Repair Cost Discrepancy Attributed To 'Fog Of War'

(Host) At one point it was estimated the cost of repairing state roads and bridges in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene would be $600 million.

Then last month, the state announced that the repair bill could be less than half that amount.

Much of that discrepancy lies in the difficulty of collecting accurate information during the massive recovery effort. 

But state officials say there are a few lessons from Irene that may help cut the cost of future road repair projects.

VPR's Steve Zind explains.

(Zind) The bulk of the difference between the $600 million estimate and the truer figure of between $175 and $250 million can be chalked up to a kind of ‘Fog of War' that made it difficult to get precise information in the weeks following the flood.

$600 million, it turns out, was really more of a ‘guesstimate'. 

But officials say Irene road and bridgework was less expensive than typical highway repairs.

For one thing, post-Irene work involved a much quicker environmental permit process.

Ken Robie is a Vermont Agency of Transportation project manager. He says there's normally a great deal of federal and state paperwork before construction begins.

Robie says projects need to be reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.  Then there are the necessary permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.                                                                                                                                    

(Robie) "On the state side you have Act 250 if your project is 10 acres or larger.  Two rounds of storm water permits, threatened and endangered species permits, we have air quality permits.  Oh boy, there's gotta be more..."

(Zind)  It's not unusual for that to take two to four years.  The cost is in the time and salaries of agency personnel.

During Irene, the permit process was hot-wired. 

Approval was granted orally, in emails and even after the fact.  But VTrans' Director of Program Development Richard Tetreault says there was still a process in place.

(Tetreault) "We were in consultation with our regulators.  Certainly they're allowed some flexibility on how they regulate in an emergency, as well.  But more I want to emphasize, we did work with them and they dropped and worked with us and we dropped everything and focused on Irene and just through that, it does save some time and money."

(Zind) Tetreault estimates Irene work was 10 to 15 percent less expensive because permitting was done so quickly.

Another reason flood work was cheaper than typical road projects is the fact that the agency didn't have to accommodate you, the driver.  

Ken Robie says designing a project so traffic can still flow while work is under way is costly and time consuming.  It involves putting up a temporary bridge or building a new stretch of road so drivers can get around the part that's being worked on. 

(Robie) "You have to make a little temporary road, move traffic over to it, build a portion of it, move traffic over there, build another portion, move traffic again, build another portion.  So you have extreme inefficiencies. You're digging in the same place multiple times just to maintain traffic."

(Zind) Robie manages the big construction job on Route 2 in Danville village.  He says if that road could simply be shut down, the project would be finished in a single construction season instead of taking three years - and at two-thirds the cost.

Closing the road isn't practical in Danville, but it may work on other projects.

VTrans' Richard Tetreault says it's hard to make comparisons between Irene recovery work and standard road projects, but he's confident future road projects will see savings because of Irene's lessons.  

He says there may be more instances where the agency can avoid building costly detours.

Tetreault says Irene also broke down agency barriers.  Instead of communicating by email or by shuffling papers back and forth, agencies worked together face to face to get things done. 

Irene has changed how they'll work together in the future.

For his part, Governor Peter Shumlin says he'd also like to take a lesson from Irene in streamlining the environmental permit process.

(Shumlin)  "I do think there are ways that we can insure that we are respecting the environment at the same time that we speed up the permitting process.  I'm not saying compromise, but I'm saying speed it up so it doesn't take five or six years to plan a bridge or a road. Let's get it done."

(Zind)  Environmental groups say they'll watch closely any plan to speed up the permit process.

Because the cap on federal highway assistance for Irene repairs has been lifted, the state will pay far less than the revised $175 to $250 million.

Vermont's tab for flood related road and bridge work is now estimated to be about $40 million.

For VPR News, I'm Steve Zind.