Bill Payne

Over 15 inches of rain since Dec. 1 is hindering work at Volkswagen’s planned plant site, causing workers to lose about three weeks of the past four, an official said Wednesday.

But five sediment ponds built to handle drainage have held up in the wet weather, and work on a multimillion-dollar runoff facility at Enterprise South industrial park is to start this spring, officials said.

Steve Leach, Chattanooga’s public works administrator, said while workmen have lost time, poor weather is expected.

“I think we’re OK in terms of the schedule,” he said.

City Engineer Bill Payne said the five major ponds “didn’t have any blowouts” after heavy rain Tuesday.

Four of the ponds are connected to rerouted streams on the 1,340-acre parcel, he said. The last is where a regional retention facility will be built this spring to handle runoff from the entire VW complex, Mr. Payne said.

“It will be a four- to six-month project,” he said. “It’s already designed and permitted.”

Mr. Payne said the multimillion-dollar price tag of the regional retention facility will be paid from the state incentive money earmarked for VW.

Mr. Leach said that while workers have been curtailed, they’re still doing what they can to prepare the site. A rock pad to hold numbers of construction trailers expected at the location has been built, and large drainage pipes are going in, he said. Also, there is need for building roads to the main site, Mr. Leach said.

This week, daily morning meetings among officials have drawn quite a few upper VW managers, including German engineers, he said.

Personnel with Michigan-based Walbridge, which is building a $30 million paint shop, are expected in before week’s end, Mr. Leach said.

“The vertical guys are soon to be here,” he said, talking about the contractor which will put up one of the three primary buildings for the plant.

Mr. Leach said the timeline is critical for the paint shop, which VW officials have said will be larger than originally planned. That facility is slated to be weathertight by the end of September.

VW’s $1 billion auto assembly plant is to be operating by early 2011 and employ over 2,000 workers.