Imagine if you will the horror of finding out one of your containment system projects failed!
Over the past several years, our Failure Analysis and Project Auditing services have exposed numerous things being done incorrectly (or in some cases not done at all) on containment system construction projects by various parties associated with the construction process. These findings led me to what I think is a pivotal question for our industry: “Who is responsible for a failure?”
To help us examine this question, let’s look at a hypothetical project with the following cross-section:
Now, let’s assume we had a hypothetical failure. The failure was a post construction slope failure occurring during the operational phase of the containment system. As such, this means that a CQA firm was present during construction, the project was certified by an engineer, and approved by a regulatory agency before operations began.
Three scenarios are presented below, and each is independent of the other scenarios. For each scenario, I’d like you to select the party responsible for the failure. If there is a case where you believe there is more than one party responsible, select the one who bears most of the liability/burden.
Good Luck!
