Hello! Last week I posted the results of a records request filed with the state for the winning proposal to build the deep-bore bore tunnel, which was submitted by international conglomerate formed the purpose of this project called Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP). It's over here.

The natural follow-up is to look at the contract itself—the deal between the state and STP, based on the proposal—as signed in December. For that, I've filed a records request for the contract and the state's evaluation form used to identify the strong points and weak points of the proposal. I haven't had a chance to examine the hundreds of pages, but here they are in three .pdf documents:

The tunnel contract is 155 pages. Among its contents are the terms under which the state (the Washington State Department of Transportation) must pay additional money to the builder beyond the $1.09 billion contract. This can happen when the digger encounters an archeological site, comes upon hazardous waste, a building is damaged, and other unforeseen scenarios. For example, if the tunnel builder encounters "historical objects, such as ruins, sites, buildings, artifacts, human skeletal remains or other items of antiquity," the state may issue a change order to "compensate Design-Builder for additional costs."

The contract's appendices are 236 pages. It includes a glossary of terms used in the contract, background on the contractors, and lots of other stuff I haven't read yet.

Finally, the five-page evaluation form examines the number of technical points STP won (or didn't win) for its proposal. In the field about the management of the project, for example, there were 10 million possible points; STP won only 4.6 million points. Why? Well, I'm not an expert on megaproject engineering, but the state notes in one section that appears to get zero points that STP "Should increase public satisfaction and increase accountability."

See something interesting? Point it out in comments.