Hedlund comments on Big Dig settlement

January 23, 2008

Hedlund "beyond disappointed" in news of settlement

Jan. 23, 2008

BOSTON, MA – Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth) issued the following statement regarding the report in today’s Boston Globe that Attorney General Martha Coakley has reached a settlement with Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and firms that designed and managed the Big Dig project.

“If this report is true, then I am beyond disappointed in this settlement. $399 million is not nearly enough to make up for the years of delays and mismanagement at the hands of Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff.

“There are rivers pouring through our tunnels, one woman has died, and the public trust has been irrevocably broken. Yet Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff has been able to buy themselves out of trouble for just $399 million. That figure represents pocket-change for a pair of firms that have pocketed billions of taxpayer dollars.

“When Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff was hired in 1986, the public was told we were getting first-class project management from an industry leader. Instead we got two decades worth of cost overruns and delays and the biggest taxpayer-financed boondoggle ever perpetrated on the American people.

“The Attorney General should be ashamed, and the voters should remember this in 2010.”



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