Contract Awarded for Bridge Retrofit

Caltrans awarded a $1.7-million contract to an Arcadia construction firm this week to replace faulty welds on the Orange Crush interchange, a job that will take at least five months and require some lane closures at night.

“The work will be done at night or behind concrete barriers” to minimize the effect on traffic during peak hours, Caltrans spokeswoman Sandy Friedman said Friday. “They’re not expecting any traffic impacts.”

The president of the company doing the work said some lanes will close, but mostly at night.

The work should begin in about three weeks.

Caltrans officials decided in September to replace at least 700 welds in the bridges that join the Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Orange freeways after several welds broke during testing. Welds are critical during an earthquake, providing support for bridges.

During a statewide review, one in eight welds tested from the Orange Crush bridges snapped at pressures lower than their design strength. Caltrans acknowledged the problem, saying they weren’t sure just how widespread the weak welds were in the 5-year-old structures, but they wanted to play it safe and replace welds in key support zones in the bridge columns.

Contractors will soon begin stripping concrete from bridge columns to replace the reinforcing steel hoops with new rebar fused with mechanical couplers designed by a Fountain Valley firm.

Caltrans now relies on the mechanical couplers, which are much stronger than older welds. But to expose the welded hoops, crews must use pressurized water jets to blast away concrete from the bridge columns, then cut out the bars. Some of the bars will be sent to laboratories for further testing, and the remaining bars sent to Sacramento. Caltrans has said it might pursue legal action against the Omaha, Neb., contractor, Peter Kiewit & Sons, responsible for the $85-million project.

“It’s not a real big job for us except for the fact that it’s in a tough spot with traffic considerations and all of that,” said Peter Boli, president of PKB Construction, which submitted the lowest bid of about 10 companies that competed for the Caltrans job.

Caltrans awarded the Orange Crush job to PKB on Thursday.

Boli estimated the work will take six to seven months.

His firm is working on another seismic retrofit in northern Los Angeles County at the intersection of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways near Santa Clarita. There, workers are removing welds from two columns to be tested.

Meanwhile, an independent firm working on behalf of state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) tested some of the Orange Crush welds this week in Santa Ana. However, the results of those tests were unavailable Friday.