Near Nothing Can Make Me Angrier Than What Happens to Capital Dollars

 From KUOW, 

Seattle's new $297 million high school was built on a peat bog. Then the foundation started settling

Let's start with this - the district knew this situation existed before building. Just like they know the same thing about Hale High School when they rebuilt it and they had to mitigate that issue. (all bold mine)

Months before the long-awaited, brand new Rainier Beach High School opened to students last April, engineers on the $297-million project reported problems with the building’s foundation to the city, records show. The school was settling into the earth more than expected in areas, as much as three inches, and it hadn’t stopped sinking.

“The project is on fairly porous ground, and it did settle more than they expected,” said Tina Christiansen, Seattle Public Schools capital projects spokesperson.

Shortly before the building opened, “it was determined that settlement had stopped,” Christiansen said, and builders dealt with the uneven settlement by releveling the top of the concrete foundation.

While excessive or uneven settlement rarely poses an immediate safety risk, it can require costly remediation, and repairs to elements like cracked walls and floors. The risks depend on factors including the cause and extent of the settlement, said Brett Maurer, a civil engineering professor at the University of Washington.

And when will the settling stop? No one knows.

And get this - the district built the new building on top of this swamp; the original building hadn't been built there.  The swampy section was the athletics fields. And they are still going to build a performing arts hall as well.

Who got talked into this? Did the architects say it was possible (because you can do anything but it doesn't make it a good idea)? Did Richard Best, the head of Capital Building, say damn the torpedoes? Because honestly, it feels like SPS is the place where architects go to try out new and costly ideas.

In order to build on a peat bog, Seattle Public Schools was required to sign a covenant acknowledging the “unique risks” of the project, including excessive settlement, and releasing the City of Seattle from liability for short- or long-term hazards.

Are you kidding me? 

Over the next seven months, Lydig “measured as much as 3 inches of settlement in the central portion of the structure,” engineers told the city — far more than the one inch of long-term settlement anticipated in the plan.

“But, because building settlements can be a long process occurring over many years, any such prediction inevitably has some uncertainty,” (Brett) Maurer said. (Maurer is a UW civil engineering professor.)

This is a doozy:

Christiansen said she was not aware how much settlement was ultimately measured, whether monitoring was ongoing, or whether a cause was determined. The district’s executive director of capital projects and facilities, Richard Best, was willing to answer all such questions, Christiansen said: “Unfortunately, his schedule doesn’t have a clear break in it until November.” 

Know who can get Best in to talk? The Board. Let's see if they do anything.