St. Cloud bridge faces final judgment

ST. CLOUD - As state and federal investigators went underneath the DeSoto Memorial Bridge Wednesday to inspect steel joints in the bridge's center span, state transportation officials announced they will decide in two weeks whether to fix the bridge, or build a new one.

St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis, who gave Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a tour of the idle bridge, said he'd like to see the 49-year-old structure replaced as soon as possible. Last week's bridge closing, a rare occurrence in the state, has prompted the rerouting of 30,000 vehicles a day over the Mississippi River in downtown St. Cloud.

During the mayor's tour, Minnesota Department of Transportation officials who work in St. Cloud said soil borings, environmental assessments and preliminary design work are underway to support an immediate rebuilding project, should MnDOT choose that option.

"We're going to make a decision on April 10," said James Povich, MnDOT's assistant district engineer in St. Cloud.

The bridge was closed indefinitely to traffic after inspectors found slight bending in four gusset plates underneath the center span. The inspection was in keeping with an NTSB directive for states to check gusset plates on bridges similar to the fracture-critical Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, which collapsed Aug. 1.

Povich said the DeSoto inspectors were looking for corrosion and other imperfections when they discovered the quarter-inch bends.

"It just made sense," he said. "If these gusset plates are bending, there must be too much load."

The decision to close the bridge was made during a conference call last Thursday with Dan Dorgan -- the state's bridge engineer -- and others. During the call, Povich said, no one mentioned that crucial gusset plate connections on the I-35W bridge may also have been bent before it collapsed Aug. 1.

Povich said it was several days before he learned that the NTSB had photographs from 2003 that appear to show bent gusset plates on the I-35W bridge four years before it collapsed. He said that, from the pictures, the bends in the I-35W gusset plates appear to be more severe than the bends found on the DeSoto Bridge.

"When I saw that I said, 'We made a good decision here,'" Povich said.

An NTSB spokesman said last week that the bowing, as depicted in the photos, is one of many things the safety board is investigating. The photos were released to the public on March 17 by NTSB. They were taken by URS Inc., a consultant that did inspection work and analysis for MnDOT, and published in a report to MnDOT in 2003.

MnDOT spokeswoman Lucy Kender said Wednesday that it would be impossible to answer questions about the photos because physical measurements would need to be taken in order to ascertain if there was bowing.

"MnDOT bridge engineers have reviewed inspection reports of the I-35W bridge and found no mention of gusset plate bowing," she said.

She said the gusset plate photos "had nothing to do with the decision" to close the DeSoto bridge.

State Sen. Kathy Saltzman, D-Woodbury, a member of the Senate Transportation Policy Committee, said Wednesday she is pressing for an explanation from MnDOT on the state's handling of the report and photos.

NTSB defends decision

Robert Busch, MnDOT's transportation district engineer for the St. Cloud district, said the NTSB's inspection team arrived in St. Cloud Tuesday night and finished their first round of inspection work on the bridge by mid-morning. Busch said the NTSB crew was using MnDOT offices in St. Cloud for a post-inspection meeting, but no announcements were made on what they might have found.

Following Wednesday's bridge work by the NTSB, which is looking for relevance to the I-35W collapse, an inspector hired by MnDOT spent about two hours looking at gusset plates under the center span. Busch said the inspector was from Wiss, Janney, Elsner and Associates Inc., a consulting firm that is considering options for repair of the bridge.

If the bridge is repaired, it would only be for short-term use, MnDOT officials said. Another option is to tear it down immediately and replace it within about a year, Busch and Povich said.

Klobuchar said she would fight for federal funding for a new bridge if one is needed. She also renewed her plea for the NTSB to hold an interim public hearing on the I-35W bridge investigation -- a stance she shares with Minnesota Democrat Jim Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

But on Wednesday, NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker reiterated his opposition to a public hearing, saying it would "unduly delay" its investigation.

The board's latest decision came after a rare reexamination by its investigative staff and board members. In a letter to Oberstar, Rosenker called it an "extremely difficult" decision.

The Safety Board made public its own internal staff reports on the decision. The documents show that the board's professional staff worried that preparation for a public hearing would divert agency resources and risk "losing control of the investigation."

A Jan. 17 memo from the agency's managing director also expressed concern that any slowdown in the NTSB investigation could leave the agency lagging behind parallel probes being conducted by MnDOT and its private consultants. That, according to the staff managers, would leave the NTSB in "an also-ran position in an investigation central to our mandate."

In a dissenting view, NTSB members Kathryn O'Leary Higgins and Debbie Hersman cited the "political debate... raging in Minnesota" about the bridge's history of maintenance and inspections. Even if a public hearing served no investigative purpose, they said, it could "provide the public a level of transparency, accountability, and reassurance."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said he agrees with the NTSB's decision not to hold an interim hearing.

Additional documents released by the NTSB Wednesday further amplified the agency's preliminary finding that the "primary factor" in the bridge collapse was inadequate thickness of gusset plates, coupled with the additional load of heavy construction equipment on the bridge the day it collapsed.

"Aging infrastructure," one staff report said, "is not related to this bridge collapse." Accordingly, the staff concluded, "the circumstances of this accident do not support a public hearing that includes the issue of aging infrastructure."

Tony Kennedy • 612-673-4213 Kevin Diaz • 202-408-2753