Facility update reveals correction of issues

WORLAND – During the Washakie County Hospital Board meeting Thursday evening, board members learned how the issues discovered in July’s meeting were being addressed.

Brad McCaslin with Banner Health Development and Construction explained to the board how the drainage issue, mentioned by Washakie County Commissioner Aaron Anderson during the July meeting, was to be solved.

In the July meeting McCaslin explained to the board and Anderson that the water storage issue was a tricky deal. He stated that, according to the soils report, there were no free draining layers that they could get to under the areas in question and that they were waiting for their engineers to solve the problem.

During Thursday night’s meeting McCaslin explained, “We reviewed the bores on the original soils report and it appears that we have, first of all we didn’t have a bore in any of those areas, the closest bore that I think we had was the helipad and we had one in the parking area. So we didn’t have an exact bore in any of those locations, so all of our bores had a variation of where that top clay layer ends and turns to silty sand. It’s all about six to eight feet below the surface and I know that we are less than four to five feet at the bottom of all those ponds. We are digging what’s called a boulder pit, it will be like a 10 foot by 10 foot hole six feet deep that will ensure us that we are getting into the silty sand layer which should allow free drain or relatively free drain. And then what we do we will take mirafi fabric, which is like weed block essentially, basically a silt stop, we will wrap that hole with that and we will fill it with river rock. And then the bottom of those ponds essentially where the grass is struggling because it’s been underwater, that will be filled with river rock so that we will have more of a free draining bottom of those pits.”

The cracks and poor workmanship in the courtyard and front parking lot, which board member Dean Carrell mentioned during the July meeting, were addressed Thursday evening with McCaslin assuring the board that the concrete issue would be taken care of by the end of the month.

The board went into executive session (closed session) to discuss contract issues. The board then authorized the use of funds for small projects which at one time were removed from the original main project. “We authorized monies [contingency funds] to be utilized to finish a few things in the hospital that were not going to be done, like the back entrance hallway, some ceilings and [to] dress up stuff that needed to be,” Hospital Board Chairman Dan Scheuerman said Friday.

During the July meeting the board had learned that the small projects had been added back into the project without board approval and several board members expressed their concern about the lack of communication, especially after the board had just given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the project because it was projected to go over budget.