Design-Builders Pass Muster in Afghanistan

By Elaine S. Silver
The author, a freelance writer, lives in the Hudson River Valley of New York State and reports frequently for Design•Build and other publications.

(Photo courtesy of Perini)

Many owners select design-build project delivery because they have only a tiny window of opportunity to get their plants on line and their products into the marketplace. But such aggressive schedules are even more important for the military and international relations. In Afghanistan, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers picked design-build to help get the Afghan National Army up and running.

The Afghan army is a vital part of rebuilding the war-torn country and it is graduating 600 troops every 35 days from basic training. They desperately need living quarters, dining facilities and support systems. While throwing up some bare bones facilities might be a piece of cake in a functioning society, it is a logistical nightmare in a shattered one.

The U.S. Defense Dept.’s foreign military financing program is funding construction of the Afghan facilities. Because of incremental funding, “we could not award a base worth of facilities to one contractor,” says Robert E. Schaible, project manager for the Corps of Engineers, which is acting as the owner until the project is completed and turned over to the Afghan army. “A lot of the facilities are repetitious in nature and, to the maximum extent possible, we are sharing designs to speed the process.”

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Three firms have separate design-build contracts to create the equivalent of several small towns in a country nearly bare of construction equipment. At the Pol-E-Charki base, a 272-acre site 10 kilometers outside of Kabul, Perini Corp., Framingham, Mass., is building or renovating 31 barracks, a dining facility, a 10-Mw powerplant and a water/wastewater treatment plant to support 9,000 troops, at a cost of $28 million. At Darualaman, another base near Kabul, Washington Group International, Boise, Idaho, has just begun similar work for $14.4 million. Contrack International, Arlington, Va., is building barracks in both camps.

All of the projects face formidable challenges. At Pol-E-Charki, “we first had to clear the mines,” says Grover T. “Tom” Starbuck, Corps architect. “We stepped over piles of mortar rounds, grenades, bullets and anti-tank guns. We were escorted by the military and we could not walk the entire site so we limited our investigation to places that were proven to be clear.” The site subsequently became a garden of red-painted rocks indicating the location of live munitions. In addition, there were thousands of bombed out tanks, trucks and military vehicles of every sort and several thousand army helmets strewn across the site. A subcontractor was hired to clear the mines and unexploded ordnance. Help also came from the International Security Assistance Force, made up of soldiers from Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey and other countries donating military assets to provide the initial security in Kabul.

Starbuck

Site prep was just one small challenge. At the start, there was nothing in the country to move the flotsam and jetsam of 30 years of war. Starbuck says the Corps couldn’t find a single backhoe. “There was one tractor at the Ministry of Defense that they were trying to fix,” he says.

To create schematics and a scope of work for the design-builders, Starbuck and the Corps used aerial photography from the U.S. Air Force. “We gave [the Air Force] coordinates and we got very detailed photographs,” he says. The Corps then transferred the information from the photographs into 3-D CAD format that was accurate to within 5 ft. “No one [in the Afghan army] had a clear idea of what they wanted or needed, so we did a lot of sketching and...it helped them see what we were proposing,” says Starbuck.

The Corps set design criteria to what they call Afghan supportable standards, which included log rooms and mud bricks. There were no concrete plants in the country until several Afghan emigrants returned and opened one. Since Kabul is in an active seismic zone, all structures had to be rigid enough to withstand earthquakes. “We looked first at the schedule that we had to meet in order to bed down these troops, then we looked at the funding that is being provided by the U.S. government, and then we looked at the minimum we needed,” says Schaible.

Schaible

The Corps gave the design-builders schematics of building floor plans, site plans and base layout. Their assignment was to develop these into designs as well as create a plan for the infrastructure. The design-builders have absolute deadlines to house the 600 troops arriving every 35 days. “If the troops do not have a place to go, they may go home and never return,” says John Gerstenlauer, Perini’s vice-president of operations.

