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Pilgrim high-school project moves ahead with site awards; teams disclose soil contamination allowances
Summary
The committee approved early-release packages and site work to keep Pilgrim construction on schedule after consulting with DEM about pockets of PAHs and arsenic; project managers said allowances and contingency draws will cover remediation as needed.
The Warwick School Committee on April 8 approved multiple early-release construction packages and site contracts for the Pilgrim High School project while the project team described limited soil contaminants and the plan to remediate them under Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management oversight.
Leftfield project executive Chris Spiegel and project engineer John Bates told the committee that bids for site work came in under budget for the early-release packages but that pre-construction testing found polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and low-level arsenic in discrete locations on the Pilgrim site. "We found PAHs in a few select areas; it's common in developed soils," Spiegel said, describing the contaminants as capped by existing material in most places and noting that the firm had identified allowances to remediate when necessary.
Spiegel said the team is coordinating with DEM on remediation plans and has included allowances in the site contract to cover removing and replacing affected soils if required. The committee approved a site-package award to Maniffort Brothers with included allowances and an overall contingency structure; project leadership said the worst-case allowance scenario assumes removing up to six inches of soil in limited areas, but that only about 30% of test wells showed hits above site thresholds.
The committee also voted to submit the Drum Rock demolition package to the Rhode Island Department of Education and approved a partial release of general-conditions funding to allow the construction manager to mobilize crews. "This is contingency that will be tracked separately and we'll be providing a regular update on the usage of this contingency," Spiegel told the board.
Several construction and contract approvals were passed unanimously and will be forwarded to the city/budget commission where the new law requires external authorization for operating expenditures. The project team said the Pilgrim packages awarded to date remain under the original capital budget forecast and that early awards continue to trend favorably against the project estimate.
What happens next: the district will coordinate DEM notifications and proceed with site mobilization once the required environmental-notice periods have been satisfied. The project team will report monthly to the committee on allowance draw-downs and any remediation outcomes.
