The settlement also shows that the massive break and service outage was not the city’s fault and instead was caused by the actions of an outside company, said Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein.
“Obviously the city of Dayton and its ratepayers were not responsible for this damage and they shouldn’t have had to pay for this damage, so we think we maximized the reimbursement we could,” she said.
The Dayton City Commission on Wednesday approved a settlement with the Eagle Bridge Company and GDP Inc. over a lawsuit the city filed following a water line break in February of 2019 that officials described as a nearly catastrophic incident.
The break caused about 100 millions of gallons of treated water to spill into the Great Miami River, and the city spent about $1 million fixing and upgrading the broken and impacted water infrastructure, Dickstein said.
The break also caused some people to lose confidence in the integrity and quality of the city’s water system, Dickstein said.
Dayton residents’ satisfaction with the city’s water and wastewater services tumbled in 2019, after the unprecedented water main break, according to a citywide survey.
Dickstein said Eagle Bridge and GDP, an engineering firm, did not correctly design or build a causeway that was part of its construction work to rebuild the Keowee Street Bridge.
That poorly designed causeway caused erosion that led to a 36-inch water main to be shifted and snapped, Dickstein said.
The settlement money will go back into the water fund, which will help reimburse the cost of repairing the damaged infrastructure, she said.
After the break, some people accused the city of not taking care of its water system infrastructure and negligence, and this settlement should clarify that the city was not responsible for what happened, Dickstein said.
An attorney for Eagle Bridge said the company had no comment for this story.
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