Minnesota bridge construction, fighting underway

When the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed last summer, raining concrete and vehicles just steps away from a high-tech University of Minnesota laboratory, radiology professor Bruce Hammer thought he had narrowly escaped the disaster.

He, his colleagues and their students and researchers were safe, and more than a million dollars’ worth of scientific equipment inside the two-story lab was undamaged. So were the sophisticated magnets used to find better ways to make sure organs are suitable for transplants and to study why astronauts lose bone mass in outer space.

But weeks later, the lab was closed. A crack in one of its concrete walls raised initial concerns about the building’s structural soundness, and the school administration worried about liability and safety issues that could arise during construction of the new bridge.

Now, Hammer has found himself -- and his work -- unexpectedly caught up in the tragedy’s wake.

“To say that the ripple effects of the bridge collapse were huge would be an understatement,” said Hammer, who has spent weeks searching for lab space off-campus. “The whole thing is a lot more complicated than anyone expected.”

From political infighting on the state and federal levels and distraught bridge victims calling for new state laws to help pay for their suffering, to weary commuters wrestling with crowded streets, trouble has plagued nearly every step of the bridge’s construction.

“Everyone’s exhausted, and the problems are still growing,” said Mary Colon, who said business at her downtown Audubon Coffee shop was off $3,500 a month since the span over the Mississippi River collapsed. “Traffic’s being rerouted everywhere. Stores are losing so much business that they’re starting to close their doors. Commutes that were once 10 minutes now take an hour or more, because you have to cut across town on side streets.

“The whole situation is a mess, and the politicians aren’t making it better.”

While federal investigators continue to probe the Aug. 1 collapse, which killed 13 and injured more than 100, the rebuilding effort is well underway. The sounds of concrete being cleared and of steel being pounded into the ground fills the air downtown, as workers pave the way for a 10-lane bridge.

Mayor R.T. Rybak is optimistic and concerned about how things are going.

He says his economic experts have found that each day without the bridge costs the city about $400,000 in lost work and other costs, so the fact that construction has started so quickly and has an expedited schedule “is very good news for us.”

But figuring out who is covering which bills remains up in the air. Nearly $374 million in federal funds have been promised for the project, but a big chunk of the money has been stuck in a congressional budget fight with the White House. About $195 million is part of a federal transportation and housing funding bill, which President Bush has threatened to veto over concerns of excessive spending.

“We’re close, but we don’t have the votes” to overturn a veto, said Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), a leading member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Where the state will come up with the money in the interim, that’s a whole different question.”

That’s also a huge problem for Minnesota, whose Transportation Department is tapped out. Hoping to avoid breaking the department’s budget, Gov. Tim Pawlenty sought legislative permission to draw money from other state accounts to temporarily cover bridge-related bills.

That helped reignite feuds along party lines. The Republican National Convention is to take place in Minneapolis- St. Paul the first week of September. Members of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Par- ty have suggested that the Republican governor is more interested in getting as much bridge work done before the convention than he is about whether other road projects are delayed.

(Pawlenty has scoffed at such suggestions, noting that the bridge isn’t expected to be completed until December 2008 -- after the convention.)

Democrats also partly blame the bridge collapse on Pawlenty and the appointed head of the Transportation Department, Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau. They said that the department overlooked maintenance and safety to meet the governor’s election pledge of not introducing new taxes.

Pawlenty, who has denied such criticism, had twice vetoed multibillion-dollar transportation plans, saying he opposed raising the gas tax and driver fees. But after the bridge fell, he said he would consider reversing his position on the gas tax.

Still, he and leading state legislators couldn’t reach a compromise on funding. They expect to pick up the debate in February, when the next legislative session begins.

Pawlenty and GOP lawmakers, meanwhile, have been critical of Democrats in Washington, saying they are dragging their feet instead of pushing to ensure that federal rebuilding funds get to Minnesota as soon as possible.

As the political roiling continues in St. Paul, the one figure poised to take the biggest hit is Molnau. Lawmakers have called her before several panels to explain decisions, and several legislators, including Democratic House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, want her to resign.

Molnau’s woes continued last week, when the state’s Office of the Legislative Auditor released a report saying that the Department of Transportation failed to properly supervise one of its employees.

An investigation revealed that Sonia M. Pitt, the department’s former emergency director, used state funds to pay for personal trips and cellphone calls. She was on one of those out-of-town trips when the bridge collapsed and didn’t return until 10 days later.

Leaders of the state’s Democratic-controlled Senate have said that they would call for a vote to fire Molnau during next year’s session if she doesn’t voluntarily leave.

Molnau refuses to step down.

“She will continue to serve the people of Minnesota,” said Lucy Kender, spokeswoman for the Transportation Department. “In her own words: The Senate can do what the Senate has the right to do.”

There is one thing both parties seem to agree upon: helping bridge victims.

On Thursday, Pawlenty and state legislators announced a $1-million emergency relief plan to get money and aid to those injured and relatives of those killed in the collapse.

The plan is intended to help these people immediately, while state lawmakers finalize legislation for next year that would establish a larger, Sept. 11-style fund to help cover victims’ medical bills, lost wages and other expenses not paid by insurance.

“Everyone understands that this is the state’s responsibility, and they need to cover the cost,” said Minneapolis attorney Chris Messerly, who is leading a pro-bono group of law firms representing bridge victims.

Meanwhile, Hammer and the thousands of others who have been affected by the collapse are trying to figure out how to readjust their daily lives for the next year -- assuming construction stays on track.

So far, Hammer and his team have found two possible sites for a new lab. Both are west of downtown -- and far from the bridge construction.

p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com

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Timeline

Events in the collapse and rebuilding of the Minneapolis Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River:

Aug. 1: Bridge collapses, killing 13, injuring more than 100.

Aug. 14: Minnesota transportation officials unveil a preliminary design for a new bridge, which increases the number of lanes in each direction from four to five.

Sept. 19: Flatiron Constructors Inc. of Colorado and Manson Construction Co. of Seattle are awarded the bid to build the bridge.

Oct. 9: The Minnesota Transportation Department unveils the winning design for the new bridge.

Nov. 1: Construction begins on the $234-million bridge. Workers drill a test shaft 112 feet deep to see how deep to dig to support the weight of the new concrete box-girder bridge.

Dec. 24, 2008: Flatiron/Manson is under contract to open the bridge.

Sources: Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio