Bay span work curtailed -- more feds called in

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/8/5 | Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross

[SmithL]

With the FBI investigating allegations of faulty welds on the new Bay Bridge span, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office ordered crews Thursday to stop pouring concrete on the last four foundations under construction until state and federal inspectors re-examine some of the work in question.

At the same time, Sunne McPeak, the governor's secretary of business, housing and transportation, called in the Federal Highway Administration to start its own safety review -- a process that could take months.

"It's not lost on us that we have to move quickly on a review of the welds,'' said Mark DeSio, spokesman for both McPeak's office and Caltrans. "We've got to be safe.''

The new round of reviews comes on the heels of the FBI's confirmation that it is investigating allegations of "a pattern of substandard welds" on the skyway portion of the new eastern span. That confirmation came after the Oakland Tribune reported that 15 current and former bridge welders had said that as many as a third of the 5,000-plus welds put in place were faulty and that the bridge's prime contractor, led by Kiewit Corp., had told them to cover up shoddy work.

The news set off a political frenzy, with several lawmakers calling for the Legislature to investigate the charges. It's proving to be more than a small distraction in the wrangling between the governor's office and Legislature over how to pay for finishing the bridge, whose price tag has soared from less than $2 billion to more than $6 billion over the past decade.

That fight is centered on whether to ditch the fancy self-anchored suspension span that was supposed to link to the skyway and instead simply extend the plain concrete bridge all the way to Yerba Buena Island. Meanwhile, work is already more than 70 percent complete

[SmithL]

[BenLurkin]

In the meantime, Caltrans project managers continue to stand by their work, saying they have more than 300,000 pages of inspection documents to back up their safety claims.

Phil Stolarski, the Caltrans deputy division chief in charge of overseeing the welders' reports -- plus three other levels of inspections -- summed up the allegations of bad welds in one word: "Hogwash.''

"We have more records than anybody, and we have it all -- and it's all open,'' said construction manager Pete Siegenthaler.

IIRC, Caltrans had recent experiences with bad welds on other projects and made numerous quality control improvements. This just might be a tempest in a teapot -- let's hope so.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

"Hogwash."

SMOKESCREEN & diversionary tactic to derail the Governor's reform agenda. Hogwash makes hogs clean at least....this is tainting the pork.