"When this Batch Plant was brought on and set upon the 12th of September, then I must again refer to the daily logs. On the 14th of September, now you will recall that we had the big reinforcing steel bars there and they were in the process of being put in place before they could close up the forms, the lower portions of the forms, they had to have the temperature steel which run in the 90 degrees from the big bars which were the structual members from this concrete pour.

"They needed these No. 11 bars and they had not arrived, so they went out of town and the daily log states on September 14th a small amount of temperature steel arrived on the job. This was a local purchase, and this they did in order to expedite the closing up of the first form, so they could get moving.

"They had everything else. They had the water stop. Of course, they had form materials there. They had the big bars, so they went out and bought these No. 11 bars, which were just straight bars but for a certain length, and put these in in order to expedite the closing up of the forms.

"Now, the first--this bigger shipment of reinforcing steel arrived on Monday, the 18th of September, from the fabricator up in Portland, Oregon. They had been up to Washington, but they had gone out and bought this local stuff in order to close up the first few forms to expedite the first pour.

"Now, when they got this first shipment of reinforcing steel, it contained the temperature steel and also the dowels which were to protrude up through the top of the pours into the bottom of he counterforts.

"They got this shipment of steel on the 18th and the [sic] so the first pour was made on the 21st. In other words, they had to unload the steel, set it out, bring it down, put it in the forms, and they did do this in two days, the 19th and 20th, and they made their first pour on the 21st day of September.

"From then on--they poured it on the 21st, 22nd and 23rd. The 23rd was a Saturday. They did not pour on the 24th.

"Then the next week, they made three pours and then the ten-day curing requirement between adjacent pours took over and did not permit them to pour again until the 2nd day of October, and there they poured every day of that week, the 2nd, the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th, Sunday, and the photographs show they were going like clockwork.

"This was their schedule and they were pouring them right on schedule. As a matter of fact, they had a pour schedule for the next Saturday, the 14th, and they were able to pick up during the week of the 9th through the 14th so that they did not have to work on Saturday; in other words they were a day ahead of schedule as of the 14th of September.

"MR. HUDSON: The 14th of-

"THE WITNESS:

14th of October, I beg your

pardon, as of the 15th of October.

"THE WITNESS:

We pretty much got up to October 14 and I think for this--this shows that they got started just as quickly as they could commensurate with the arrival of materials and they gave

us a pour schedule for the slab and the walls.
They followed the pour schedule and at one time was
ahead of the pour schedule so they did not have to
work on a Saturday which they had scheduled for
work.

"In summary, this schedule started just the
same as the other jobs we had out there with respect
to concrete work it just takes you a certain period
of time to mobilize and get your material in before
you can make your first concrete pour.

"None of the contractors had moved on this

site and started pouring concrete the day after the
day of notice to proceed."

In regard to this latter assertion Commander Anderson testified that when Nelson Bros. arrived on the site for its part of the work it was a week or two after the notice to proceed before the first cubic yard was moved, and "of course, all he had to do was to start digging a hole." (p. 1409, Transcript). On the contract subsequent to the S&E contract, Anderson stated: "Halverson spent, I think, three or four weeks before he made his first pour of a comparable nature to their first pour with steel water stops and everything else." (p. 1409, of Transcript.) "In the case of the Stearns Rogers contract, there, and this was for a reinforced concrete cooling tower basin, it wasn't nearly as complex or as large as this prototype basin, but I don't believe--they didn't make their first concrete pour until approximately six weeks after notice to proceed." (p. 1410, Transcript).

The attorney for the contracting officer directed Commander Anderson's attention to the previous testimony of Mr. Elder (pp. 1429-1433, Transcript):

"Q. Again directing your attention to

Mr. Elder's testimony, Mr. Anderson, and specifi-
cally to his Answer No. 21, Mr. Elder stated, quote
'Had the government met all of the requirements of

the memorandum of understanding and the notice to proceed of August 10th, the contractor could have proceeded with extensive engineering layout and the concrete forming.' Is that an accurate statement?

"A. No, it isn't.

"Q. Explain

"A. There was nothing.

"Q. First lets talk about engineering layout.

"A. They started their engineering layout approximately - August 31st, September 1, and there was nothing prior to that that prevented them from taping off their base lines from the others up to, adjacent to the fence, the NFR [sic] fence, and carrying them over to the basin because all the concrete was placed in the basin area and they did make bench marks in these various corners of the basin.

"Q. When did they start the surveying work, if that is the correct description of it?

"A. Either on August 31st or September 1, but as I said before there was nothing in those particular areas that prevented them from doing this earlier had they wanted to do this earlier.

"Other people were down in there surveying and checking grades. Then with respect to the stop of

work-

"Q. Address yourself to concrete forming. That's what he was talking about.

"A. Right. The day after they started moving forms, they moved into the basin. There was nothing to slow them up there.

"Q. Question No. 22. Mr. Elder was asked-'Mr. Elder, was the contractor's work suspended by the government's failure to comply with a memorandum of understanding?'

"Mr. Elder's answer was, 'Yes.' Is that a true answer?

"A. No, it isn't.

"Q. Explain.

"A. There was nothing suspended. They did everything they had to do during this period to mobilize and in not one of the meetings, either the initial one or any of the weekly construction meetings which were already in schedule, would you find one mention by people at the job site of anything delaying them.

"They weren't being delayed out there. They were trying to get things going and moving as fast as they could. There was no delays. If there had been, I'm sure they would have put them in the minutes of the meetings.

"All this delay stuff was between Schenectady and Dallas.

"Q. In the last question which was asked of Mr. Elder, in his prepared testimony, Question No. 25, the question was--'When was sufficient access to the site given the contractor to enable him to perform a useful and efficient operation?'