Sumner Tunnel's ceiling crumbling, Romney says

Much of the concrete ceiling in the Sumner Tunnel is crumbling and in danger of falling after years of neglect, Governor Mitt Romney warned yesterday, and drivers already frustrated by Big Dig tunnel closures will probably face more backups when the major airport-to-downtown route is repaired.

The work will not begin until next summer, Romney said, allowing time for repairs and safety improvements to be completed in the Ted Williams Tunnel and the Interstate 90 connector, where part of the ceiling caved in July 10, killing a Jamaica Plain woman.

Romney said the damaged concrete in the 72-year-old Sumner does not pose an ``undue risk" to drivers, because crews are systematically removing all loose pieces and because a lower, suspended ceiling would shield motorists from falling concrete in most of the tunnel. At a press conference at the State House, Romney held up a 5-pound chunk of the concrete ceiling that he said was loosened by long-term water damage.

Romney said decaying concrete in the Sumner and the more than 400 loose ceiling bolts that engineers have found in the parallel Callahan Tunnel show that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority has not properly inspected and maintained its road system. A new photograph of one roof section shows that on a 1996 renovation project, workers apparently placed ceiling bolts into damaged concrete without repairing it, the governor said.

``My reaction when I saw that was, `Holy cow, that's pretty frightening,' " said Romney, who gained control over the Turnpike Authority from the Legislature after the tunnel tragedy.

The problems in the two oldest Boston Harbor tunnels were discovered during a ``stem to stern review" of the metropolitan highway system that Romney ordered after the accident to identify safety problems on major highways in the city. Since mid-August, 28 engineers from an Illinois consulting firm, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc., have been poring over the downtown sections of the highway system, interviewing staff engineers, and reviewing blueprints in search of hazards.

While the review was expected to focus on roadways that were part of the $14.6 bllion Big Dig, Wiss, Janney officials quickly zeroed in on the mile-long Sumner and Callahan Tunnels, which connect downtown and Interstate 93 to Logan International Airport in East Boston.

Both tunnels were renovated in the mid-1990s to replace a deteriorating tile ceiling, but the work did not include extensive repairs to the underlying concrete. Wiss, Janney engineers found that 30 percent of the original ceiling in the Sumner was cracking or beginning to break free, probably as a result of water seeping through the tunnel's shell and corroding steel reinforcement bars inside the concrete.

Fortunately, the renovations included installation of a suspended ceiling underneath the original ceiling, so that only about one-sixth of the original ceiling in the Sumner is directly over drivers' heads. Administration officials said they knew of no instances of concrete falling in the tunnel.

But Romney warned that crumbling concrete remains a long-term threat in the several hundred feet of tunnel where the old ceiling remains directly overhead. Even where it is concealed by the drop ceiling, he said, crumbling concrete could weaken the bolts that hold up the suspended ceiling.

Before the renovations, ceramic tiles glued to the original ceiling had begun to come loose in both tunnels. In the Callahan, they were falling on vehicles about once every six weeks. During renovation , the tiles were removed, but, for unknown reasons, the contractor apparently did little to repair the old concrete underneath, state officials said.

``Why was this repair work not done" in the 1990s, he asked.

Decaying concrete is a common problem for old bridges and tunnels, said Stephen Buonopane, assistant professor of engineering at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. ``This is the kind of thing that's in a lot more places than you realize," he said, which means crews have to periodically survey underpasses and tunnel ceilings for pieces that have come loose. He said the addition of a drop ceiling in the Sumner would make inspection more difficult, potentially allowing the decay to grow more severe.

The Sumner and Callahan ceilings were last inspected in the late summer of 2003, according to John Carlisle, a Turnpike Authority spokesman, who said the inspection was required under the authority's agreement with bond investors. That inspection found problems with crumbling concrete, Carlisle said.

But other departments of transportation inspect aging concrete twice a year for signs of decay, according to Gary J. Klein, executive vice president of Wiss, Janney, who stood next to Romney at the press conference.

The Callahan, built in 1961, has relatively few sections with cracking concrete, but it nonetheless faces serious structural problems. The suspended ceiling installed in the Callahan in 1993 did not include enough bracing for an earthquake, Romney said. Just as important, Romney said the Wiss, Janney team found that about 417 of the more than 2,000 bolts holding up the suspended ceiling were at least one-quarter inch out of their holes, a problem seemingly unrelated to the decaying concrete.

Because of the risk that these bolts might come out entirely -- as 20 bolts did when the connector tunnel ceiling collapsed in July -- crews have inserted a second bolt alongside each of the loose bolts in the Callahan Tunnel, Romney said.

Though the ceiling bolts are held in place by epoxy, the same kind of super-glue used in the connector tunnel, administration officials said the Callahan's suspended ceiling is much lighter, 600 pounds per panel, compared to 4,500 pounds per panel in the connector ceiling. As a result, they said, the Callahan bolts are under far less stress.

Romney said that the ceilings in both the Sumner and Callahan tunnels pose a modest risk to drivers, but he said state crews will conduct inspections every month or two to ensure public safety. That way, he said, the repairs could safely wait until crews finish work on the connector and Ted Williams tunnels, which also provide access to Logan Airport.

He said contractors are working around the clock to finish repairs to the ramp that connects westbound I-90 to Interstate 93 by the end of October. That ramp and the connector tunnel have been closed since the July accident. Romney said there is still no timeline for completing repairs to the east- and westbound lanes of the connector.

State Transportation Secretary John Cogliano said it is too soon to say how long repairs to the Sumner or Callahan will take and how much it will cost. State officials said the Sumner work will probably require extended lane closings once repairs begin in mid-2007. The Callahan ceiling repairs may be less intrusive, since adding seismic support bracing can probably be done without blocking traffic.

Romney said the briefing he gave yesterday is part of a new openness at the Turnpike Authority, now that it is under his control. The Wiss, Janney review shows that the authority may have known about festering safety problems and ``just didn't choose to tell people about it," Romney said. ``It reminds me of someone who took the siding off of his house and saw that the two-by-fours are all rotted and says, `Well, I better get some new siding up quick.' "

The lawyer for Matthew J . Amorello, who resigned as the authority's chairman this summer rather than be fired by Romney, did not return a message seeking comment. Amorello has said he will not comment on issues related to his former job. James Kerasiotes, state secretary of transportation and Turnpike Authority chairman for most of the 1990s, declined to comment.

Allen can be reached at allen@globe.com; Murphy at smurphy@globe.com.