Quick Fix for Tanks OKd

North County Transit District directors gave Executive Manager Richard Fifer authority Thursday to contract for immediate repairs to what they labeled “a very dangerous situation” at the district’s Oceanside maintenance yard.

Fifer was authorized to find a firm to make immediate repairs on some underground fuel tanks without going through normal bidding procedures because, Fifer said, the tanks “were improperly installed and they recently broke loose from their moorings. They are in a dangerous condition, floating in ground water, in a party open pit.”

Louetto Construction had contracted to complete the fuel tank installation and the rest of a $6.7-million renovation of the district’s maintenance yard in 11 months. Transit district officials voted Oct. 11 to rescind the Louetto contract and order the firm off the site 20 months after the work was begun.

Don Mason, Louetto project manager, said transit officials are “trying to create a smoke screen” to cover up their “responsibility for all the delays in the project.”

Mason said most of the delays in the maintenance yard contract were due to contaminated soil and to a number of design changes ordered by district officials without compensating time extensions.

Lou Pauletto, owner of the Louetto firm, earlier had blamed the fuel tank problems on the tank manufacturer and on a subcontractor’s improper installation of the fuel tanks.

Fifer told NCTD directors Thursday that the district has only a two-day supply of fuel stored for its 300 buses because of the failure of the underground tank facility.