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September 13, 2005Finally, facts to ordain who pays for new plantThe issue: Our view: Further, officials have reversed a decision that could have put taxpayers on the hook for some potentially expensive portions of any rebuilding effort. Now all they have to do is find out what went wrong, why it went wrong, whose fault it is and get the thing rebuilt. The idea of finding the problem before fixing it is as basic as they come, but for a while there it looked like that's what was in the making. For weeks after a portion of the month-old plant imploded no one was willing - or perhaps able - to say why the plant did what it did. Instead, the firms that designed and built the $7.8 million plant looked into the collapse, as did firms hired by insurance companies for everyone involved. No one, it seemed, wanted to point a finger or admit any responsibility. It was a horse designed by a committee in the making. Finally, after weeks of delay, the county's Board of Public Works hired NTH Consultants of Detroit to determine what happened. Just 16 days later, at the urging of its attorney, the county's advisory water and sewer committee, made up of township officials, decided to halt reconstruction until questions about the structural integrity of other buildings at the site were answered. That's good and accountable public policy, absolutely the way to do the public's business. The next step must be for NTH to make a final report and that report to be made public - with no hidden addenda, no private reports, no shenanigans. The committee also deserves a pat on the back for reversing itself and dumping a contract amendment approved earlier that seemed to have been written by and for the contractors - not by the county and certainly not for the taxpayers. The amendment would have capped the amount of engineering and legal costs that Gourdie-Fraser, the engineering firm, and Christman Co., the contractor, would have been liable for. Taxpayers would have picked up the rest. That was a ludicrous idea on its face. There is no way taxpayers should be liable for any of the reconstruction costs. And because it's possible that some of the plant will have to be redesigned, those costs could skyrocket. It's time for engineering and facts to supplant politics and posturing and get the plant up and running again. Let's hope the sudden run on accountability keeps going.
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