“I believe the problems we’re seeing out there today are the result of something that could not have been foreseen at the time the animal shelter was being built,” Ritchey said. “Martin and Richter both know what they’re doing, and I don’t think either one of them would cut corners on a project like this.”

Ritchey said there is an inordinate amount of water that has been pumped from beneath the animal shelter on more than one occasion during the past few weeks. That, he said, may have contributed to the problems being dealt with today. But the source of that water, Ritchey said, remains unclear.

City Manager Greg Buckley said of the $142,750 approved expenditures for the animal shelter project, about 3 percent will be directed toward repairs related to problems with the original construction. Another 5 percent will be spent on remedial measures to avoid future problems of a similar nature. The balance, Buckley said, will be spent on new construction.

Richter, who declined to talk further about the situation, told city officials earlier the new animal runs that will be built adjacent to an exterior wall will serve to buttress, or reinforce, the wall he told city councilors was two inches out of plumb. Richter blamed excess water and the presence of “fat clay” beneath the structure for the tilting of the exterior wall.

Buckley said the city has decided to address the problems with remediation instead of trying to assess fault, for which there is no recourse after 10 years of the building’s completion.

“There is no value in determining that,” Buckley said. “We are addressing it by finding ways to remove the excess water from beneath the original structure and the new structure and away from the shelter.”