Broken Welds and Promises
June 10, 2014 11:41 PM   Subscribe

Troubled Welds on the Bay Bridge: How mismanagement and an inexperienced contractor built a bridge whose stability in an earthquake is in question posted by meowzilla (39 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I used to live in SF and was there when the eastern span Bay Bridge failed during the Loma Prieta earthquake so I've been following this for a while. The new eastern span of the Bay Bridge took 11 years to build. The original Bay Bridge complex [which has an island in the middle and a center anchorage which connects two suspension bridges on the western span] and the Golden Gate bridge each took about 4 years to build.

The article is a well researched and a troubling example of bureaucracy.

Something briefly alluded to in the article is that ZPMC is not unknown in the SF Bay. A couple of those big white cranes you see on the east side of the bay are from the same company and were built and delivered whole from across the Pacific by the same organization in 2002. "One of ZPMC's five specially-converted cargo ships, the Zhen Hua 4, left on May 20 from Shanghai, China, to deliver the cranes. On June 14, it proceeded at low tide under the Golden Gate Bridge with 10 feet (3.3 metres) to spare and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge with a margin of three feet (one metre)." Link.
posted by vapidave at 2:17 AM on June 11, 2014


A typical example of the dangers of picking a barely qualified contractor on price and thinking that you'll be able to make up for it by beefing up your QA process. Some organisations can do that, but it looks like this isn't one of them.
posted by atrazine at 2:45 AM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


How bad is it?
Caltrans continued to bet on ZPMC by relaxing U.S. standards when the firm couldn’t finish fast enough.

Caltrans overrode bridge welding codes and near-universal requirements for new bridge construction when it deemed many cracks in welds produced by ZPMC inconsequential and left them in place to hurry construction along, Caltrans documents show.
. . .
In early 2008, at a meeting with Caltrans and ABF, the Chinese firm showed open defiance, according to a Caltrans memo about welder performance. “ZPMC stated that they, as the fabricator, will decide whether or not they will adhere to the agreed upon (quality-test) procedures. To this date, ABF has not provided the Department with ZPMC’s decision.”

Rick Morrow, a supervising Caltrans engineer, wrote in his job diary, “Is ABF unable to control ZPMC or doesn’t want to? No follow through on agreement and ZPMC ignored the ABF stop order. ... ”

Philip Stolarski, head of Caltrans materials testing, testified at the January Senate hearing that ZPMC treated contract requirements as “suggestions.”
There should be criminal indictments for this. It's completely inexcusable. I see that the California Highway Patrol is investigating.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:20 AM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]


As a state employee, I can imagine the ways the conversations went down to pick a bridge that was "pretty" and the resultant CYA taking place as a result of all the serious flaws. This happens on a daily basis on smaller scales throughout State agencies at which point the Bay Bridge can stand (or not) as a example of the perilousness of California's stability.

Next disaster: Fi$Cal
posted by grimace at 4:52 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


A friend who is in the steel business has been passing me technical titbits about this bridge for a few years. As a nominal materials engineer more than 20 years away from any formal training in the area, I saw many “They did what?”s in cursory reading. I particularly liked the bits where support rods had been inexplicably heat-treated to ill-advised levels of brittleness, and the mild steel sections without galvanic protection in a marine environment.

I guess I won't cross that bridge when I come to it …
posted by scruss at 4:55 AM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


I guess I won't cross that bridge when I come to it …

It's not really a bridge you can practically avoid if you're going to drive between Oakland and San Francisco, though. There are other bridges, but it's going to take a significant amount of time to get up/down to them and then back up/down to your destination. Whereas if any of Minneapolis's zillion bridges were suspect (which some of them probably are, even post 35W bridge collapse), you'd lose like 5 minutes by choosing to use a different bridge. (Well, assuming everyone else isn't doing it at the same time. I wouldn't have wanted to take 35W at rush hour when there was no bridge.)
posted by hoyland at 5:14 AM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


I got the message on my machine,
The party starts at 10:15
So tell me, can you give me a ride?
Drop what you're doing and meet me outside.

Speed it up 'cause we're runnin' late
Take the shortcut by the Super 8
I have to make it across the Bay Bridge
Fast enough to put the beer in the fridge.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:17 AM on June 11, 2014


A typical example of the dangers of picking a barely qualified contractor on price and thinking that you'll be able to make up for it by beefing up your QA process.

