the information, this would become a FOIA request for a commercial purpose which the company failed to mention and by failing to do so violated the law. However if the State determines we must release the information and if the company ends up properly requesting the information, we would have 21 days to respond since it is a request for a commercial purpose which means they would receive the information after the bid opening rendering it useless for their purpose.
• Finally, the project involves no work that would require the type of services they appear to offer. It would be like bidding out a road resurfacing project and a supplier of excavators wanting to get a list of bidders to give them prices on new equipment. There's just no specific pay item for that work. So I am not even sure how giving a heavy equipment sales company a list of bidders for a specific project that has no specialty items helps lower our cost.

The end result is a waste of time for everyone. Where I worked before, I ended up not being able to even send out lists because we offered proposal materials online so we would not have known who downloaded them. And if we continue to have issues with this, we would probably end up choosing to do the same or just not keep a list. But I was wondering how other agencies are handling these requests, if others believe releasing the lists can affect the bids, and if other states require agencies to release the information prior to opening of the bid.

I really wanted to title this blog post:

Today I Discovered Why We Have no Transportation Funds!

The other day, I wrote about the BRT and Randall Road -  the major corridor that runs through many of the communities in our area. In that post, I also mentioned the Route 529 study – this was a study about the bus route running along the Randall Road corridor. One of the conclusions from the study was that there needed to be better infrastructure along the corridor for the people riding the bus. And if you drive the corridor, you'll see this is definitely the case. The bus stops are only marked by a lonely sign sitting at the edge of a roadway where about 20,000 cars a day speed by at 45 miles per hour. So a rider must get off in that environment, find their way across a ditch and then through landscaping to a shopping center. So a project was proposed to construct bus shelters, pads, and connecting sidewalks. 

PACE, the local entity providing bus transit in the Chicago Metro area, arranged to bid out a project to construct the suggested infrastructure. Now, I don't know all the details of this project, but according to the PACE website the project is listed as Bid #406453 and shows a cost of almost $1.4 million that was awarded to Landmark Contractors, Inc. In our area, along Randall, PACE was proposing to build the shelters, pads, and sidewalks not only on the side of the road the shelter is on, but to also build the connecting ramps and sidewalks at the other corners in the intersection nearest the shelter. We had all reviewed the plans over the last few months to make sure we had no issues with what was going to be constructed in each of our communities. So today, we were invited to a preconstruction meeting for the project. The contractor, Landmark Contractors was at the meeting along with a person from PACE, the project designer, county staff, and city engineers from a few of the cities along the corridor.

Now I've been to a lot of preconstruction meetings over the years, and this one most definitely did not end up to be your typical precon. However, it started out fairly typical – there was a discussion of how the concrete would be protected from the effects of the salt once winter weather set in. This was a valid concern because over the last few years, beginning about Dec 1st, we've had temperatures drop to well below freezing and had significant snow and ice. And that is only a few weeks away. I won't bore you with the discussion, but the bottom line was that there really is no way to adequately protect the concrete this late in the game. So the discussion moved onto "shouldn't we wait until Spring to start?"

And this is where it started to get strange. Because a few of the people had just shown up at this point (we had started early), the group moved on to tell us that they were cutting back the plans to only do what was required of them to meet the ADA. This meant they would only build the infrastructure on the same side of the road as the shelter leaving no route across or on the other side of the intersection. It was explained they had to do this because the bid prices came in so many hundreds of thousands of dollars more than what they expected that they could not afford to build what was on the plans. Now this is where I started thinking something was wrong – it was basically a sidewalk project  - how in the world could the bid come in that much higher? Particularly at a time when we are seeing the lowest prices ever on construction work? The other engineers in the room must have been thinking the same way based on their questions. I finally suggested that if the costs per square foot were so much higher, why didn't they just let each city build it for them as part of the MFT projects, and they could pay us the grant money. When I had said this, I really wasn't sure of the bid price they had received, so another person at the table pushed the list of bid prices over to me. I wanted to stand up and yell, OMG!!! Wow, they were paying $8.26 per square foot for PCC Sidewalk! Now, I don't know what the rest of you across the world pay, but we normally pay anywhere from $4.50 to $5.50. And I've even seen it lower if we are doing a lot of it. And in this case, PACE was proposing building 39,000 square feet! For that amount, in this economic climate, they definitely should have gotten a better price.

