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Originally published by The News-Press on May 02, 2023 by Amy Bennett Williams

Construction of the C-43 reservoir is on hold after the South Florida Water Management District fired the contractor for the half-billion-dollar-plus job. The district announced the contract termination Monday.

Work won’t halt for long, promises Chauncey Goss, who chairs the district’s governing board. As it searches for a new firm – or firms, “We’re not stopping the project,” said Goss, “and the end result is we’re going to be finished quicker.”

In the coming weeks, “We’re going to make sure the site is maintained, we’re going to make sure we don’t go backwards and we’re going to move forward with finding a (replacement).”

It came down to chronic delays, said district Communications Director Sean Cooley, who said his agency “was forced to make the difficult decision of terminating our contract (after) the contractor simply couldn’t stay on schedule and would not make the necessary changes to get back on schedule or prevent further delays.”

Cooley said the contracting outfit, known as C-43 Water Management Builders, which included Lane Construction and Webuild, was averaging “an additional 20 days of delay for every month on the job, which would result in a project delivery upwards of three years late. Such poor performance is contrary to the contract and is unacceptable.”

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