I have never seen it work out completely - what I've seen happen is that you spend a lot of time trying to get the contractor up to standard and sadly sag into despair when they don't. Of course the stakes are a lot lower when it's consumer goods like calculators or something when the cut-rate contractors do whatever they feel like.
posted by winna at 5:21 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Caltrans responded in a joint statement from many unnamed officials
This should be illegal at the “years in jail” level – the thought that some managers can shirk their official responsibilities and then dismiss criticism without even having to put a name on it is simply maddening.
posted by adamsc at 5:30 AM on June 11, 2014 [12 favorites]


I have never seen it work out completely - what I've seen happen is that you spend a lot of time trying to get the contractor up to standard and sadly sag into despair when they don't.

...followed, two years later, by problems showing up and the program managers wailing and gnashing their teeth. "How could we have seen this coming?!" they cry. Then they blame their own engineers for not catching it in time. Meanwhile, the engineers slowly drink themselves to death.

What I'm trying to say is a good portion of my job is pure CYA and actually delivering a reliable product is incidental to that.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:35 AM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


Wasn't there one of those "incredible massive building" style engineering shows made that features this? Another episode showed boring through massive mountains and stuff and I thought that some kind of mention was made about issues but that the builders handled it okay ... I'm going to have to dig through my Netflix queue to find it.
posted by tilde at 5:42 AM on June 11, 2014


Great. Just when I conquered my terror at crossing very long bridges...
posted by lesbiassparrow at 6:29 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh, come now--as if there could ever be a major earthquake in San Francisco.
posted by yoink at 6:32 AM on June 11, 2014


"That joint'll 'old f**-all!"
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:26 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


I have never seen it work out completely - what I've seen happen is that you spend a lot of time trying to get the contractor up to standard and sadly sag into despair when they don't. Of course the stakes are a lot lower when it's consumer goods like calculators or something when the cut-rate contractors do whatever they feel like.

I've seen it work (and part of my job is helping clients do it, another part is telling them not to do this most of the time), here are my quick and fast rules for making it work:

1) Accept that you may not save much money - many of my clients do this to meet local government rules on percentage of local content and skills transfer when doing business in poor countries
2) Saving money will happen if you build a long term relationship with the supplier, it usually won't work well for a one-off
3) Don't do it for single-sourced items. If you have diverse suppliers you can always pull the rip-cord on the low-cost option if it really isn't working.
4) Work with less-sophisticated but willing suppliers who want to learn and up-skill so that they can compete at the very top of the global market. You don't want an arrogant low-cost supplier.
5) Be sure that you have the right programme management and that you've accounted for your additional internal QA costs, additional contingency, and re-work allowances
6) Don't pick 'marginal' contractors for critical-to-life infrastructure!
posted by atrazine at 7:42 AM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]


Who could have possibly predicted a Chinese company would cut corners?
posted by entropicamericana at 7:43 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Be sure that you have the right programme management and that you've accounted for your additional internal QA costs, additional contingency, and re-work allowances

This is key!

What I find a lot of times with low-cost providers is that all the adjacent costs are ignored because the people making the decisions are focused on only looking at the visible costs. They get their bonus for cost-cutting and everyone else breaks their hearts trying to make it work.
posted by winna at 7:50 AM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Questionable contractor from China. What could possibly go wrong?
posted by TrialByMedia at 7:59 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Who could have possibly predicted a Chinese company would cut corners?
posted by spacewrench at 8:00 AM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]




Aaaaah! ::puts hands over ears::

I no longer commute into San Francisco every day from the East Bay, but I cross the bay at least once every few weeks, often driving.

Well, if the Big One hits, at least I'll be able to walk home from work...
posted by suelac at 8:29 AM on June 11, 2014


Who could have possibly predicted a Chinese company the lowest bidder would cut corners?

There, fixed it for you. 8)
posted by MikeWarot at 8:33 AM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]


Yes, they could have hired a reputable firm like Halliburton or Bechtel.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:55 AM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


It's not even the lowest bidder, all construction companies cut corners to maximize their profit. I worked out in the field once in my civil engineering career, and I swore never again. A resident engineer has to pretty much be a lawyer in the field to interpret and direct the contractor to follow the specifications, while they're trying to squeeze every cent out of anything.

Luckily poor construction methods is one of the reasons why a pretty big factor of safety is incorporated into structures designs, but here's hoping that there's enough cushion left in the Bay Bridge. That article is terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. It's like we took 150 years of lessons learned in construction and just threw them out the window.
posted by hwyengr at 8:57 AM on June 11, 2014


So the Chinese construction supervisor told an inspector that he wasn't allowed to conduct contractually-mandated inspections, and everyone up the chain was OK with that?

