Missing Airport Marble Traveling by Air : Construction: The new terminal’s facing fell victim to a shipping mistake, now corrected. But who pays the freight?

Managers for Orange County’s $310-million airport expansion were doing a routine inventory check a few weeks ago to gear up for a new phase of construction when they discovered the unthinkable: The marble was missing.

Well, not exactly missing. The problem was that some of the beige, ridged marble that is to adorn much of the new airport terminal had not arrived in the first place. It was still in West Germany, the victim of a fouled-up shipping order.

In a project already five months over target and millions of dollars over budget, the missing marble was but the latest snafu in efforts to usher outdated John Wayne Airport into the 1990s with a new terminal.

So, intent on finishing the new terminal by the current Sept. 16 deadline, Taylor Woodrow Construction California--the company that has come under fire for its management of the project and was fired last month from an airport parking garage project--decided to rush the marble from West Germany via air freight.

Part of the material--to be used in lining floors, columns and other areas of a ground-level section of the terminal--made it Tuesday to Orange County. Another planeload is due later.

“Obviously, we’re doing whatever needs to be done,” Taylor Woodrow spokeswoman Judy Johnson said. “The first thing is to get the stuff here, and we think we’ve got that resolved.”

Airport and county officials described the marble mishap as minor and said such hitches are inevitable in a project as complex as the airport expansion.

Besides, said Jan Mittermeier, assistant airport manager, “I think it’s more of a headache for the contractor than for us. . . . Our concern is just that they finish the building on time, whatever that takes, and we need to make sure they have enough marble.”

Mittermeier and airport project director Alan Murphy also asserted that any additional cost for the rush shipment would not fall to the county.

But Taylor Woodrow’s Johnson would not give such assurances, nor would she discuss how much extra it may cost to rush the marble by air freight or how much marble was involved.

She said that the confusion came after project officials discussed changing the thickness of the marble and that a previous order was apparently canceled, but a second one at the new measurements never went through.

Responsibility for that, she said, is with the West German marble supplier. But if the firm does not accept the added cost of shipment and passes it along to Taylor Woodrow, “a portion of (the added cost) could legitimately fall to the county. . . . I can’t rule that out.”

Johnson also said the shipment problem should not delay the opening.

In touring the terminal Tuesday afternoon, Airport Manager George Rebella pointed to a group of construction workers not doing anything at the time and said they had to wait for more marble to arrive.

“They can’t do anything until it gets here,” he said.

Times staff writer Jeffrey A. Perlman contributed to this story.