The Haines Borough and Pacific Pile & Marine could end up in mediation over a dispute about the hardness of the harbor basin, according to borough manager Debra Schnabel.

Settlement discussions Monday failed to reach agreement on resolving the contractor’s $1.2 million claim, Schnabel said. “We’re at a stalemate and we’re not in the same place,” Schnabel said. “Each of us is in a place where we’re moving to exchange information about our attorneys as if we’re going to move into mediation.”

PP&M is seeking the additional funds for increased labor time and wear on its equipment, claiming the ocean floor was harder than described in contract documents.

In 2013, PND Engineers analyzed the dredge basin for a geotechnical report that was used to determine the project’s expense. In its response to PP&M’s claim, PND questioned the sample size used to test the dredge materials and the accuracy of its testing method, including how the materials were handled and stored.

PP&M collected samples for testing on Aug. 11 from an area in the southwest corner of the dredge basin near the beach after the contractor dredged the bulk of the harbor. PP&M hired geotechnical consulting firm C.W. Felice to assess the dredge materials. The testing company reported the strength of the bulk samples was similar to concrete, rather than soil.

The borough hired R&M Consultants to conduct an independent review of the geotechnical information, along with the claims made by both PND and PP&M.

In R&M’s report to the borough, the consultant said the way the samples were collected could skew the results. “It is likely that the sampling method would bias the results towards the harder/stronger material because that would be the only material that would hold together long enough to be sampled,” the report states.

The report was also skeptical of PP&M’s reported testing methods. The R&M analysis says the size of the of tested samples relative to the particles in the samples “would bias the result high” in terms of the material’s compressive strength. “The absolute reported strength values may not be accurate,” the report says. “Also, the method of sampling may have resulted in selecting only hardest/strongest material present, so the strength testing should not be used to quantify the full range of soil strength present in the deposit.”

R&M’s analysis does say that PND’s soil descriptions “may under report the relative density of the materials” and that the consistency of the harbor basin “appeared to range from very dense to loose or very loose.”

There is about $380,000 remaining in the budget’s contingency fees for the harbor project, which would go toward the cost of mediation.