No Credibility. No Maintenance. — Ken Block

No Credibility. No Maintenance. — Ken Block

Lower than a turtle’s behind. Those were my expectations for RIDOT Director Peter Alviti’s testimony, under oath, to the RI legislature’s joint oversight committee about the failed Washington Bridge. They were not met.

 

Alviti placed 100% of the blame for the bridge failure on contractors hired over the last decade to inspect it, claiming they failed to detect the bridge’s deteriorating condition. RIDOT is suing those contractors. He had no answers for many questions, but the biggest one was this: The inspection contractors who allegedly dropped the ball and doomed the Washington Bridge are inspecting other bridges around the state. How can we know those inspectors aren't missing big problems on other bridges?

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

 

Incredibly, Alviti stated that RIDOT somehow knows all of the other inspections are just fine. Just the Washington Bridge inspections were bad. He says this while admitting that RIDOT is not supervising or monitoring the inspection work. This is not credible.

 

The reality is that the inspection reports weren’t deficient. RIDOT was, and is. I will explain below.

 

Alviti claimed not to know the name of the individual responsible for overseeing all bridge inspections in the state. This is not credible. How can the Program Manager, the job title of the person who is responsible for coordinating and overseeing the bridge inspection program, be unknown to Alviti? You would think this person would play a critical role in the lawsuit and RIDOT operations.

 

Of course, Alviti must be interacting with his Program Manager, unless, maybe, no one currently has this required role at RIDOT? If the job isn’t being filled, Alviti’s non-credible answer to the “who has the job” question was one of the few ways he could respond without perjuring himself or admitting that the role is unfilled.

 

According to Alviti, RIDOT has implicitly outsourced supervisory and compliance activities related to inspections to the same companies that conduct the inspections. I wonder if those companies know they are enforcing compliance over previous inspections? How does this even work when different parts of the bridge are inspected in different years by different contractors?

 

It turns out that RIDOT does have bridge inspectors on the payroll—four of them. We collectively pay them almost $320,000 per year, excluding the cost of expensive benefits such as pensions and health insurance.

 

 

Why does RIDOT have no capacity to oversee bridge inspections when we have four inspectors on the payroll? What the heck are these guys doing if inspection work is completely outsourced?

 

Clearly, RIDOT’s inspection scheme is not working. The program’s shortcomings have cost us a bridge, and, only through dumb luck, have not killed anyone.

 

The real problem for RIDOT, the lawsuit, and us is not the inspection program. The inspection reports have identified plenty of issues over the years. RIDOT appears to stick the reports in a drawer and do nothing with them. Especially when it comes to critical but mundane maintenance issues, like keeping drains clear and making sure the huge nuts that secure the top of the bridge to the foundation have not worked their way loose. One inspection report after another has called out these same maintenance issues, year after year. RIDOT had been so negligent in drain maintenance on the doomed bridge that weeds and even a small tree are shown growing in the drains in inspection photos.

 

RIDOT’s negligent maintenance also shows up in inspection reports on the surviving piece of the Washington Bridge, where weeds can be seen growing out of clogged drains.

 

Clogged drains kill bridges because, instead of draining off the bridge harmlessly, water seeps through the bridge, corroding metal and disintegrating concrete.

 

We don’t need an expensive inspection report to determine that bridge drains are clogged. We need a cell phone and a safe way to take a picture of blocked drains, which is precisely what Rob Cote did this past Friday on what is left of the Washington Bridge.

 

Four RIDOT bridge inspectors, hundreds of millions of dollars in inspection reports, and Alviti’s non-stop deflections won’t keep our bridges standing if RIDOT continues to ignore maintenance issues. The contractors being sued by RIDOT have a simple defense: we repeatedly told and showed you there were problems, yet you didn’t address them.

 

I posted Cote’s photo on social media on Friday afternoon. On Friday night, RIDOT closed lanes on the Washington Bridge and, glory be, they cleaned the drains. Sources at RIDOT told me the order to clean the drains was issued late Friday afternoon after I made my posts. Here is the same drain, in a photo taken by Cote on Saturday morning.

 

After I posted Cote’s photo, several people sent me pictures of other clogged drains all over the state’s highway system.

 

RIDOT continues to fail us, and Gov. McKee refuses to do anything about it. RIDOT should not be performing bridge maintenance because they are being shamed into doing so. Bridge maintenance should be routinely and aggressively performed because it is one of the best ways to protect our road infrastructure.

 

Our dysfunctional Department of Transportation is a threat to lives, the economy, and the state’s bank account. No credibility. No maintenance.