Family-Owned Business May Have to Close Its Doors Forever [VIDEO]

William "Bill" Walsh has run the for more than three decades, but a feud over subcontract work completed on a $429 million project for the San Diego County Water Authority may force the long-time Attleboro business to close its doors forever.

What was supposed to be a $4.5 million opportunity for W. Walsh Company turned out to be two years of feuding with Traylor-Shea Joint Venture, the contractor hired by the San Diego County Water Authority. The feuding was over $1.9 million of the $4.5 million that was owed to Walsh.

"Traylor/Shea's refusal to pay the full amount has almost put us out of business," the Attleboro business owner and resident said.

Closing its doors will impact 45 families from Attleboro, East Providence, Seekonk and other neighboring communities, some of whom have worked for the company for 35 years. The possibility forced Walsh to reach out to garner support from U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's office and Congressman James McGovern.

"He is greatly concerned that these workers and their families will face a grave hardship at a time when employment is difficult to find," McGovern wrote in a letter to the Water Authority, pleading for their help on Walsh's behalf. Sen. Brown also sent a letter to them on Walsh's behalf.

Chris Servant, president of in Attleboro, said he's known Walsh for more more than two decades.

"As a businessman, Bill and his company, W. Walsh Construction Company, are highly respected," Servant said. "The W. Walsh Company performs a unique service – the cement relining of water pipes." The company has done work in Russia, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, the Virgin Islands and local cities, including Newport and Pawtucket.

"As a person, Bill is one of the most highly respected and well liked people in all of Attleboro," he added. "The way he and his company were treated in San Diego is a travesty.

Middleman in a dark tunnel

The business owner claims that his company was dragged in the middle of a dispute between Traylor/Shea and the San Diego Water Authority.

In fact, in a letter to Michael Hogan, the chairman of the board of directors of the water authority, Walsh said the job was already 15 months behind schedule when he and his crew arrived in San Diego to do the work in January 2010.

"Things were bad, the worst relationship between a general contractor and a project owner that we've ever encountered in Walsh's 35-year history," Walsh wrote in his letter.

In fact, the tunnel is the subject of a lawsuit between the water authority and Traylor Shea Joint Venture, the contractor that is seeking $140 million for alleged breach-of-contract.

Point of contention

The San Diego Water Authority said the work done by Walsh, which was to clean and reline 57,000 feet of pipe with mortar, was found to be defective and that it didn't meet specification standards.

The water authority did not accept Walsh's work and asked the contractor to remedy the situation. Traylor/Shea corrected the work and decided not to pay Walsh in full, according to a letter from Hogan.

Daniel Hentschke, the water agency’s attorney, told the San Diego Tribune that the Traylor Shea complaint “is basically blaming everything that went wrong on the project on the different site conditions,” he said. “We just don’t buy it.

The point of contention between Walsh and the contractor was over one of those site conditions, specifically how well a section of pipe was cleaned by Traylor/Shea before Walsh arrived. 

The pipe was supposed to be "push-broom clean" and not cleaned with machinery that removed rust from the pipe, according to American Water Works Association standards.

"This made our work much more difficult, expensive and time-consuming," Walsh said.

Walsh took the contractor to court in an attempt to reclaim the $1.9 million shortfall, but after a long legal battle and months of legal bills, the parties settled for $400,000. That, however, is not enough to keep the business in the black.

One more try

In a desperate attempt to keep the business afloat, Walsh went to the water authority for help, but was told in an Oct. 19 letter that Walsh's settlement with Traylor-Shea meant his company no longer had a relationship with the water authority.

That is not true, according to Walsh, because his crew's work was inspected and accepted by the water authority's construction management team and all payments were made in full to Traylor-Shea. Walsh went on to say that the water authority did not protect the interests of his company.

The next step for the W. Walsh Company is to complete its existing contracted work for other clients and then maybe close its doors. "After that we have to sit down with our accountant, bank and bonding company to see where we stand and then make those decisions."