Two items of interest from the Herald on Big Dig-related documents.
First, the Herald says it has “secret documents” showing that, as early as 2001, both Bechtel and the Turnpike knew of significant defects in the supports that were supposed to hold up the panels that collapsed Monday night:
Big Dig officials discovered defects in a crucial metal support as they were pushing to wrap up construction of I-90 tunnel ceilings in 2001, but did not make substantial design changes amid a growing concern about the projectâs escalating costs, secret documents obtained by the Herald reveal.
The supports used for the concrete ceiling panels that collapsed this week and killed 38-year-old Milena Del Valle were not fully weather-protected or fabricated to contract standards – a deficiency reported to the lead contractor, project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority during construction, the bombshell documents show.
In September 2001, a Big Dig âdeficiency reportâ indicated that a key part of the ceiling hanger known as the clevis was not âfabricated and galvanizedâ to contract specifications. The report also stated the clevises, which connect to metal rods supporting 3-ton slabs that collapsed, were found to be plagued by âsignificant rust.â
If those “clevises” are why the panels collapsed, and if they failed because they weren’t properly galvanized or because they were rusty, that’s really horrifying.
Second, a useful reminder on how bad things really got under Jim Kerasiotes, the guy Bill Weld put in charge of the project in 1991 and who ran it until he was forced out in 2000:
Everyone wants a look at those records – the attorney general and the U.S. attorney included.
Well, lots of luck. That train has left the station – and it left long before Matt Amorello ever got the Turnpike job. A March 2001 report by then-Inspector General Robert A. Cerasoli found even then âthousands of pages of documents are missing.â Investigators asked the newly appointed chairman, Andrew Natsios, about the gaps. Natsios told them that when he took over after Gov. Paul Cellucci fired Jim Kerasiotes in April 2000, he arrived to find âfile cabinets had been emptied and computer hard drives had been âsand blasted so data could never be recovered from them, and so that the computers wouldnât even turn on,â â Natsios was quoted in the report as saying.
Natsios also told investigators that surveillance videos showed a former MassHighway staffer removing boxes of materials from the Turnpikeâs offices in the state Transportation Building. âThis removal of material occurred during four trespasses or break-ins over a three-day period,â the report said.
Sure, there’s lots of blame to go around, as many of you pointed out in response to my rant from yesterday. But it wasn’t the legislature that was sand-blasting hard drives in the Big Dig’s offices.
smart-mass says
Glad to see Romney taking over… That way the concrete slabs of the big dig can crush his ascendancy.
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Now as to the missing files, I would look wherever Big Dig landfill can be found perhaps the various filled quarries around Boston. Perhaps one of the islands in the harbor…
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As to the hard drives, sounds like a professional job so not likely any data will be recoverable…
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M.
smart-mass says
we could always hope that that mysterious Mass Higway staffer wanted some protection in place so did not destroy all the files he pilfered (no doubt on the orders of the higher-ups).
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Be nice to see some of them come to light…
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lynne says
You’re basically accusing people in the management companies of illegally getting rid of documents. If you have specific proof please state it.
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However, in a project this size, document storage and filing is a HUGE job. If the docs are missing, it’s more likely they are buried in the huge amount of stuff generated by the project and will take time to dig up. Or accidently misplaced. I doubt any employee actually was ordered to scrub ANYthing.
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As to this: Big Dig officials discovered defects in a crucial metal support as they were pushing to wrap up construction of I-90 tunnel ceilings in 2001, but did not make substantial design changes amid a growing concern about the projectâs escalating costs, secret documents obtained by the Herald reveal.
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Well, that would be at the request of client (the government), most likely. As I said, working on a civil infrastrtucture project is a sticky job. It’s often that the stuff you’d want to do, the client ignores your advice. In the end, you have to do what the client wants. What we need to find out is who made the final call not to upgrade the design or materials. That, I do not think, has been made apparent by anything unearthed thus far.
