GAO rejects Glass Breakwater repairs protest

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has rejected a protest on a significant Guam infrastructure repair project, damaged during Typhoon Mawar, now allowing work to proceed.

Typically, the GAO gives reasons for its rejection of the protest, as it did on this occasion.

ECC Infrastructure LLC challenged the $562 million-plus award for Glass Breakwater repairs to the Tutor Perini Corp.-NAN Joint Venture in October by Naval Facilities Engineering System Command Marianas.

Glass Breakwater photo courtesy of NAVFAC Marianas.png

Tutor Perini is the managing partner in the joint venture and the parent company of Black Construction Corp. Black Construction previously was awarded repair work on the breakwater in 2012, according to Journal files.

GAO denied the protest on Jan. 27, releasing its decision on Feb. 5.

EEC had challenged the evaluation of its proposal, including the agency’s assessment of deficiencies.

“More specifically, the May solicitation sought proposals for “repairs to the Admiral Glass Breakwater armor, repairs to rock revetment along Polaris Point . . . and repairs to the Sumay Cove Marina,” according to GAO’s report.

“Among other things, the RFP sought proposals for the “fabrication and installation [of] Concrete Armor Units … on the Glass Breakwater, revetment, shoreline stabilization, and marina slip repair and replacement.” In this context, the applicable engineering system requirements … and performance technical specifications contained various requirements and specifications including, of particular relevance here, multiple references to the use of “marine concrete,” GAO said.

Marine concrete is a type of reinforced concrete designed to withstand exposure to corrosive environments such as saltwater.

GAO said the solicitation defined a deficiency to include “a material failure of a proposal to meet a Government requirement,” and the solicitation also stated that a proposal found to have a deficiency would be ineligible for award.

The RFP went to five contractors (including ECC) that were previously awarded waterfront multiple-award Navy construction contracts and received two bids. It evaluated those with No Confidence in EEC’s technical approach, including a deficiency based on the proposal’s failure to meet the solicitation requirements for marine concrete, and High Confidence in TPC-NAN’s technical approach.

ECC bid $487,200,071 on the total project – then due to start construction in August 2025 – for completion in July 2029 and TPC-NAN bid $562,918,116, according to GAO.

An Oct.13 release from NAVFAC Marianas the day after the award, said the award amount was $330.5 million, and that “pending future funding, the project may also include repairing the full length of the Glass Breakwater armoring from the head to Luminao Reef.” mbj

GAO rejects Glass Breakwater repairs protest