Delcambre still looking for resolution to issue of faulty water shutoff valves

DELCAMBRE — The Delcambre Board of Aldermen is still getting no resolution to the faulty customer water shutoff valves installed when upgrading water meters and pipes for residents a couple of years ago.
After discussing the issue again after having the problem on the agenda the past few months, the board went into executive session at the end of its regular monthly meeting on Monday to discuss its legal strategy in trying to get the remaining 700 or so valves in the city replaced that will need to be replaced. The town has already replaced more than 170 of the shutoff valves for its residential customers, the board was told.
Coburn’s, the distributor of the valves, is not responding to the town’s requests to resolve the issue, town attorney Gabe Duhon told the board. As a result, the town sent several defective valves back to Coburn’s to inspect them.
“We had a telephone conference last week, and apparently, Coburn’s has 30 valves and is not responsive to our requests to see if they’ve done anything with the valves,” Duhon said. “They’ve confirmed that they’re not NIBCO valves, but some other valves from another American company. So they have provided me with the contractor’s and Coburn’s contact information. So I have drafted a preservation of the evidence letter to Coburn’s, basically don’t get rid of the valves we gave you because we need to have them tested, and a demand letter to American, which should go out tomorrow.”
The town has a copy of its one-year inspection done on Aug. 1, 2022, wherein it let the contractor and distributor know it had found the valves were faulty, Duhon said.
“I want to get some authority from the board in the executive session to move forward on some things,” Duhon said.
Mayor Pam Blakely said that though many valves had been found to be faulty already, it became known the problem was much more widespread after the big freeze South Louisiana went through in late December.
“A lot of people had not even touched their valves, but then when we had that freeze, a lot more people found out their valves weren’t working,” Blakely said.
It was recommended that the town do the actual work in replacing the valves once it receives those replacements rather than go back to the contractor to do the job, as city work crews could do it more quickly than the contractor would if the town has to drag the dispute through the court system for months or even years.
“The contractor has not pushed back on us at all, you know, the engineers,” Sellers & Associates vice president and chief engineer Larry Cramer said. “The problem’s kind of been more on the supply side.”
Alderman Garret Frederick asked if the valves provided were the ones the engineers had submitted in their work order.
“No, and there was no change order,” Duhon said. “But apparently, there was a problem with the NIBCO valves at the time, a lead problem.”
“I think Garret is asking if they installed the approved valve, Sellers approved that, or did they install another one,” Alderman Chris “Tipper” Esponge said. “Is that what you’re asking?”
“Yes, was the correct valve installed?” Frederick said.
“What we’ve done is, we tried to find the approval,” Cramer said. “We can’t find the approval. We don’t even know if it was submitted to us. The supplier submitted to us what he, quote, told us he submitted to us. But he doesn’t have a marked, approved copy, so that doesn’t make sense. There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense. Everybody recalled both our inspector, a town representative and the contractor. We met, and the contractor was ready to order all the brass, and supposedly there was an issue in getting the quantity of lead-free NIBCO valves per our specified drawings. NIBCO was what we specified.”
“Is the valve that they installed an equal (quality)?” Esponge asked.
“Personally, it’s a little subpar than what we spec’d,” Cramer said. “(The American valve) is more of a traditional customer shutoff valve. We had spec’d out a more durable valve by NIBCO. It still doesn’t change the point that the valves should be working. We’re back down to some defect in the product.”
“Even if it’s subpar, the town wants what was spec’d out, because it’s a much better valve, and we should’ve gotten that,” Esponge said. “The town did not get what we were supposed to get. Whether defective or not, we did not get what we were supposed to get.”
“All we want is a valve that works,” Blakely said.
Esponge was told the American valve specifications are identical to the NIBCO valves, but the batch was just bad. If someone is driving a Chevy and has to replace the transmission, if the specifications are the same for two different bidder products, the town could go with either product.
“If I contract for a Ford pickup truck, half-ton, and you give me a Chevy, Houston, we have a problem,” Duhon said. “And that’s what happened. That’s a simple legal perspective.”
Duhon said the issue is with someone other than the contractor. It’s with the distributor and the manufacturer. In practice, the valve is inferior.
“From a legal perspective, the town cannot jump straight to the distributor or the manufacturer,” Duhon said. “It has to go through the contractor because the town has (the deal) with the contractor. So, yes, we will make a demand on the contractor. Yes, we will not be unreasonable. But we do have some timelines here that I’m worried about.”
Duhon added that Coburn’s needs to be more responsive.
“They want it to go away, so we’ve got to keep the pressure up,” Frederick said.
“I don’t know how you just ignore a town with 900 valves, and 178 of them have failed, and we’ve provided 30 to be tested in good faith, and now we have crickets in response to our inquiries,” Duhon said.