By CHRISTOPHER WALKER
The Patriot Ledger

QUINCY - Hoping to distance himself from a wide-ranging federal corruption probe, the contractor who hauled Big Dig dirt to Quarry Hills says his company paid for every drop of city water it used during the project.

Richard McCourt, who heads South Boston-based McCourt Construction, said in an interview this week that a $372,000 water bill forgiven by the city in 1998 was based on inflated estimates that bore ‘‘no semblance to reality.''

McCourt said he eventually paid for all the city water the company used - a total of about $47,000 - to wash truck wheels during the $100 million hauling operation that began in 1997.

McCourt added that he's still receiving water bills from the city even though his company made its last delivery of dirt to Quarry Hills in West Quincy on Dec. 31, 2001.

‘‘I never experienced that before,'' he said. ‘‘But is it worse to bill me six times what I'm using or a zillion times what I'm using because I'm not even even there?''

The abatement given to McCourt was disclosed in a 1998 memo from David Colton, who was Quincy's commissioner of public works at the time. That memo was part of the city's response this fall to a federal grand jury subpoena that sought volumes of documents related to various projects and companies in Quincy, including many records related to the large-scale Quarry Hills earth-moving job.

Federal prosecutors have not questioned McCourt, and the Hingham resident vehemently denied any involvement in the investigation.

Still, the fact that records related to his company were mentioned publicly in connection with the probe has prompted McCourt to defend his reputation.

In the interview, McCourt recalled one meeting in a Hingham restaurant with an acquaintance who thought McCourt was involved in the corruption scandal.

‘‘He said, ‘Geez, Rich, what's going on? You've been indicted by the grand jury.' So it goes from an allusion to a grand jury indictment,'' McCourt said.

Colton, who is now Milton's public works chief, backed McCourt's claims of overestimated bills.

The issue arose just as the massive Quarry Hills project started in 1997 and authorities involved had no firm plan or agreement on how to deal with water use, Colton said. That led to estimated water bills, and then to shock for McCourt when he first saw how much the city was billing him.

When told about the huge bills, Colton agreed that the figures were probably inflated and suggested that the city would make an adjustment after McCourt drilled a well.

Colton said his main concern at the time was to move McCourt off the public water supply, saying he didn't realize how much the bills were inflated ‘‘until we got to the end of the process.''

‘‘Frankly, I didn't even want to look at this until he had finished that well,'' Colton said. ‘‘But when I did look at it, it was clear that our estimates were very, very high.''

From late 1997 until last December, trucks made more than 500,000 short trips from downtown Boston to West Quincy, hauling close to 13 million tons of dirt from the Big Dig.

McCourt's job entailed handling the dirt and moving it once it reached Quincy, as well as covering three former municipal landfills with the dirt and clay from the Big Dig and turning what was once a dump into a 27-hole golf course and new playing fields for Quincy and Milton.

Each truck that passed through the property was supposed to go through high-pressure wheel-washing machines after dropping off its dirt and heading back to the highway.

But McCourt said that even if a hydrant used by the contractor was left open all day, every day, water use would not come close to the amount reflected on the inflated bills, which were delivered monthly for about a year.

From late 1998 until the project was completed, McCourt only used city water when problems arose with the well he drilled and another private water source at Fuller's Quarry.

McCourt and Colton disagree on whether the contractor was initially promised free water because hauling was done for a public works project. McCourt says he was; Colton says he wasn't.

‘‘And we ended paying for everything we used, because we were told to,'' McCourt said.

He said he can't figure out why the city is still sending him water bills when his work ended almost a year ago. He said efforts to discuss the matter with city officials have so far been rebuffed.

City hall officials yesterday refused to comment.

The project began in 1997 when the developers, Quarry Hills Associates, signed 50-year leases with both Quincy and Milton for use of the public land.

The partners in the development project are brothers William and Peter O'Connell, former Quincy Mayor Walter Hannon Jr., his son Walter Hannon III and retired landfill operator Charles ‘‘Chic'' Geilich.

Christopher Walker may be reached at cwalker@ledger.com.

Copyright 2002 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Thursday, December 19, 2002