You almost never save money by hiring some cut-rate firm from a country where contract terms and reputation are meaningless. At least a local firm can be dragged back in to make repairs. How are they going to force this monkey banana raffle that's owned by the Chinese state to make good?
posted by 1adam12 at 9:18 AM on June 11, 2014


I wish this article did a better job quantifying the actual impact of what it describes. Has it actually been fixed? Can it even be fixed? It seems really bad, but maybe not? I'm glad I don't take the Bay Bridge regularly either way.
posted by feloniousmonk at 10:30 AM on June 11, 2014


This kinda thing doesn't just happen with Chinese contractors (or third world or cheapskates). Many years ago I had a friend who was doing construction staking (putting those wooden stakes that look like swords in the ground that tell the construction workers how much dirt to move and where to locate things) on a new bridge over a railroad that would greatly ease congestion as this town was built along a railroad line that had 100+ trains a day through and caused huge, annoying and costly delays crossing town.

The project had been delayed by years and the town was kinda pissed about it.

They had a huge pour scheduled for the Friday before memorial day weekend for the bridge beams that would form the base for the bridge over the railroad tracks. (this is where you put the concrete in a form that has the rebar and such laid out carefully). It takes a few days for concrete to reach its required strength and so they were going to let it cure over the long three day weekend. The crews had been working long hours and everyone was really looking forward to the day off and they could leave as soon as the form was filled. You can probably see it coming at this point.

They poured it all and were amazed that they had an extra truck of concrete left over(a concrete truck hauls about 9 cubic yards of concrete-not an insignificant amount). Noone thought it odd enough to check up on and they all left with a shrug of the shoulders. Come Tuesday they stripped the forms off the beams and discovered a huge, HUGE void at the bottom of the form so that about 3 of the beams where short several yards of concrete and much of the rebar was still exposed (this is really, really bad btw).

Most every engineer I have told this story to, and showed the photograph too shake their head and shrug and say, too bad they had to repour that whole beam and toss that much rebar. They didn't replace the whole beam. They just put the beam pack in the form, put some epoxy on the joint and filled up the void in the existing beam. I don't use that bridge when I back in town to visit (i live very far away now). Cold joints in concrete are not strong and that seam is a great path to let in water and salt (used regularly as this town gets about 10 feet of snow on average in the winter) that will cause the rebar to rust very fast.

This was a very large, international construction firm based in the US well know for its construction. They talked the inspectors and engineers into that solution and someday some poor bastards are going to pay for it and a major east-west rail line will be shut down for several days.
posted by bartonlong at 10:34 AM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


Are mistakes likes this new and/or increasing over time, or is it just that few of us were around when some earlier really big projects were going on? Were the Golden Gate Bridge, the previous Oakland Bridge, or other big projects like the Hoover Dam plagued by incompetence and time/cost overruns? It seems like big projects in the old days were completed relatively quickly and for a lot less money.

The SF Bay Area BART train system cost about $1B to build in 1962, which is a bit less than $7B in today's dollars. This includes the cost of an underwater tunnel linking SF with Oakland, 72 miles of elevated and underground track, stations, and all of the rolling stock. That's *less* than the cost of the bridge we're discussing here. There were certainly some big failures in public policy during planning, but it still boggles my mind that we could get so much for so little back then. The system would cost what, like $50-$100B now? It probably wouldn't even be possible. (The last couple sentences of the History of BART link are pretty telling: "The democratic processes of building a new transit system would prove to be major cost factors that, however necessary, were not foreseen." Is this the problem?)

I know there's the famous example of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed due to some significant design flaws re: wind tolerance. Design is critically important, but I'm more curious about poor workmanship and process post-design leading to massive waste of public money, time, and good will.

Not that there aren't big projects happening in the US now, but it does seem like there are problems with many of them. Maybe its that there's more media coverage and discussion of the issues? Are people not capable of doing big public projects at a high level of quality with reasonable investment any more? Have public involvement and referendums increased significantly since the big projects at the turn of the last century, and have they caused an actual decline in quality/value?
posted by pkingdesign at 1:05 PM on June 11, 2014


Safety guidelines are much more different now than then. No environmental review either. 112 people died during the construction of Boulder Dam, 11 for the Golden Gate Bridge, 28 for the original Bay Bridge.

