Lawmaker presses for probe of Caltrans

As Caltrans officials call for criminal charges against a former technician accused of falsifying bridge testing data, a top state senator is pressing for a broader investigation of the transportation agency itself.

“Failure to conduct reliable inspection tests on the foundations of bridges, freeway ramps, retaining walls, and other structures may erode the public’s confidence in Caltrans’ management of the state highway and bridge program,” State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) wrote this week in a letter to Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris.

“State government cannot be a safe haven for employees who shirk their public safety duties,” said DeSaulnier, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee.

The technician, Duane Wiles, and a California Department of Transportation supervisor, Brian Liebich, were fired Nov. 8. They did not return calls to listed numbers.

Transportation officials allege that Wiles fabricated data on at least three different projects in 2007 and 2008, including a 405 Freeway bridge widening in Culver City and on the La Sierra Avenue bridge in Riverside.

DeSaulnier was among many state politicians also concerned about the safety of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, an issue addressed in recent articles in the Sacramento Bee.

According to the Bee, documents show one of the Bay Bridge’s tower piles tested by Wiles received no acoustic testing, and other acoustic tests were problematic. Caltrans maintains the bridge is safe.

The agency released thousands of pages of documents related to the firings this month, ahead of a hearing by DeSaulnier’s committee.

The documents provide a timeline of the alleged fabrications and includes the agency’s response. Caltrans officials said the projects Wiles worked on are structurally sound and stressed the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was not involved.

But DeSaulnier said questions remained.

“There seems to have been a complete breakdown of review and control within one arm of Caltrans,” he said.

Caltrans Acting Director Malcolm Dougherty had already written to U.S. Atty. Benjamin D. Wagner and the Sacramento County district attorney urging them to reconsider filing criminal charges against Wiles. He also wrote DeSaulnier, saying the agency had “taken measures to ensure stronger processes are in place as we go forward to prevent data falsification from happening again.”

But DeSaulnier, who called this month’s hearing after the Sacramento Bee reported on Caltrans testing irregularities, said the attorney general should determine if criminal activity occurred in the foundation inspection section of Caltrans, including whether employees stole state materials and managers failed to fire employees found falsifying data or stealing.

Caltrans officials said they welcomed an investigation and had already initiated their own external review.

In a memorandum dated Nov. 16, a Caltrans official ordered a “top-to-bottom independent external review of the Foundation Testing Branch” to begin as soon as possible. The official said the review should include, among other things, technician training and test data collection.

ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com