Firms Countersue RIDOT Over Washington Bridge Closure

Barletta and Aetna Bridge—two of 13 companies sued by the Rhode Island Dept. of Transportation in 2024—filed a counterclaim June 12 alleging the Ocean State ignored suggestions of an in depth inspection report that detailed structural deficiencies earlier than soliciting bids for a Windfall bridge rehabilitation.  

Three way partnership companions Barletta and Aetna Bridge, together with VHB, landed the contract to rehabilitate the westbound bridge in 2021. The swimsuit alleges the defendants knew or ought to have identified of engineering and previous inspection historical past of the 56-year-old bridge on I-195 and brought that under consideration “as a part of their collective obligations to the state.”

The bridge linking East Windfall and Windfall carries about 133,000 vehicles crossing in each instructions every day, in line with RIDOT.

“The Rhode Island Dept. of Transportation might have averted a expensive and disastrous emergency closure of the Washington Bridge in December 2023 if it had adopted suggestions in an in depth 1992 inspection report, which identified structural deficiencies and referred to as for superior radiographic testing earlier than any rehabilitation of the bridge was undertaken,” says Sallie Hofmeister, a Barletta spokeswoman.

Tim Rondeau, spokesperson for the Rhode Island Legal professional Basic’s Workplace, says, “Counterclaims are to be anticipated in a case like this, and the state stands by the allegations in its grievance. As that is a part of ongoing litigation, we have now no additional remark.”

Rhode Island Legal professional Basic Peter Neronha mentioned in an announcement saying the state’s swimsuit that, “Within the almost 9 months because the abrupt [bridge] closure, our economic system has borne an immense value, and our state has and can proceed to need to expend important assets consequently,”

The counterclaim provides that Barletta and Aetna Bridge “allege the state breached their contract and did not act in good religion by concealing the true situation of the bridge and neglecting to conduct the suitable testing earlier than soliciting bids for a rehabilitation that by no means ought to have been undertaken,” Hofmeister says. “They additional declare the state did not disclose the report by engineers Lichtenstein & Associates when the state requested bids in March 2021 for the rehabilitation of the bridge.”

Though the state knew of the bridge structural deficiencies and the necessity for additional ground-penetrating radar testing previous to any rehabilitation plan, it by no means disclosed these flaws within the design tips that bidders had been required to make use of as the idea for his or her proposals, Hofmeister says. “These tips required bidders to neither retrofit nor remediate the bridge’s tie-down rods or strengthen its compromised post-tensioning system,” she says.

As a substitute, she added, “the state represented that the bridge could possibly be rehabilitated and authorized the three way partnership’s proposal. It wasn’t till after the emergency shutdown that the superior testing beneficial in 1992 was lastly carried out, discovering that structural deficiencies had been so widespread that the Washington Bridge was past restore and must be demolished and changed.”

In an unrelated swimsuit, Barletta paid $11 million final month to settle a civil case involving unlawful dumping of contaminated fill throughout building of a Windfall, R.I. freeway connector venture.