Report: Money worries may have influenced maintenance decisions on fallen Minneapolis bridge

Truelook.com, TrueLook

The StribCam showed work continuing Wednesday on the new I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. A new report on the bridge colllapse says bureaucratic tangles may been responsible for some maintenance issues.

By BRIAN BAKST , Associated Press

Last update: May 21, 2008 - 11:49 AM

ST. PAUL - A new report on the Minneapolis bridge collapse said money worries may have led to bad maintenance decisions ahead of the catastrophe that killed 13 people last August.

The report, commissioned by the Legislature, also criticized the Minnesota Department of Transportation for bridge inspections that were mishandled or not acted upon over the years, even when they called for immediate repairs.

MnDOT has come under sharp criticism for its upkeep of the 40-year-old bridge, even as an ongoing federal investigation has highlighted a design flaw and construction materials weight, rather than maintenance, as critical factors.

"Financial considerations, we believe, did play a part in the decision-making" regarding fixing the bridge, said Robert Stein, who oversaw the report prepared by the Gray Plant and Mooty law firm.

"Sometimes it's easier just to take the least expensive alternative or just commission another study," Stein said.

Tom Johnson, another attorney for the firm, told legislators the maintenance work wasn't sufficient. The bridge was rated in "serious to poor" condition for 17 consecutive years by the National Bridge Inventory Standards.

"The question for the Legislature is, do you want to have a bridge that remains in a poor condition over 17 years?" Johnson said.

A spokeswoman for MnDOT didn't immediately respond to a request for comment as a briefing on the report was under way.

Much of the legislative report was devoted to flaws in the way MnDOT carried out inspections — and then reacted to what they found.

"There does not appear to have been any direct link between the observations reflected in the fracture critical inspection reports on the Bridge and maintenance and repair activities," the report said.

As an example, it cited reports with a section titled "Immediate Maintenance Recommendations." One inspector said he used that section to indicate conditions causing damage to the bridge.

"However, the Metro District Fracture Critical Bridge Engineer stated that 'immediate' in this context meant that the maintenance would be performed as the schedule allowed," the report said. "As a consequence, certain 'immediate maintenance recommendations,' including recommendations relating to broken bolts and leaking joints, were repeated verbatim, year after year.

The report also noted a lag of as much as six months between an inspection and the writing of a report, raising concerns that "fading memories" might lead to a lack of useful detail.

MnDOT employees did not always follow proper procedure, the report said.

A National Transportation Safety Board investigation has found that some of the bridge gussets — the plates that helped connect its steel girders — were too thin because of a design error.

The report found that MnDOT inspectors repeatedly failed to precisely measure the deterioriation of the gusset plates, despite MnDOT guidelines that they do so. Two MnDOT inspectors who wrote inspection reports on the bridge said they'd never even seen a written copy of those guidelines.

This meant the weakened condition of the gusset plates couldn't be factored in when the bridge's weight capacity was re-rated, most recently after renovations in 1998.

"These re-ratings were based solely on the Bridge plans and did not take into account the inspection reports or other information concerning the Bridge's condition," the report said.

Supervisors who should have made sure the reports were complete did not, the report said.

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