The following letter was presented to the board minutes for last nights meeting. This information was gathered from talking with the Seawall Engineers Langan, reading over their presentations and documentation as well as the District Engineer who has been with Mira Bay since its inception and the historical knowledge from the settlement that gave us $8.3 million.
The letter is long, it was argued on for some time, however if you go to the record from last night none of it was disproved.
I do not blame the Langan engineers, their sole job is to engineer and fix the wall, however it is the Boards job to look at the entire scope of the situation, which includes our upland issues, or if a certain repair option comes up short or interferes or creates the loss of personal property and possible litigation from seawall owners which will have a cost.
All of these were argued by me last night, I was even laughed at b/c it was thought I had messed up my numbers and was “caught fabricating” but when I showed the data came from the Langan presentation itself quashed that, but in the end it was actually acknowledged that this will happen.
Even though there is an approval for Replacement wall for section 1, this board ignored that and has gone a different direction last night, Rip-Rap, even knowing that it is highly probable, even by Langan own comments last night, that a new wall will still be required. Furthermore it was voted that any seawall owner could opt in and pay for themselves the better wall, this only furthered my argument that this was the wrong direction, just think of different lots going back and forth between the 2 options.
I am looking long term and at the entire scope of the job.
Right now the difference between a rip rap option and a replacement option in $2.5 million dollars. I am looking to keep Mira Bay costs down, so I checked into this knowing $2.5 is a lot, and of course there are many that want the least cost that will work, however what I found in the following submitted to the minutes before the meeting will show that the rip rap option is more costly. This is why I call this the $9 million dollar gamble, actually I think we are going to lose way more than the $2.5 million many were worried about and here is why…….
Exhibit A; The Wall
The seawall color-codes as shown on the MiraBay seawall map.
The color code is for layman’s terms only, a color in one area is not indicative of what the condition of a seawall section is in another area with the same color code. This means seawalls with same color-coding might not exhibit equivalent conditions. The color-coding shows primarily the current level of rotation of the cap. Regardless of any color, the coding does not take into consideration
- Fracturing, rupturing, or seam separation of the vinyl;
- Waler fracturing; failures
- Soil conditions that are different throughout.
- Cap fracturing;
- Berm is too low; and
- Vinyl short sheeted; or insufficiently driven into substrate
The original cap has shown extensive fracturing—with internal fracturing as well. Normal weathering processes will cause the cap to eventually start to fall apart—there is no way to stop that process. Any attempt to seal the cap would a complete encasement and sealant would have to be redone every 3 -5 years. With sealing, you are also sealing in the moisture in the cracks that have already developed. Internal weathering would continue and cause the cap to fail eventually anyway.
The seawall
- Proven by litigation to be of inferior material;
- Proven to be installed incorrectly;
- Proven to be short sheeted in many areas, yet there is no way to prove where specific circumstance exists;
- Attempt to shore up worst bowings of seawall with the waler in 2006–2007;
- Those walers have fractured in many areas;
- Hydrostatic pressure has bowed the walls outward in the vertical plane
o Since the seawalls are undisturbed along their length, it can be concluded that
- The wall is being pulled down away from its original height; or
- Being pulled up from the bottom; or
- Being deformed and made thinner by stretching of the vinyl—which the engineers believe is the most common thus its yield point is near failure
We know that considerable soil movement in the uplands has occurred—some of which is due to the wall bowing out and the soil filling the void created on the upland side of the seawall. We also know that we are losing soil underneath the wall.
This raises the question of whether we will have a truly impermeable barrier. This suggests strongly that placing rip-rap in front of the seawall will not stop the soil migration. Therefore, the upland damages will continue.
It is unknown if there are air pockets or voids behind the wall; nor do we know how many exist and where. We know the wall has been stretched—made thinner—wherever it is bowing or the cap is rotated. This means a product proven to be inferior to begin with has been made even more susceptible by having its millage (thickness) reduced. Also, the weakest point in any structure is usually at the connections. In this case it’s the welds between the sheet pile sections. It is highly probable they start failing where the wall is under a permanently stressed condition.
Therefore, it needs to be explained exactly how adding rip-rap up against the wall will prevent more fracturing and rupturing of the vinyl wall if soil movement continues or vinyl wall is so damaged that any development of additional or continuing hydrostatic pressure exceeds any capacity of the rip-rap to prevent ultimate seawall failure.
A replacement wall will solve most, or all, of these issues. Consider the truly impermeable barrier created when the replacement wall is put into the ground at least 4 feet deeper, a grout-like substance is poured between the failed wall and the new thicker millage vinyl sheet.
We currently have a $2.5 million-dollar delta between rip-rap and replacement wall.
Spending $2 million on what has to be considered a temporary fix is throwing that money away. There is no way to predict whether that rip-rap on those 89 lots will all succeed. Even if we were to take only half the lots and had to eventually put in a full replacement wall, the rip-rap placed there previously, up to 4 feet high, would have to be moved at least 2 feet out to allow the replacement wall to be installed. The engineers say they can just push the rip-rap back, but, regardless, that requires moving the rip-rap 2 more times after initially installing it. Moving rip-rap is a labor intensive effort. Moving rip-rap stacked 4 feet high would be at least 1.5 times the original cost; or, in this case, $1.5 million.
If we have new emergency fixes in the future in addition and with no money left, we will be forced to levy a special assessment.
Let’s not forget the uplands. It is already conceded and proven that we have approximately $20,000 per lot in damages —on average. If those 89 lots continue to have upland damage, we are looking at a potential of $1.78 million dollars, but we have approximately 200 lots remaining which puts the cost at $4 million.
We also have the very real potential of lawsuits from residents who are unhappy about being denied the replacement seawall as well as loss of personal property. If we estimate that each lawsuit costs, conservatively, $175,000 each.
If only 10 people filed suit, that has the potential of $1.75 million more. Even if they do not win, the CDD would still have to defend each one. This asks the question then whether a cease and desist order would result since the installation of rip-rap has the potential to cause irrevocable harm and permanently affect property values in MiraBay.
Why are we even discussing this? We have a vote already on the use of replacement wall for section 1. We have a contractor in place. The engineers have told us their estimates of the rate of new emergency fixes indicate it is linear, but we know that the past rate of emergency fixes has been exponential. I have to ask, are we out of time? These delays will only have us watching seawall lot after seawall lot go to emergency fix status.
Using rip-rap at this juncture may well prove to be far costlier than getting the replacement wall in place now.
$2 million for a temporary fix
$1.5 million to move the rip rap 2 more times
$1.75 million in lawsuits (that is only 10)
$1.78 million in upland damages for just 89 lots up to $4 million for the approximately 200 remaining lots.
Total is between $7.03 and $9.25 million vs. the $2.5 million delta
There are approximately 151 home lots remaining in section 1, doing 89 is only 58%. It still leaves us short on finishing the repairs and leaves all those other lots vulnerable., If we consider the 53 lots in section 2 as well, now we are “delaying the decay” by addressing only 43% of the total.
The fact the engineers have shown us 97% of all lots will be red by Aug 2018—a mere 18 months away, means many of those lots that are green and yellow will get still worse over the next 6-9 months; thus, contributing to even more upland damage.
And how many more will sue over personal property loss?
Again, why are we even talking about rip-rap anymore?
The only fiscally responsible solution is doing the replacement wall. This will give us an impermeable barrier that stops the upland damages, prevent the lawsuits, and won’t waste $3.5 million on a temporary fix.