And the other unit prices were no better! It looked like $175 per cubic yard for earth excavation and about $47+ per foot for curb and gutter. Again, the engineers in the room, including myself, could not help but call attention to the prices. The contractor said they were so high because he had to deal with the cold weather including the use of blankets and overtime costs. Someone else pointed out that he was the low bidder and that PACE had followed all the proper bidding procedures – I guess that was supposed to mean that the prices had to be ok. The contractor did suggest that if the work was held off until Spring the prices would be a lot lower. But what was also strange was that he said he could lower the unit prices as part of the contract. I figured if he lowered them to what is normally bid, he would be cutting them in half. But normally when you award a contract with unit prices, you can't just change them. There's a process, and the adjustment is usually only about 10%. So we couldn't figure out how they could legally do this without re-bidding the project. Which was something we suggested – wait until Spring and take the time to re-bid.

There was some discussion that PACE was worried about waiting because the Federal grant money for this project could be pulled at any time so I guess PACE has to quickly spend it to avoid losing it. The PACE person made it sound like the Federal government arbitrarily swoops in and takes the money even if they are already under contract for a project and obligated for the funds. Finally someone suggested that after the plans were stripped to only what was required, the remaining work removed from the contract could be completed by others, and for a much lower cost than the bid. But the problem here was there was a chance the cities would be asked to pay for a portion of this. I did mention that I would have a hard time advocating for our city to help pay for any of the improvements that were removed if the reason they were removed was because the bids PACE accepted were significantly higher than costs normally bid.

By the end of the meeting, I was thinking that I can't imagine a city awarding a bid like this. If bids come in significantly high it's usually a problem with material or contractor availability or a problem with the plans. And in this case, it did not appear to be any of these. So the only conclusion I could come to was that PACE must have had no problem awarding a bid that included prices that were about twice the cost of bids other agencies would receive for the same type of work. It was all so very strange and did not make sense that I figured I was either totally naive and did not understand how transit agencies and funding sources from agencies like the FTA really work, or I was totally missing something, or as I said above: I discovered why we have no transportation funds! But no matter what, I figured if they do reauthorize transportation funds, they really need to write into the law a way to prevent agencies from awarding bids in situations like this when the bids are significantly higher than the estimated cost and obviously not reflective of the market conditions.

I waited until today to post about yesterday (Tuesday) because I ended up not spending the whole day at work. I started the day preparing for a meeting with the city admininstrator and other directors in the city. Normally my supervisor, the director of public works, goes to these meetings. But since he was out, I was going to attend for public works. So, I had talked to the other superintendents to get updates on all the work and projects going on in their divisions. Fortunately I wrote it all down because about 8:30 I got a call that my 16-year old kid in high school had a fever, and they asked I come pick him up. Because I knew I would have to stay home with him (he has Down Syndrome so I didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone with a fever), I was able to give my notes to the street superintendent so he could attend in my place.

The rest of the day was spent home with my son. I did get the chance to watch a couple presentations online – one of which was given by a friend of mine, Paulette Robinson, who works for the National Defense University. The link to the event is http://about.extension.org/2011/10/05/nevc2011-outstanding-professional-development-free-avoid-travel-hassles/. Even though it is now over, I think they will have all the talks available for viewing sometime in the near future. If you are interested in social media or the use of 3D immersive technology, you might be interested in checking them out.

Day 55

Today at work was very busy! Of course being off yesterday didn't help. Throughout the day I met with a few of my staff to conduct performance evaluations. I also had a meeting with other staff members to review a draft of our Downtown Plan. This meeting lasted through lunch and into the afternoon. We had to finally "adjourn" the meeting until another day because we still have so much to discuss. After I left that meeting, I ran over to the field meeting we had set up for our culvert project. The project engineer was there with our technician and the contractor. It looks like they are probably going to start work next week.

SUPER DUPER CONTRACTOR RATING!

