Cost to Repair Century Freeway Tops $117 Million

California taxpayers will ultimately spend more than $117 million to correct problems caused by an ill-fated decision to build a section of the Century Freeway too close to underground water, state auditors reported Wednesday.

In a 44-page report to the Legislature, auditors blamed the California Department of Transportation for ignoring repeated warnings that a 3.5-mile section of the state’s newest and most expensive freeway was threatened by a shallow, and rapidly rising, aquifer.

Instead, the auditors said, Caltrans continued to follow a design for part of the freeway between the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers that failed “to compensate sufficiently for the effects of rising ground water beneath the pavement.”

As a result, less than two years after the freeway opened, the report said, portions of the shoulders along that section began to crack and sink.

The report by the Bureau of State Audits was ordered by the Legislature after The Times reported in March that Caltrans had poured millions of dollars into a secret rescue effort to keep part of the new freeway from collapsing because of underground erosion.

At the time, the cost of repairs and disposal of water pumped from beneath the freeway was estimated to be about $60 million, but the new audit predicted that it will soar to more than twice that.

Auditors said the latest estimates provided by Caltrans show the cost of repairs along the damaged section will reach about $67 million. An additional $50 million will probably have to be spent, it said, to pipe underground water away from the highway to a plant where it can be treated for use as drinking water.

“This is the price of keeping something secret,” said Senate Transportation Committee Chairwoman Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach). “I feel like if elected officials and the public had been kept a little bit better informed, the price tag might not have been so high.”

Karnette, whose Senate district surrounds that section of the freeway, said she may schedule a hearing to ensure Caltrans is moving quickly with its plans for piping water to a treatment facility.

Echoing Karnette’s comments, Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) said the audit is clear evidence of “deliberate obfuscation and failure to report what was going on to the Legislature.” Caltrans spokesman Jim Drago said the agency was hoping to reach an agreement with either Downey or Long Beach that would allow a “beneficial use” of the water that is pumped from beneath the freeway to keep it from sinking.

“You either reuse the water or you continue to pay on an ongoing basis to dump it into the L.A. River and watch it flow to the Pacific,” he said. “We hope to come to an agreement on a way to reuse it that produces a benefit to the public, but either way, you’re still faced with a significant financial investment.”

The audit said the Century’s problems stem from a decision in the late 1960s to quell opposition from the nearby cities of Downey, South Gate, Paramount and Bellflower by building a portion of the freeway beneath ground level.

But from the beginning, the audit said, transportation officials disregarded staff recommendations that extensive tests be conducted on soils and underground water tables in the area.

“If Caltrans had performed these tests,” the auditors wrote, “it could have realized the rising ground water would threaten the freeway as designed, and it could have taken appropriate steps early in the project.”