Crumbling new sidewalks in Grand Coulee may require big fix, legal work

Nearly new sidewalks that Grand Coulee had installed in 2015 are already cracking and crumbling, a situation that could require time in court to work out.

Grand Coulee's city council voted at their Feb. 19 meeting to have their lawyer send a letter to Travellers Insurance, which insures Davenport-based Halme Builders, who installed the sidewalks.

The 2015 project to install new sidewalks and gutters on Federal Avenue and Main Street cost $407,816.53, paid for with money from a state Transportation Improvement Board grant, City Clerk Lorna Pearce said.

Don Tulloch and Mike Meskimen of Gray & Osborne, the engineering company behind the project, attended Grand Coulee's Feb. 19 meeting and laid out a timeline: Settlement issues causing the concrete to crack were noticed in November of 2016. A few months later, "spalling" on surfaces was also noted.

The engineers told the council that since discovering the issues, they have spoken with Halme Builders.

The company's insurance company eventually denied responsibility for the issues, saying that de-icer applied to the sidewalks could have deteriorated the sidewalk, which isn't Halme Builders' fault.

The city council discussed at the meeting that some of the deterioration is occurring where de-icer isn't applied. Gray & Osborne said that it's in the contract to apply a protective sealant to the concrete anyway, a point that the lawyer should bring up in a letter to the insurance company.

Dan Halme, who owns Halme Builders, told The Star that his company carried out the project according to the contract. He said that the concrete was sourced from different companies, and that his company used the type of concrete mix specified in the contract.

"The concrete was not designed for de-icer," Halme said. "It isn't what they asked for in the contract."

He said he didn't know if de-icer was the cause of the spalling, but that was one of the theories.

"We believe we followed the contract with the material provided," Halme said. "We have the data to say that was done. When it was starting to fail, we asked for some test from the city to show if it was our fault, and how it was our fault. If it was done wrong, no one has been able to point out how it was wrong, so the contractor isn't at fault until it's pointed out how."

"The Contractor is indicating that chemical de-icers caused the scaling problems," Tulloch told The Star. "However, scaling problems can also be attributed to several factors including, but not limited to, the quality of concrete materials and to construction techniques used during placement and finishing of fresh concrete. The resolution to this issue is a long process with a common legal procedure and we are unable to respond with more information at this time because of the potential for litigation between the City and the Contractor."

"What we're saying is it's because of faulty concrete or poor workmanship," Pearce told The Star. "They're going to force our hand into legal action."

At the meeting last week, the council also discussed with Gray & Osborne that it wouldn't be an easy fix and would likely require completely replacing the sidewalks, because merely removing the top few inches off the surface and applying a new surface would sacrifice the integrity of the concrete.