The fallout from the leaky Hudson Yards subway station continues to reverberate a week after MTA Board members lit into MTA officials for not divulging knowledge of the problems plaguing the new stations. Today, we learn that contractors were aware of the problem as early as 2011, and waterproofing issues even led to a stop-work order in mid-2013. As this station’s opening was delayed due to a variety of technical issues, it seems that we can add faulty construction to the list.

Emma Fitzsimmons of The Times offers up this story of a circular blame game:

In fact, leaks had plagued the station on the Far West Side of Manhattan for years while it was under construction. As the transit agency investigates what exactly went wrong, documents from a continuing legal dispute among the site’s contractors reveal early concerns about how the waterproofing system was built and the type of concrete that was used. The main contractor, Yonkers Contracting Company, has blamed flaws in shotcrete, a spray-on concrete that lines the waterproofing system. The concrete was filled with “voids” or spaces, according to a 2014 lawsuit the company filed against two subcontractors on the project. But a 2011 letter that was sent to Yonkers Contracting discouraged the use of shotcrete because it could increase the potential for leaks. The letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, was sent from Cetco Building Materials to KJC Waterproofing, the subcontractor that installed the waterproofing system. KJC Waterproofing forwarded the letter to Yonkers Contracting, according to a deposition from the lawsuit. It is unclear whether the letter was sent to the transportation authority. The transit agency halted construction at the station in 2013 after officials found “significant” leaks there. The agency issued a stop-work order, citing the use of shotcrete on overhead arches above the escalators and noting it had not been specified in the design.

The MTA hasn’t definitively said that shotcrete is the cause of the leaks, and the agency is waiting on an assessment from an independent engineering consultant. Still, the contractors are fighting it out, as Fitzsimmons reported, with Yonkers suing Superior Gunite and KJC for breach of contract and negligence, and Superior Gunite and KJC counter-suing for payment. Meanwhile, the MTA is facing a slip-and-fall suit over an injury a customer sustained on a wet escalators, and the optics of these problems — coming only a few years after the new South Ferry station suffered from poor waterproofing as well — creates a headache for an agency already struggling to meet deadlines and budgets.

As transit analyst Nicole Gelinas noted to The Times, it’s a bad look for the MTA. “This is their big marquee project,” she said, “and the fact that they can’t have it open and looking good a few months later doesn’t speak well to their ability to do these things.”