The Seattle Times reports that STP already filed a “request for entitlement” to be paid by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), on the premise that a steel well casing, left in the ground after WSDOT groundwater tests in 2002 and 2010, damaged Bertha just before the machine stalled in early December. WSDOT says it has rejected the request. State officials argued that information had been given to STP in technical documents and so STP was responsible for knowing about the pipe and avoiding trouble.
Chris Dixon, project director for Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP), said the number was based on restarting Bertha by Sept. 1, which was STP’s earlier, optimistic goal. On Monday, he announced the job would take until March 2015, and Dixon said today the actual cost would likely exceed the $125 million.
However, the $125 million isn’t a hard figure, and who will pay has yet to be determined.