Ellsworth dredging project on hold due to disputes

ELLSWORTH – With the expiration two months ago of the seasonal ban on dredging in the Union River, city officials had hoped to see dredging equipment in the city harbor by now.

Instead, what they have seen most recently is 21 pages of letters and memos detailing the latest wrinkles and developments in the beleaguered project. The packet, assembled and distributed Dec. 30 to city officials by acting City Manager Michelle Beal, indicates the city and dredging contractor Robert Twitchell do not see eye-to-eye on how the project should move forward.

Referring to information in the packet, Beal said Wednesday that city officials met with Twitchell last month to discuss some changes in the city’s contract with his company, Northeast Marine Towing & Construction of Penobscot. At Twitchell’s request, the city agreed to set a higher fee for removing wood debris from the harbor bottom and also made allowances for changing the progress schedule and completion dates included in the original contract, Beal said.

Twitchell, however, is not happy with the price of $17 per cubic yard of removed wood debris, according to Beal. She said Twitchell has asked the city to pay Northeast Marine a higher figure but that the city has denied his request.

In a Dec. 19 letter to the city’s project manager, Jim Wilson of the Bangor engineering firm Woodard & Curran, Twitchell wrote that Northeast Marine is raising its prices for dredging in Ellsworth’s harbor. Twitchell indicates in the letter that instead of being paid between $12.50 and $17 per cubic yard of material removed, his company “will be compensated” between $30 and $40 per cubic yard.

Attempts over the weekend to contact Twitchell at his home were unsuccessful, but Northeast Marine spokeswoman Tammy Pinkham said Sunday that the company has hired an engineering firm to survey the harbor this week. She said when the company can start digging again depends on how long it takes to conduct the survey and to develop the survey data into a dredging plan.

Pinkham declined further comment about the project.

In a Dec. 23 letter to Twitchell, Wilson informed the contractor of the city’s rejection of Twitchell’s proposed prices and also wrote that failure to resume dredging in the city harbor by Jan. 15 “may be interpreted as a breach of contract.”

The federal ban that prohibits dredging in salmon spawning grounds such as the Union River is effective each year from April 15 to Nov. 1. There has been no digging in Ellsworth’s harbor since spring 2003.

Twitchell, in a separate Dec. 19 letter to Wilson, made other requests of the city, including getting a gag order for Ellsworth harbor master Randy Heckman and issuing a press release attributing project delays to contract problems.

Beal said the city does not intend to honor those two requests.

“We have no reason to put a gag order on Randy Heckman,” Beal said.

Last year, Twitchell filed a defamation lawsuit against Heckman in Hancock County Superior Court, alleging that comments Heckman made to federal officials and to a local weekly newspaper were knowingly false and damaged the reputations of Twitchell and his company. Attorneys representing Heckman and Twitchell agreed in October to drop the suit.

The acting city manager also said the city will not issue a press release blaming the dredging delay on the contract dispute.

“By contract, he cannot stop working, so that would be an incorrect statement,” she said.

City officials previously had said that Northeast Marine had to finish another project before it could resume dredging in Ellsworth.

Federal and commercial surveyors have said the project is only about 30 percent complete. Of the $480,000 Ellsworth originally set aside for the project, $266,000, or more than half, already has been paid to the contractor, according to city officials.

The discrepancy can be attributed to inaccurate estimates for how much material has been dug out of the harbor and towed to the dumping site in Union River Bay, city officials have said.

Beal, whose involvement in the issue began when she was named acting city manager in October, said she was not familiar enough with the city’s relationship with Twitchell to say whether or how it has changed in recent weeks. The city hired Twitchell in September 2001 to dredge the city’s harbor.

“I guess that would be a question for Mr. Twitchell,” Beal said.