The design-builders faced many practical problems, especially communications. There is no land-line phone service in the country, so the team members have to rely on cellular and satellite service and even that is an iffy proposition.“We had two iridium phones, and we were using e-mails with attachments,” says Starbuck. “Now we have fax capabilities. We had to build the communication system from scratch.” Gerstenlauer adds, “Internet access in the field may be out for days. It can really shut down your operation.” Especially vulnerable is the link between engineers and designers in the U.S. approving design changes and the people rushing to build in the field. Time lost cannot easily be regained.

Until recently, the only way to bring money into the country was in cash. “It’s been difficult to get money in,” says David Jones, WGI director of finance and project administration. “We would carry in bundles of $20,000 in cash.” Now, the DA Afghan Bank is accepting cash transfers so there is no need for lots of briefcases.

Heavy Hauling

Virtually everything else also had to be brought into the country. “Everything was difficult to find and needed to be imported,” says Schaible. “We have air-freighted a lot things—generators, switch gear, water treatment systems,” says Gerstenlauer. “The wastewater tanks were shipped, as was a lot of smaller equipment. But, if it wasn’t going to make it in time, we had to fly it in.”

When Perini drilled wells and needed samples tested for purity, it had to put them on ice and fly them to labs in Dubai. The samples and results arrived back by plane the next day.

Concrete and reinforcing steel is available in Pakistan, an important ally. Because Afghanistan is landlocked, material arriving by ship first comes to Karachi, then Islamabad and then is trucked to Kabul. But before the material gets to Kabul, it has to travel through the gauntlet of the Tang-E-Gharu Pass.

Pol-E-Charki is 6,000 ft above sea level, and about one kilometer from the German-built Tang-E-Gharu Pass—three tunnels carved through the Hindu Kush Mountains. The pass saves days of travel, when it can be used. But one of the tunnels has rock protruding into the passageway. One Caterpillar generator being transported was too large to pass through and struck the rock, causing $60,000 worth of damage and requiring four additional days of travel to go the longer route over the mountains.
Switchbacks create another obstacles. Wastewater treatment equipment and some construction equipment is too large to safely navigate them and had to be shipped by the longer northern route. “You are ready with your crane and you make phone calls and find out that the equipment can’t get through and it’ll be another four days,” says Gerstenlauer.

The design-builders also have to deal with substandard materials. Since there is no place or time to replace substandard material, creative thinking becomes a commodity. Gerstenlauer says his team had to quickly improve masonry block received from a local supplier. “We solid-filled the block and now the total composite meets the strength requirement,” he says.

The design-builders also changed designs to suit the quality of the materials. “Some of the buildings were designed for crude lumber, and in January, we could barely find a straight piece of lumber,” says Gerstenlauer. “Now, a better product from Pakistan is available so the design of the building has to change to accommodate the higher standard of material.”

Training the work force is another challenge. Many workers are illiterate and everything has to be drawn on sketchpads. “Even the subcontractors have to be taught,” says Gerstenlauer. “They don’t know about our construction practice.” Perini hired a group of Afghani engineers to teach workers and ensure quality control.

Perini managers had to deal with vestiges of war.	Heavy construction equipment was a rare sight. (Photos courtesy of Perini)

Building Spirit

Morale among workers is high. “We’ve been thanked by the laborers who are very appreciative for the opportunity to work and feed their families,” says Starbuck. “Every so often, they will bring in a cow and roast it on a spit and after pay day, they have a feast....Their culture is a part of what we have to work with.” About 1,500 Afghans are employed at Pol-E-Charki.

WGI’s Jones says his company is tapping its resources from 40 years ago when one of its heritage companies, Morrison Knudsen, did extensive work in Afghanistan. MK built the Kandahar airport, several dams and a big part of the highway system. Jones says WGI is contacting some Afghanis who worked with the firm to bring them on board for this project.

Despite the difficulties, the parties are pleased with the outcome of their collective efforts. Already, 3,500 Afghan soldiers are billeted at Pol-E-Charki. “Without design-build, we would not have been able to complete the facilities in time to support Afghan National Army requirements,” says Col. Robert R. Derrick, commander of the Corps’ Transatlantic Programs Center.

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