by Jay Barmann - SFIST
Crews are hard at work blasting away and/or painting over little steel particles which are now causing rust stains on the bright white paint of the one-year-old eastern span of the Bay Bridge. The particles got embedded in the paint because the contractor failed to adequately tarp the tower and other parts of the bridge when various steel grinding was taking place during the bridge's construction, and fixing this aesthetic problem is going to cost about $1 million, with half of that coming from toll-payers, as the Chron reports.
Blame for this latest flub in what was hardly a perfect construction process is being shifted back and forth between Caltrans and the contractor, American Bridge/Fluor, with Caltrans bringing up the tarp thing, and the contractor blaming Caltrans for insisting that the bridge components be painted too early, right after fabrication in China ... more
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