I did get something in the mail today that was somewhat interesting to me so I figured I would share it on this blog. Every now and then a contractor sends us a letter introducing themselves and asking to be placed on a bidder's list. We don't really have a bidder's list so I just file the letter. In this case, I was a little surprised to get a letter from this particular contractor because they were around about 30 years ago when I used to work for the city of Aurora. So I figure they are fairly well known in the area. Anyway, they included a Certificate of Eligibility from IDOT to show they are prequalified to do any work we would be bidding out. What was amusing was that they have a "SUPER UNLIMITED" rating! Just what does that mean? How can you get any more unlimited than "Unlimited?!" 

Hopefully today will be the last day I have to combine more than one day in a post – finally getting somewhat caught up. Today, I went through more emails. And I finished up the final approval letter for that development I worked on last Friday – it is for an industry in the city that is expanding. We had several meetings then throughout the day:

South Street Bike Trail

The county has been planning on building a bike trail underpass at one of the busiest roads we have in the city. Right now it is a four-land road with a 45 mph speed limit with plans to someday expand it to six lane. The number of cars is probably around almost 30,000 a day. So crossing it can be a challenge on a bike or as a pedestrian. In order to help get people across, the county is proposing this underpass. They have received funding for a portion of it from the state. So now, they are ready to move forward and finalize the design then go to construction. They told us today they are looking at building it in fiscal year 2013. We discussed some of the coordination needed between the city and the county to get the project done. They will be acquiring an easement from us, and we will be entering into an agreement. But the terms of all that still need to be worked out.

Utility Proposal

A utility has proposed an installation in our community that is unlike any other submittal we have yet received. So we met today to discuss the information. From my perspective, I had received an application for a right of way permit, but upon reviewing the plans I realized the proposed location is not within the right of way. So the application is not valid for this case.

Campbell Street Parking Lot

We also met to continue discussions about our plans to build a parking lot in our downtown area. We were mainly updating other staff members of the status. The city is still working out the easements with the adjoining owners that will be necessary to  finalize the design.

Concrete Construction

A couple of us also had to inspect a few areas throughout the city that are targeted for improvements. We are in the process of obtaining bids for a small amount of concrete repairs we want to finish up this Fall.

Day 45

Finally today! This morning I worked on a multitude of issues. I completed our mid-year goals and strategies report and sent it off to my supervisor. Then I made sure my forms were ready to conduct performance evaluations later this month. All of us also worked on writing up our monthly reports for all our projects.

We had a bid opening today for our culvert project. There were a few bidders and the project seemed to come in near the engineer's estimate so we will now prepare the information to take it to the council for approval. Before I mention anything else about this publicly, I am waiting for an official determination of the successful bidder.

And our contractor for our alley project finally was able to place half of the concrete pavement. After last week's rain, we have had to wait a few days for the base to dry out. But today, it was finally ready for the pour.

In the afternoon, we had a staff development review meeting to go over a small proposed development in the city. It's so helpful to have all of us get together at once and just discuss the project after we've had some time to look it over. Many people brought up good discussion points. So now the review engineer will incorporate the comments into his response and send it out later this month.

Alley reconstruction project

Well I waited until later tonight to post because we had a public meeting tonight at city hall for an alley reconstruction project. The city has over the last several years replaced their alleys with concrete pavement, and this one is the last in this particular neighborhood. We completed the east half of the alley last year and will now work on the west half with this project. Fortunately the same contractor was awarded the bid so we aniticpate the project will proceed in a manner similar to last year. It went very well and was completed in a timely manner with minimal problems. Tonight, the engineer for the project gave the presentation and answered questions. The residents who attended the meeting had some great questions and offered important input about some of the issues we might have to address during construction. Earlier today we also had the preconstruction meeting with the contractor and discussed the schedule, the materials and suppliers, and his subcontractors in addition to other issues we like to talk about before construction starts.

Permit reviews

Today I was able to finalize the permit review I had been working on and sent it to the developer's engineer. They had worked out the meter sizing and received the fee information earlier today from others in the city. I also received another re-submittal for a small project related to another development, and I anticipate working on that review tomorrow. There were also three permits I reviewed that a utility had submitted. Even though one of our staff checks these, I like to do a final check since I am the one who signs off. One thing I look for is if there are easements in place for the work if they are not proposing to work in the right of way. Today, one of these did not seem to have an easement so the applicant is moving the line into the right of way or into an existing easement and resubmitting.

