HDR Cleared in Tampa Bay Reservoir Trial

The lengthy and acrimonious legal dispute between Tampa Bay Water and engineering firm HDR is not necessarily over, but HDR has come away victorious from the first trial. TBW has been convinced HDR’s design and quality control led to excessive cracking of 15.5-billion gallon reservoir–cracking so severe a new reservoir (and liner) is being planned. An interesting article over at ENR details the complexity of the dispute, from the difficulty of proving excessive pore pressure to soil compaction questions.