A month after an invalid vote that provided "conditional approval" of a $30-million settlement with HDR Engineering over cracks in its six-year-old reservoir, on Oct. 17 the board of directors of Tampa Bay Water voted unanimously to reject the deal and proceed with its pending lawsuit in federal court.
In September, the board had voted 4-3 to settle with HDR over flaws at the utility’s 15.5-billion-gallon C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir. HDR served as the engineer on the $140-million facility, which opened in 2005. Just over 12 months later, significant cracking was discovered in the internal embankments of the reservoir.