Special Service Areas

Our city establishes special service areas (SSA) for certain locations within the community. Although SSAs can be created for different reasons, most of ours seem to be for the purpose of maintaining stormwater facilities or landscaping in public areas. Today a group of staff met to discuss one particular area in our community related to an SSA. I came away from the meeting with a list of tasks I need to finish related to this particular SSA.

The great construction mystery: Why aren't the standard frames made to fit the standard inlets?

Well, the inlet frames I picked out were placed on the structures today! I went out to work with the crew while they were placing them to make sure they fit and they were set at the right elevation. (If you've been reading my blog, you'll remember I had to buy special grates to fit the inlets because the old ones were too big.) While we worked, we discussed how the frames and grates that are in the IDOT standards do not fit the inlet structures that are in the standard. Which really doesn't make sense. But the worst part of it is this causes a gap where dirt and road base are washed out from under the road into the inlet. This ends up leaving a big hole near the inlet or manhole.  (You can see an example of this in the photo below.) And these failures can end up being the biggest maintenance problem I see cities dealing with. Where I worked before the 

contractors were good about working with me to avoid problems by pouring a lot of concrete around the inlet frame to seal it. But up here where I work now, they don't seem as interested in cooperating, and I'm not on the job as much to make sure they are doing it. So one of our water guys told me he found an inlet frame he thinks fits better so I am going to check out what he has picked out, and if it works, we will spec that for the job next year.

Parking Lot Project

We are still working on our new parking lot design. Today I finished up the ownership information and emailed it to the city attorney. The project engineer and I also discussed our approach to applying for a special use permit. In this city, we are not exempt from our own regulations so our department must apply to the community development department asking for the planning commission and city council to approve a special use for the lot. 

APWA Education Committee

I also participated in a phone conference with the APWA education committee for the Chicago Chapter. They are planning some pretty cool sessions. My role in the conversation was only to discuss the possibility of giving a presentation on communication and social media. 

Certificates of Completion for Development

Another task for which my office is responsible is preparing certificates of completion for new developments. So today I prepared and submitted to the city council for consideration a certificate of completion for one of the new developments in our city. The process works like this: when everything is finished, our inspector does a final walk through, and if everything is ok and completed, he gives us the go ahead to submit this certificate to the city council for approval. However, approval of this certificate does not mean approval of the improvements. That's another certificate we submit for approval after a specific time period has passed. 

New Developments

We also have been reviewing a new development that had been given approval to begin construction of a portion of the proposed development. And today we dedicated some time to processing and helping move forward another phase of this development.  Normally a developer would submit plans and documents and only begin construction once all approvals and payments are in place. But because some developers are more anxious than others to start doing something, it seems that occasionally we get a few that push to have us proceed in this phased approval approach. The problem is it sets up a very challenging and difficult process for us. It ends up taking a lot more staff time to respond and monitor each phase, and it creates confusion between departments as everyone struggles to keep track of what has been approved, started, paid for, etc. Anyway we want to do as much as we can to work with people investing in our community so we try to accommodate developers to help them meet their schedules. So we worked this morning to get them through the next step in the process.

Railroads and Bike Trails

We have been working on a plan to extend a bike trail along an old abandoned railroad bed. But the challenge has been we only own a portion of the property needed for the trail; the railroad still retains ownership of most of the remainder. A while back we met with a representative from the railroad who said he would work with us to investigate the possibilty of transferring ownership of their portion. But he needed a map and some other documents. So today I worked a little on getting the map prepared.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate in a Peer Exchange workshop on Project Delivery as a representative for APWA. The meeting was one of four regional meetings organized and hosted by AASHTO to facilitate dialogue between federal, state, and local agencies. By encouraging discussion and building partnerships, they are hoping to provide guidance for streamlining project delivery.