Found this interesting tidbit in the Wikipedia article on Boulder Dam.
After the dam was completed and the lake began to fill, large numbers of significant leaks into the dam caused the Bureau of Reclamation to look into the situation. It found that the work had been incompletely done, and was based on less than a full understanding of the canyon's geology. New holes were drilled from inspection galleries inside the dam into the surrounding bedrock.[57] It took nine years (1938–47) under relative secrecy, to complete the supplemental grout curtain.[58]
Basically, everything has always been crap.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:42 PM on June 11, 2014


Having worked with government agencies, I'm reminded of the "iron triangle" of project management: fast, cheap and good - pick any two. But the difference in quality often requires expert knowledge, which almost by definition is only available at the bottom of the ladder - anybody trying to manage 1000 people is not an expert on everything under their purview, politician or bureaucrat. Whereas any jackass who passes fifth grade can read a calendar, and a budget isn't too far behind (or your intern can explain it to you).

Meanwhile, government agencies are under spectacular budget pressures, and the law often requires the lowest bidder who meets the minimum acceptable standard. So cheap is chosen for them. And funds are often tied to strict timelines - the money disappears on a certain date, and if it didn't get spent this year, you clearly don't need it next year.

So in many cases, by the letter of the laws designed to combat "government waste", it is effectively illegal to build high quality infrastructure. It's almost like the people who believe religiously that government can do nothing right have set government up to fail.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 2:02 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


The blame squarely lies with Caltrans, despite the fact that the Contractor was shite. The system is designed to take on the "lowest responsible bidder", and we all used to joke about the nebulous meaning of the word "responsible". The system, specifications, and contracts are, however, *heavily* skewed in favor of Caltrans. I know, I used to write specs for Caltrans work, and numerous other public agencies.

You can successfully build things properly with the lowest bidder. But you have to have the backbone to threaten to put their balls on an anvil and smash them with a 16 oz claw hammer. And you have to mean it - that you will smash their testicles flat. And you have to understand that this *will* cause project delays, and has a high probability of forcing the contractor off the job entirely. And this will cause a shitstorm. And you will be the bad guy.

Caltrans does have some engineers who have this kind of mojo. They evidently were not involved in this project. And the Contractor ran roughshod over Caltrans.
posted by Xoebe at 3:37 PM on June 11, 2014


pkingdesign: See St. Francis Dam, for example.
posted by Captain Chesapeake at 3:50 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Basically, everything has always been crap.

Early crap.
posted by happyroach at 3:58 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


happyroach: "Early crap."

You can't really count stuff that was built by aliens. More seriously, this bridge stuff is completely terrifying.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 6:04 PM on June 11, 2014


In early 2008, at a meeting with Caltrans and ABF, the Chinese firm showed open defiance, according to a Caltrans memo about welder performance. “ZPMC stated that they, as the fabricator, will decide whether or not they will adhere to the agreed upon (quality-test) procedures. To this date, ABF has not provided the Department with ZPMC’s decision.”

"Among other problems, ZPMC didn’t have enough qualified welders or inspectors, the audit noted, and routinely welded in the rain, a basic error that often causes defects."

"Caltrans diaries also indicated that ZPMC violated the job contract by delivering key documents in Chinese instead of English. ABF lacked sufficient quality-assurance staff to speak directly to its own subcontractor – also a contract violation"

"In August 2007, Caltrans auditors approved ZPMC outright, although the firm still lacked adequate quality control, even for “fracture critical” materials, according to the audit report. Fracture critical means the failure of such materials could “result in a partial or full collapse of the bridge,” according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials."



Jesus!

This is what will ALWAYS happen if you hire a corrupt large-scale Chinese construction firm (btw, that's ALL of them) to perform exacting tasks. They're used to playing footsie with rules and regulation because of their connections to the top, in China. "If people die, who cares?" Safety codes? "What's that?" I thought American Corporations were toxic, until I started to look into Chinese industrial safety rules. Corruption is rampant.

That said, the Americans who let this happen should be jailed, literally, if that bridge fails.

What galls me is that not one of the sons-of-bitches at the top of any of the organizations involved will ever see a personal penalty if the bridge fails in ways that it was designed not to; they'll al; be enjoying their high salaries and "high-buddy" status.

All that said, one can only imagine the crap quality extant in all the bullet-speed building of high-rises in Shanghai, Beijing and the new worker cities. Sons-of-bitches!
posted by Vibrissae at 10:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


So I wonder if the Chinese contractors have taken out an insurance policy on the bridge...
posted by happyroach at 1:04 AM on June 12, 2014




Egads, what a clusterfuck.
posted by homunculus at 12:43 AM on June 14, 2014




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