Farrell's halts construction on Galway interchange amid tense feud with rival

Construction on a new interchange along the Trans-Canada Highway at Galwayin St. John's has been halted as a feud between two rival road builders continues to simmer.

The owner of Farrell's Excavating, Billy Farrell, ordered his employees and equipment off the site Wednesday evening.

"Neither one of the workers, my employees or the government employees feel safe here on this job," Farrell said Thursday.

It was the second tense development in as many weeks at a high-profile road construction project in St. John's, and it's exposing once again the deep personal animosity between two bitter business rivals as the interchange takes shape outside their front gates.

It's also raising questions about the fate of a big government contractand the plan to improve access to the Galway development.

Decades of animosity

The feud involves Farrell and the owner of a neighbouring company, Carl Healey.

In this case, Farrell is willingly talking about the situation, doing interviews and pointing fingers. Healey is more elusive, and ended the call when reached by CBC News on Thursday.

The two have been fighting over construction contracts since they were young adults, and would sooner jump in front of a pavement roller than say a kind word about the other.

In addition to being bitter rivals, they're also neighbours, located a few hundred metres away from each other in a heavily industrialized area set aside for quarry operations near Cochrane Pond.

The latest tilt between these road-building heavyweights started when Farrell's won a $10.2-million contract late last year to build an interchange just outside the front gates to their properties, opposite Galway and a growing commercial district anchored by Costco.

Farrell expected there would be trouble when he won a contract that would involve having his crews and equipment working within rock-throwing distance from Healey's property.

"We anticipated this," said Farrell. "This is why we would not have any dealings with the man right from Day 1."

The feud turned ugly last week when Carl Healeyused a backhoe to aggressively remove a temporary gate that was placed by Farrell's in front of his property, damaging a loader owned by Farrell's in the process.

The incident was captured on camera, and shows the backhoe bouncing back and forth after dumping the heavy gate, which was secured to a concrete traffic barrier.

"We never had like a a near miss here. We had close to a fatality with one of my flags people here. And it just seems like the government is not going to do anything about it," said Farrell.

Farrell said he had every right to install the gateand gave ample notice.

"I wouldn't put any mud on the pavement. I went out around his gate and I worked around it and I've done what I can to stay clear of the man," he said.

Healey would not do an interview last week, but said he didn't receive the promised notice of the gate installationand that the temporary access to his site was substandard.

Healey admitted to removing the gateand said he would pay for the damages to Farrell's loader.

There's hasn't been any problems since the gate was removed, but Farrell said production on the project plummeted following the incident.

Farrell is also concerned about his workers' safety, he said, so he ordered a construction stand-down Wednesday, parking millions of dollars' worth of equipment in his yard and dispersing his workers to other projects.

Farrell said he won't resume construction until he can get some assurances from government officials, and the police, that the site is safe.

And he's still waiting for a visit from Occupational Health and Safety investigators.

Farrell said the project is already behind schedule because of unrelated delays.

"So if I gotta shut down for another week or a month, don't make no difference to me," he said.

The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure is not commenting because there's an ongoing police and Occupational Health and Safey investigation.

Carl Healey, reached by phone on Thursday, ended the call without a word after learning it was a CBC reporter on the line.

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