After 11 years of grinding through the judicial system and a flurry of court filings in August, a lawsuit connected to the catastrophic collapse of a portion of the Binghamton-Johnson City Joint Sewage Treatment Plant has finally been resolved.

Contractors have agreed to pay just over $30 million to settle the case in Broome County Supreme Court, according to documents filed by the Joint Sewage Treatment Board. The settlement avoided a trial that had been scheduled to begin this week.

The settlement is just a fraction of the $275 million spent to renovate the plant, a six-year rebuild that was completed in the summer of 2020, but not before millions of gallons of barely treated wastewater leaked into the Susquehanna River.

The bulk of the settlement will be paid by Infilco Degremont, which agreed to pay $20 million to the Binghamton-Johnson City Joint Sewage Board within 90 days. The subsidiary of Suez Treatment Solutions, Inc. reached a side agreement separate from the other defendants.

C.O. Falter Construction Corp. agreed to pay $5 million in the main settlement. C&S Engineers, Inc., C&S Design Build, Inc., C&S Companies, and Delta Engineers, Architects & Land Surveyors, P.C. agreed to pay $4.8 million.

Camp Dresser & McKee settled for $250,000, while EJ Construction Group, Inc. and Matco Electric Corporation settled for $25,000 each. Plaintiffs in the case included the Village of Johnson City, the City of Binghamton, and the Binghamton-Johnson City Joint Sewage Board.

The litigation dates back to a May 16, 2011 collapse at the Sewage Treatment Plant, when a 100-foot-length of the 23-foot-tall concrete wall at the western end of the Vestal facility unexpectedly shattered, spewing partially-treated sewage and several hundred tons of a gravel-like treatment material into a parking lot and a tributary to the Susquehanna River, according to a July 23, 2011 report in the Press & Sun-Bulletin.

No one was injured, but four large concrete treatment cells, part of the biological aerated filtration (BAF) system, were damaged or destroyed in the collapse of the 18-inch-thick wall. The facility sustained additional damage during the flood caused by Tropical Storm Lee not long after the collapse of the wall.

The initial lawsuit was filed in Broome County Supreme Court in July 2011. It accused a dozen firms of negligence, malpractice and other infractions. Binghamton and Johnson City sought compensation for "repair and replacement of various design and construction errors" connected to the $67 million Phase III improvement project under which the wall was constructed between 2004 and 2006.

The document stated the suit was filed due to "breach of contract, professional malpractice, negligence and demand for payment under performance bonds." The BAF system was part of the Phase III improvement project.

Overall, a lengthy reconstruction project at the facility project ultimately cost around $275 million.

An expert report prepared on behalf of the city, the village and the Binghamton-Johnson City Joint Sewage Board was filed with the Broome County clerk last month. Dr. Paul Carr, a forensic engineer, found that the BAF technology implemented by contractors did not match the size constraints of the site, leading to the downsizing of filters and other components smaller than design standards required.

“The project, during planning and design had a multitude of warnings and opportunities to redirect the trajectory of the project, yet all parties … continued with an ever-decreasing size system, since it was all that would ‘fit’,” wrote Carr.

The decision led to undersized and overloaded filters, among other challenges that “were all known — yet never shared among the team, and no action taken, which then led to the complete failure of the system,” wrote Carr. “If these issues had been only admitted, the planning work would have had to be erased and delays would be experienced.”

Carr’s report found that the problems predicted during design started occurring “from the months when the BJCSTP first received wastewater flow.” Those problems “worsened over the next three years, culminating in the failure of the treatment system and the collapse of the wall.”

According to the 2011 Press & Sun report, sewage board documents dating back to at least February 2009 chronicled a litany of problems with the Phase III project — including cracking walls and leaking joints between the concrete cells — and led the plant's owners to commission an audit of the construction work in 2010.

The audit report released in February 2011 by LMK Engineers of Pottstown, Pa., found 157 deficiencies in the Phase III project's design and construction, including missing water stops and vertical construction joints that were not installed according to specifications.

More:Broome County school bus cameras net more than 3K tickets, $750K in fines in 1st year

Economy:Over $113 million awarded to Binghamton's battery manufacturing efforts

The Binghamton Johnson City Wastewater Treatment Plant on Vestal Road cleans up much of the wastewater and sewage generated by the area’s industrial, commercial and residential activities before entering the Susquehanna River watershed and, eventually, the Chesapeake Bay. Owned by the City of Binghamton and the Village of Endicott, the facility serves much of Broome County’s population, also handling wastewater from the Village of Port Dickinson and the towns of Binghamton, Fenton, Dickinson, Conklin, Kirkwood, Union and Vestal.

The facility is governed by a six-member board that oversees day-to-day operations, with three members appointed by Binghamton’s mayor and three appointed by Johnson City’s mayor.

State:Polio found in another NY county; Hochul declares emergency. What to know

Construction of the Binghamton-Johnson City Joint Sewage Treatment Plant generated thousands of pages of documents, many of which were submitted as possible exhibits during the trial.

Some documents cited by defense attorneys date all the way back to 1998. The exhibit list included email records and memos, superintendent’s reports from throughout 2010 and 2011, engineering progress reports, procurement agreements, management and inspection agreements, wastewater load data sheets and water treatment handbooks, along with payroll records, change orders, cost summaries and invoices.

Attorneys for the various parties submitted a wide list of potential witnesses who may have been called to testify during the trial. The list included expert witnesses, engineers, village and city officials, as well as current and former employees of the companies listed as defendants in the case.