the people in Texas are not allowed to know what their bridge insp. reports say

[donsu]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA080307.6A.TexasBridges.34315f1.html


In Texas, the public has no right to read inspection reports


-snip-

But when it comes to finding out more details about Texas' 50,000 bridges, the public can't read actual inspection documents that might shed light on dangerous structures.

Over the years, state officials have turned down hundreds of requests for inspection documents on bridges, railroad crossings and highways. Officials say a federal law prohibits them from releasing those documents.

"It's a condition for federal funding," said Sharon Alexander, a lawyer for the Transportation Department who has responded to requests by the public for copies of inspection papers.

The law says inspection records for transportation projects that receive federal funding cannot be used as evidence in court
-snip-
----------------------------------

[razzleberry]

1. terrorists would want to know easy targets .n/t

[donsu]

2. so would the people of Texas! they drive over the bridges every day

nt

[brentspeak]

4. Exactly

[stillcool]

3. I see a pattern...

Big Dig payment for fraud at $50m
But company can still do business
By Sean P. Murphy, Globe Staff | July 28, 2007

Aggregate Industries NE Inc., which pleaded guilty to fraud for supplying 5,700 truckloads of substandard concrete on the Big Dig, will pay $50 million to settle the case, but it can still do business with the state and federal governments.

In a key provision of the agreement announced yesterday between Aggregate and state and federal prosecutors, the region's largest concrete supplier avoided debarment, an administrative sanction that would have prevented the company from bidding on federal or state contracts, which make up most of the company's business.
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While the case against the company is finished, criminal charges remain against six of its former managers. In a 135-count indictment announced last year, the managers were accused of repeatedly passing off over-age concrete as fresh and of falsifying documents to cover the scheme.
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In an interview yesterday, Daniel Johnston, a fourth whistle-blower who filed suit in 2006 and will receive $75,000, said he was a concrete inspector for Aggregate on the Big Dig when he began to suspect that too-old concrete was being recycled and delivered as new.

When he questioned the practice, he said, Aggregate personnel told him, "This is how business is done." He said later that he was warned his questions could cause him to wind up "in a hole."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles...

3 senators want Big Dig manager barred
By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | July 12, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdig/articles/2007... /
Three state senators renewed their call yesterday for the governor to disqualify Big Dig manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff from receiving any more contracts from the state.

Senators Steven Baddour, Marc Pacheco, and Bruce Tarr said the report released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board left no doubt that the company failed in its responsibility to assure the safety of Massachusetts motorists.
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Baddour, Democrat of Methuen and cochairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation, told the Globe that after the tunnel collapse July 10, 2006, he looked at the ceiling himself.

"You could see where the bolts had slipped," he said. "You didn't have to be an engineer. You didn't have to have an advanced degree. If they had done the most basic, cursory inspections, they would have shut down the tunnels. That's inexcusable neglect."

Iraq: Follow the Money
`Let's Hope They're Not Waiting For The Americans To Fix It'
By Joy Gordon*
Le Monde diplomatique
April 2007
-----------------------------------------------
Hundreds of irregularities

All this has been documented by auditors, including those from US agencies. The DFI was audited by outside accountants KPMG and later Ernst & Young, hired by the UN international advisory monitoring board. Its report from December 2004 noted that there were "hundreds of irregularities" in the CPA's contracting process, including missing contract information and payment for contracts that had not been supervised.

A typical KPMG audit for 2004 found 37 cases involving $185m of contracts where files could not be located; there were 111 cases with no documentation for services performed under the contracts.7 Another audit found that the Halliburton subsidiary firm, Kellogg, Brown & Root, had "significantly and systematically" violated US federal contracting rules by providing false information about its costs.8 Despite this, KBR's contracts were repeatedly expanded and renewed.

As reconstruction projects were completed, stories emerged of terrible incompetence and neglect. The US awarded a contract to renovate Al-Hillah General Hospital, south of Baghdad, to include the installation of four new elevators. The project officer signed a certificate of completion, authorising full, immediate payment even though the project was not completed. Three months later an elevator crashed, killing three people. The contractor had never installed new elevators, only badly renovated the existing ones.9

In another case, the contractor responsible for construction at Al-Sumelat water plant had done such incompetent work that the plant could not produce drinkable water: the pipeline was installed in three unusable segments, none of them connected to the main. 10There have been dozens more incidents involving shoddy work, goods that were never delivered or equipment that never worked.
About the Author: Joy Gordon is a professor of philosophy at Fairfield University, Connecticut

[RamboLiberal]

5. Complain - Pennsylvania tried to pull the same crap

Tried at first to say we the public are just too dumb to understand this engineering stuff. But just today reversed themselves.

The state Department of Transportation has reversed its stance on releasing structural-safety ratings for the 25,000 bridges it owns throughout the state.

PennDOT Secretary Allen Biehler told a House committee today that the ratings, which go from zero (the lowest, most unsafe category) to 9 (the highest rating) would be released within a few weeks.

-----

The zero to 9 ratings for the 54 steel deck truss bridges in Pennsylvania -- the same design as the large highway bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed last week -- will be released first, probably within a week, Mr. Biehler said.

In April, PennDOT refused to release such bridge rating data when it was requested by the Beaver County Times. There was some concern that the public might become fearful if people looked at complicated engineering data that wasn't readily understandable, Mr. Biehler said.

But he has reconsidered and decided "to err on the side of making things public.'' But he wants to make sure the rating information is clear and understandable so drivers don't panic.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07219/807560-100.stm