I’m not sure if anything like this has been done before in our industry where all levels of government meet to work out the process of getting a job done. The workshop was exciting and yet, as you can imagine, frustrating at times as I wondered if federal and state agencies could really understand the local perspective. However, the end result was a great meeting where all of us had the chance to share the view from our level and hear and understand the experiences and ideas from other agencies. I’m not sure if it was because we had such a great facilitator or there was just a great group of people focused on making things better, but everyone showed passion and dedication to moving this initiative forward.

It’s unfortunate that more people could not have taken part so I was hoping to share my observations below and encourage anyone interested to visit the Every Day Counts (EDC) website.

The day started out with a welcome from Peter Plumeau, the facilitator, and representatives from the partnering agencies: NACE, APWA, and AASHTO. Everyone introduced themselves and shared some thoughts about what they hoped to accomplish. Then Victoria Peters, special assistant to the deputy administrator of FHWA, explained the EDC program.

Every Day Counts Program

I won’t go into the details of this session because you can read all about it at the EDC website. The basic idea is that EDC was launched in November 2009 to identify and deploy readily available innovation and operational changes that would enable us to become faster, better, and smarter. Peters emphasized that the program was intended to work within existing laws. She quickly went through the program’s sixteen initiatives including ten that would shorten project deliver and six that are categorized as technical innovations. She explained how state implementation teams established at the state DOTs have developed final action plans to carry out these initiatives. And she mentioned there will be 2011 discretionary grant programs highlighting EDC initiatives. Peters also encouraged people to visit the EDC site and submit more ideas in their “innovation box.”

Federal Programs and Project Delivery Initiatives

The next panel presented several programs already in place that can be used to shorten project delivery. These included programmatic agreements, Construction Manager/General Contractor or CM/GC, and flexibility in utility accommodation and relocation.

The Wisconsin Factor

Over lunch Daniel Fedderly, executive director of the Wisconsin County Highway Association, shared with the group some of the ideas Wisconsin has used to shorten project delivery. Wisconsin seems unique in that the counties in that state take care of all the county and state roads. (One county engineer told me later in the day his county has its own hot mix plant!) So perhaps it’s this extensive history of cooperation between local 

and state government that provided the impetus for Wisconsin agencies to begin this type of effort many years ago. Fedderly explained how they pre-scope projects to help discover any red-flags or additional or alternate funding sources early in the process. He also discussed the use of project exclusions and project tiering – a method of recognizing an overlay does not require the same level of scrutiny that a new bridge construction project might require.

Barriers and Obstacles

After lunch we broke into four groups that included members from each agency or organization. First we identified major barriers or obstacles to achieving our goal of shortening project delivery. Although there were many identified, most fell into the following basic categories or issues:

• The perception of high risk when there isn’t any
• The failure to focus on what matters
• The failure to be consistent
• The lack of federal flexibility
• The number and control of regulations
• The lack of education of people at all levels – those reviewing at the state and federal level and those working at the local level
• Lack of trust between agencies and an “us vs. them” attitude

Recommendations

After we highlighted the issues or problems present in the current system, we moved on to think of recommendations or solutions. Below are the highlights of our findings.

• Form partnerships – form early and reinforce often
• Move beyond us and them and focus on a win/win perspective
• Pre-scope but understand changes will need to be accommodated if necessary
• Ask questions and manage up through all levels of government
• Educate – Educate – Educate!
• Scale the process to the needs – adopt a risk-based approach
• Build on EDC – provide groundwork for structural changes
• Keep the momentum going
• Enhance and use existing resources like LTAP to promote and deliver these solutions
• Develop a forum and other communication opportunities on the EDC website
• Host state, regional, and national dialogues between all partners
• Make use of a Federal Fund Exchange Program similar to that offered by the Kansas DOT

Summary of the Day

Overall, my final impression was that we are on the right track. We learned that many states have already been working in this direction and using these initiatives for some time. At our sessions representatives from these states were able to share positive outcomes and success stories. Now, it just seems to be a matter of working with the other states and locals to incorporate these ideas and recommendations within their own process. Plumeau said there will be two more regional workshops held over the next month or so then his group will summarize the results of all meetings and send out a report.

