Crack, Crumble, Collapse: DOT Mishaps Cost Taxpayers, Sometimes Lives
Updated September 4, 2009
In December 3, 2008, a 121-ton girder collapsed during the construction of a new bridge across the intracoastal waterway to Oak Island near Wilmington, crushing bridge builder Jose Mantalvo as it plunged forty feet to the ground.
The contractor on the $36 million project, Barnhill Contracting, had hired Lee Construction for the girder installation. A resulting investigation by a consultant contracted by Lee found that the welding on steel rods bracing the road over the bride weakened the steel so that it couldn’t support the girder.
As a result, North Carolina Department of Labor fined Barnhill $2800 and Lee $6300 for safety violations. The Department of Transportation wasn’t cited but a DOT engineer admitted that the department knew about the welding, and had even brought it to the attention of the contractors.
All this raises a sticky question. If the DOT knew about the welding problem, why didn’t they stop it? Do they have the expertise required to make the proper judgment calls in situations like this? Perhaps not, judging from a letter that the Department of Labor sent to DOT which warned that “where the owner, general contractor and subcontractor have no experience with building a bridge using these methods, we recommend a consultant be on site to oversee critical engineering.”
Huh? Aren’t North Carolina’s DOT own engineers supposed to understand the ins and outs of highway and bridge construction? Maybe not.
Pete: the I-40 Mishap
In 2003, the DOT decided to pave ten miles of Interstate 40 between Durham and Research Triangle Park using bonded concrete overlay, a process with which they had little experience – and voila, it began crumbling after only a few months of wear. After much finger-pointing and hand-wringing, a subsequent investigation determined that the DOT gave incorrect instructions to the contractor, Granite Construction, about locating expansion joints in the concrete.
Despite the finding of fault at DOT, North Carolina taxpayers ended up coughing up $22 million to repave the highway. What made it worse was that Department officials couldn’t name any job reductions or project delays to explain where the money came from to make the repairs, raising real questions about fat in the DOT budget.
Additionally, three DOT employees were reprimanded for the mistake. Really? A slap-on-the-wrist for a screw-up that cost the state's citizens $22 million?
Repeat: I-795
In 2007, sixteen months after I-795 opened in Wayne County, it also started falling apart. Turns out a DOT engineer had warned her superiors that five inches of asphalt wouldn’t stand up because the thin design had failed before. But adding another three inches would have cost $2.8 million - money for which the DOT apparently had other plans. And now that the damage is done, repairs will cost taxpayers $14-22 million, which DOT will use to repave the affected eighteen miles of highway.
One would think that fresh on the heels of the I-40 debacle, DOT would have taken the advice of its own engineer more seriously on the I-795 project, or at least made provisions to better protect itself in the event of failure. But despite their attempts to place blame on the contractor, S. T. Wooten isn’t liable. The DOT only purchased a twelve-month warranty – and the cracks appeared four months after it expired.
In the words of Senator Neal Hunt, "If a private business were doing this, they would not pay the bill until they were sure it was right. Period."
Back at the Bridge
Now that a DOT inspection at the Oak Island Bridge site has uncovered manufacturing defects on five supporting girders, one would hope that the Savannah-based manufacturer Standard Concrete will pay for their replacement – because North Carolina taxpayers may end up having to spend their cash on something else. According to a lawyer for the Mantalvo family, “We have serious concerns about what happened with the Department of Transportation officials who were aware that the welding was occurring and that the diaphragms were not aligning.”
Can anyone spell lawsuit?
Until government administrators are held accountable and contractors have to stand behind their work, more lives are at risk, and taxpayers will have to keep shouldering the burden for costly mistakes – through the only avenue available to state government officials: higher taxes.
