An agreement has been reached on a bill from 2016 associated with the Vernal Airport project. Last summer the FAA put a temporary halt on the airport runway project when it was learned that wetland mitigation requirements were not fully complete. A purchase of acreage in Jensen was made to establish new wetland sites and the halt was resolved in under two weeks but extra expenses incurred as a result. As per the contract, the airport project contractor, J Wright Construction, billed Uintah County for the time their equipment sat idle for about a week and a half. “We were expecting a bill for around $130,000 dollars,” explains Commissioner Duane Shepherd, “but the bill was more than double that. J Wright has done great work for the county and we just had to take the time to negotiate an agreement on the bill.” The agreement reached adjusted the bill to $111,000 dollars. Because the original error was theirs, GDA Engineers is paying $100,000 dollars of the bill and the Uintah Transportation Special Service District is covering the remaining $11,000 dollars. The Uintah County Commission approved the agreement during Monday’s Commission meeting and the Uintah Transportation Special Service District approved the agreement during Wednesday’s board meeting.
