MWRA reaches $3.1 million settlement against companies in massive water main break in 2010
Source: http://www.boston.com, December 18, 2013
By: Martin Finucane
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority said today it had approved a $3.1 million settlement of a lawsuit against the consultants, contractors, and suppliers responsible for a section of water main in Weston that suffered a massive failure in May 2010, leaving nearly 2 million people in the Boston area without clean drinking water for more than two days.
MWRA officials said the settlement would cover nearly all of the MWRA’s costs to repair the pipeline and find and study the coupling components that failed. It also covers the cost of restoring the bank and channel of the Charles River nearby, where the water from the failed pipe flowed.
“The goal of the lawsuit was to make our ratepayers whole,” Fred Laskey, executive director of the agency, said in a statement. “We believe this settlement is very reasonable and also allows us to save the significant costs of a lengthy legal battle.”
The settlement included Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., The Shaw Group, Inc., Fay, Spofford & Thorndike, Inc., J.F. Shea, Inc., Traylor Bros., Inc., Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, Inc., Barletta Engineering Corp., Mid-America Pipe Fabrication & Supply Co., A&J Mechanical, Inc., and Victaulic Company, the MWRA said.