Plumeau also pointed out near the end of the day that almost all of the issues we identified and solutions we came up with could be applied to just about any industry or situation. Based on his observation, I have to think it’s obviously not just a transportation issue – it’s more of a people issue. And this seems to emphasize our need to continue building the partnerships and dialogue that has been started with these summits.

The law was passed in 1990, and it has taken 20 years for the design community to receive clear guidance on how to comply with the law. The effect this seems to have had is that many engineers look upon the law as a joke thinking why comply – next year federal and state agencies will change it again. Or they ignore it or only partially comply because it must not be important enough if it has taken this long to put achievable guidelines in place. And they do not normally interact with the community most affected to see the impact of their decisions.

So one hurdle is just convincing engineers they need to follow the law. Our state has come out with the opinion that if a professional engineer knowingly designs or builds or approves a non-compliant ramp, they will pursue taking away their license. This is serious for someone who relies on the license for their job. Yet, when I share this with other engineers they do not believe it or think it could happen.

Fortunately there are engineers out there who do care and try to comply. I wonder sometimes what makes the difference. For myself, my dedication has built up over time as I better understood the requirements and particularly as I began to interact with those who have disabilities. They have really been the ones who helped me understand the importance of each regulation. Not complying does truly cause them hardship and at times it is painful and severe. It makes me wonder if we should be requiring a certification for ADA design that includes training and interaction with disability communities and groups.

Anyway, as difficult as all that has been to work through, today I got a call from a couple in our city complaining about a curb ramp we installed. They didn't like the design because they felt it would make it difficult to mow. I had tried to explain in two emails and out on the site that we were obligated to construct the ramp in that manner due to federal law. That the city risked liability and loss of use of road funds for highway improvements should we choose to ignore the law. And I added the part about losing my license. But they would have none of that. They questioned why other ramps are non-compliant, but it's difficult to convey how and why we got to this point over 20 years in just a few minutes. So they could not understand.

But in the end, I could tell by their attitudes, the bottom line for these people was that they were going to force the city to put in a ramp they liked no matter what. They obviously had total disregard for the law and our need to comply. They even threatened calling the newspaper and the state of Illinois to "tell on us." Which didn't make sense to me – were they going to tell them we put in a compliant ramp they don't like? Of course both they and their child had no visible disabilities.

All I could think was if I feel this frustrated and helpless just trying to build compliant infrastructure, how must someone feel who has to try to use non-compliant infrastructure? I can't even imagine telling someone with a disability, we chose not to comply with the law because these people thought it would cause them some difficulty in mowing around the ramp. We might be able to some day have designers on board, but how will we ever get healthy people with no disabilities to accept the need for compliance when all they care about is not having a minor inconvenience in mowing? And how can people have such total disregard for others?

Joint Chapter/Lake Branch – Clean Construction and Demolition Debris (CCDD) Updates

April 7, 2011 at Lake County DOT Facility, 600 W. Winchester Road, Libertyville, IL 60048

Joint Chapter/Suburban & Fox Valley Branches – Clean Construction and Demolition Debris (CCDD) Updates

April 27, 2011 at Naperville Public Works, 180 Fort Hill Drive, Naperville, IL 60540

Another good reason to attend, other than just figuring out what everyone is doing to comply, is to learn how best to reply to IEPA’s request for comments on their draft rule for the law. Here’s the link to the draft rule: http://www.epa.state.il.us/land/ccdd/draft-part-1100.pdf. And I’ve embedded the document below for those whose agencies will allow them to access embedded documents using Flash.

The comment period is open until May 12, 2011. You can find out more about the rulemaking process here: http://www.epa.state.il.us/land/ccdd/index.html

DRAFT: TITLE 35: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION SUBTITLE J: CLEAN CONSTRUCTION OR DEMOLITION DEBRIS CHAPTER I: …

Last year, not to be undone by their other incredible feats of total ineptitude, some of our Illinois legislators passed a law under the cover of darkness to regulate and impose a fee on anyone trying to dump dirt in a hole. At least that’s the way it started out. As you will see from this update, the IEPA has worked to bring some reason to this disaster and amend the requirements of the law as best they could.

