State inspectors never made a required final inspection of the construction of pilings at the Kinzie Street bridge because Chicago city workers never told them that the job had been completed, according to Illinois Department of Transportation officials.
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The piling project, which city officials suspect may have cracked the freight tunnel that caved in Monday and unleashed the downtown flood, was funded by the state and required a final inspection, said Omar Nashif, the Chicago District IDOT coordinator.
But even though private contractors completed the work prior to last Labor Day, state officials said they still have not been formally apprised that the work is finished and ready for inspection.
”I haven`t received a notice from the city that the job is done,”
Nashif said. ”It has not been inspected.”
It is not certain that a state inspection would have revealed the remains of the old pilings, which were submerged, or found that the new pilings were sunk six feet away from the location specified in the contract. That placement is suspected of playing a critical role in the tunnel`s breach.
But the state`s claims raise additional questions about the city`s handling of the construction project, which is emerging as the focus of the investigation into the flood`s cause.
Mayor Richard Daley Tuesday forced the resignation of acting Department of Transportation chief John LaPlante for not repairing the cracked tunnel before the flood. But at least 25 others were interviewed by city
investigators last week, including City Hall employees involved in the pilings contract.
A spokesman for Daley declined to comment on the state`s claim Friday, saying that the issue was ”a part of the greater investigation” the city was conducting into the flood.
Great Lakes Dock & Dredge Corp. officials, who have maintained that the job their company did was completed satisfactorily, scheduled a news conference for Saturday morning.
The Kinzie Street bridge was the last of five river bridges to be fitted last summer with new pilings, which are bundles of long wooden poles that protect bridges against runaway barges and boats. In September, the city paid Great Lakes, the Oak Brook-based contractor, the last of the $335,640 it was owed and then billed the state for reimbursement.
The city`s contract with Great Lakes contained explicit warnings about possible damage to underground structures if new pilings were not installed in exactly the same place as the old pilings, records show. But after the leak occurred Monday and flooded the Loop, city officials said that the old pilings had never been removed.
Though the old pilings were not removed, records show that a weekly report to the state filed last summer by a city engineer noted that the pilings were taken out.
The new pilings were pounded into the riverbed directly above the tunnel, and, city officials suspect, cracked the tunnel that runs under the river.
After the flood began, city employees said they searched government records but found no evidence of a request from Great Lakes for maps showing the location of the tunnels. The company was required to determine the location of underground utilities, according to its contract.
City employees who worked on the project said they had been grilled by corporation counsel investigators for as long as four hours last week. State officials said Friday they had received a request from the city for all records on the project.
Nashif said it was the responsibility of city engineers to contact the state and arrange for the inspection. The state inspector`s visit is designed to supplement the more rigorous, day-to-day on-site monitoring that had been the city`s responsibility.
According to David Williams, the former commissioner of public works, James Bolster, the city`s resident engineer on the pilings project, was in charge of regularly visiting the site and reporting any deviation from the contract.
Williams said Bolster was to have kept a daily diary of his inspections, which would form the basis for his weekly reports to the state.
”He looks over the contractor`s shoulder, so to speak, to make sure the work is done to specifications,” said Williams, who headed the department when the contract with Great Lakes was approved. ”He gets there at critical points and then the contractor has to coordinate the work with him.”
Efforts to contact Bolster for comment were unsuccessful.
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Williams said Bolster would have had to report any deviation from the contract to the bridge project`s manager, Frank Ociepka, a supervisor for public works` bureau of engineering. If the changes did not involve an increase in funding or dramatically alter the project, Ociepka could have made the decision himself, Williams said.
Ociepka, contacted at his home, said he had been told by city officials not to discuss the project. Other public works employees who worked on the project also declined to comment.