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I’m so sick of the media and politicians who are so eager to jump the gun and spit out accusations all over. There’s a huge amount of information to shift through. I still say let the goddamned investigation come up with some results first. It’s only been a few days for heaven’s sake.
smart-mass says
it politics as usual. With elections looming, it’s an all out war. Any bad news a candidate can hang on his or her opponent is worth a few votes.
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I’m looking forward (sarcastically) to seeing how Kerry Healey will attempt to tie the Big Dig problem to Deval Patrick (or whomever she runs against).
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M.
Smart Mass, Dumb Mass Wise(ass) commentary on Massachusetts politics
david says
but I’m not “accusing” anyone of anything. I am simply reprinting what the Herald says it has discovered, and the Herald’s summary of a report by the Inspector General and quotes from the former head of the Big Dig. They – Andrew Natsios in particular – are the ones saying that hard drives were sand-blasted and documents were illegally removed from the building, not me.
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Also, nothing in my post said anything about “management companies” getting rid of documents. The missing documents stuff – which, again, is not coming from me – is specific to the situation Natsios found when he arrived at the Turnpike Authority. And the document about the faulty clevises supposedly went both to Bechtel and to the Authority.
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Come on, Lynne. Natsios said he “arrived to find âfile cabinets had been emptied and computer hard drives had been âsand blasted so data could never be recovered from them, and so that the computers wouldnât even turn on.â â That’s not stuff being “buried” or “accidentally misplaced.” Maybe Natsios is making it up. I don’t know; I wasn’t there, and neither were you. He was, and he’s a pretty honorable guy by all accounts.
stomv says
In the end, you have to do what the client wants.
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Bullshit.
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If your client wants to do something that is demonstratably unsafe, you don’t do it. You cite engineering specs, manuals, expert opinion, whatever. You show the client that it won’t work.
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If your client won’t yeild, insisting that you do the work, you do any of the following: * Appeal to whichever safety/inspection panels exist * Notify the newspapers * Walk away from the project
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Building something that is unsafe is not excusable simply because the customer requested it. Builders have a duty to build safe structures, or build none at all.
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Either the contractors (a) didn’t know it was unsafe, and should be held accountable for poor engineering and/or negligence, of (b) knew it was unsafe, and should be held accountable for knowing and willingfully putting people in direct danger with their work. Either way, the contractors are wrong.
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Note: I write ‘builder’, but I acknowledge this may be an architect/engineer issue, or it may be a building issue. I don’t know, and so I have no idea which contractor and/or subcontractors should be held accountable. Certainly not everyone involved is at fault, but certainly some are.
porcupine says
What sort of document storage problems requires SANDBLASTING THE HARD DRIVES????
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This is the Pike, not the CIA!
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The missing button on Frank’s poll – KERASIOTES!
smart-mass says
“sand blasting” was just an expression
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however there are several programs available that will wipe a hard drive and randomly toggle bits over and over again until the original material is unrecoverable. In effect, sand blasting the data…
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The point is that it takes forethought and experience to wipe a drive that clean of its data… It does not happen by accident. Even a “reformat” will not destroy the data (I’ve recovered many a (partial) file from reformatted disks…)
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M.
danielshays says
Lynne I don’t recall in which of the threads you stated this, but you worked for one of the parts of Bechtel/Parsons, correct? Do you think that fact is maybe clouding your judgment on this?
danielshays says
I tracked it down. I am only pressing this because I feel that your comments don’t drive with your generally populist themes.
danielshays says
Drive = jive. Sorry, long week.
joeltpatterson says
That’s different from the Boston Globe’s frontpage diagram on Wednesday which seemed to indicate the bolts & epoxy had pulled out of their holes.
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This might be a red herring… sometimes engineers allow steel to rust because just the outside layer rusts and preserves all the steel on the inside, assuming there’s plenty of strength left in what hasn’t rusted.
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I’m not a civil engineer but I used to break things to measure their strength, for a living. Loud job.
david says
yet oddly satisfying, I should think!