The bill started out as an Electronic Recycling bill but was soon changed to regulate the dumping of soil from a construction site. No one working in the industry seemed to be aware of it until a day or so after Governor Quinn signed it into law. This was when contractors began calling inspectors on their jobs asking the owner’s professional engineer to sign the form that was now required to dump any load of dirt.

Because of the uproar and confusion over this poorly thought out and vague law, the IEPA had a few meetings to try to find out what all the fuss was about. The meetings were only open to a select few, and from talking to those who did attend, it appears no further guidance or information was obtained from the sessions. Then, winter hit, and construction shut down.

And now the update:

Following the typical under-the-radar behavior with this law, the rules have been changed but not publicized or shared by our state government. Instead I guess they expected all of us to visit their website on a daily basis to see if they had decided to change anything. Even though they must have the email addresses from all of us who are obviously interested and who tried to sign up for their sessions but were not allowed to attend. No RSS feeds, no publication, no email blasts to tell us what is going on. Anyway, what we have all been wondering is, what’s the current status?

First of all, we need to understand they are really still working through the formal rules. It appears the official rules will not be decided until next year even though we can be charged with a felony if they feel we haven’t complied. So the following information, from what I understand, is the best we will get until they figure out what the law they passed really means.

Next, I heard through the grapevine (meaning this is totally unverified) that the aggregate industry was behind this. They supposedly wanted to minimize their liability in receiving construction material. (Thanks for passing it along to the taxpayers!)

It also appears IDOT moved quickly to sign an intergovernmental agreement with the IEPA establishing their obligations. IDOT was obviously affected dramatically by this law since it immediately went into effect in the middle of the construction season. With millions of dollars of construction projects at stake, IDOT could not wait around for two years for everyone else to figure out what was really going on.

For the rest of us, there are now two levels of certification. If soil is obtained from an area that is historically considered to be residential, the Source Site Certification by Owner or Operator LPC-662 form must be filled out. This does NOT need to be signed by a professional engineer.

If soil is obtained from a commercial/industrial area, but is uncontaminated, the Uncontaminated Soil Certification by Licensed Professional Engineer LPC-663 form must be filled out. This form MUST be signed by a professional engineer. And of course not all of us who have PE licenses are comfortable with signing this based on our expertise. So many are hiring engineers with a background in soil contamination to sign for their projects.

And I guess there is still no official decision on whether moving dirt on the same jobsite from one hole to another is a problem. Here is the information on the IEPA website: http://www.epa.state.il.us/land/ccdd/index.html

How does this apply at the “ground” level?

The advice I heard so far from other engineers is to create a map of your city that is broken into two areas: one colored for residential and one colored for commercial/industrial. For public works departments, crews can then use this map to figure out what form to use for the material they excavate and need to dump. One idea is to create separate piles for residential and commercial/industrial. Then when the piles need to be hauled out and dumped, the proper form can be filled out and signed if necessary. Some cities are hiring engineers to analyze the commercial/industrial pile and then sign the form if found to be uncontaminated. If there is contamination, the pile is hauled to a special waste site.

The other idea is to just haul all material from a commercial/industrial site straight to a transfer station. Then the station is responsible for disposing of the material.

For projects, many are talking about having the residential form filled out and placed in the proposal documents for residential areas. For commercial/industrial areas, an engineer has to be hired during design to analyze the area and sign the form if necessary. This form is also included in the proposal. Also, provisions must be in the proposal for disposal of contaminated soil if found. And because a load that is certified to be uncontaminated can later be turned away, there must be provisions for who is responsible for disposing of that load. Because the soil from my project might be ok, but the contractor could go pick up a contaminated load and come back and try to tell me that was my soil. Now we have to pay for its disposal at a special waste site. And how am I to know? This is one area where it just makes everything that much more confusing and difficult to manage.

Some final tips:

Make sure you separate the pavement material from the soil. I was told having pavement material mixed in the soil will make it contaminated.

Also, tell the crews on the jobsite NOT to throw paint cans into the loads. This is a very typical practice on construction sites. But your clean load will come up contaminated at the dump site if this is done.

And finally, make sure you do your own research and talk to your attorney before deciding your process because no one still seems to know what is really going on. Feel free to post your own comments or experiences dealing with this law.