Legislators consider holding public hearings
A week after state legislators handed Governor Mitt Romney authority over the Big Dig tunnels, they discussed yesterday whether to give themselves a role in investigating the tunnel tragedy.
Though numerous state and federal agencies are investigating the July 10 ceiling collapse in the Interstate 90 connector, lawmakers began talking about launching their own inquiry, including possible public hearings that would force Big Dig contractors and managers to testify under oath before cameras and the public.
Also yesterday, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority said the closing of the connector had sharply reduced toll receipts in the Ted Williams and Sumner tunnels.
Compared to collections a year ago, the tolls were down about $108,000 a day, or 55 percent, last Wednesday through Friday, and $77,000 daily, or 51 percent, over the weekend, said spokeswoman Mariellen Burns.
Meanwhile, construction crews continued work installing new, high-strength anchor bolts to reinforce the connector's drop ceiling, and a state official said work on the South Boston ramp to the eastbound Ted Williams Tunnel was on schedule, which should allow it to be reopened at the beginning of next week.
The new anchor bolts will be placed side by side with more than 1,100 existing bolts, which are affixed to the tunnel's concrete roof with epoxy, a method that state and federal officials determined after the accident was not reliable enough to hold up the drop ceiling's heavy concrete panels.
Investigators have focused on the failure of bolt-and-epoxy fixtures at the connector's eastern end as a probable reason that 10 ceiling panels -- each 12 feet by 8 feet and weighing about 4,500 pounds -- crashed down on and around Milena Del Valle's car as her husband drove with her to Logan International Airport to pick up relatives.
Investigators are examining the possibility that some of the bolts never underwent required safety tests when the tunnel ceiling was being installed. A Federal Highway Administration spokesman said yesterday that the agency's staff was continuing to search through boxes at the offices of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority to determine what 1999 safety tests occurred and what they found.
The repair work to strengthen the ceiling supports has been slowed by the grid of reinforcement steel bars, or ``rebar," throughout the concrete roof, which the workers cannot drill through, said a state official. Each time they hit rebar, they must move over and drill a new hole.
The work remains on schedule, for now.
``We hope to have the ceiling of Ramp A (the South Boston ramp) shored up by the end of the weekend," said John Carlisle, spokesman for the state Transportation Department. ``But that schedule could be tempered by how much rebar we hit."
South Boston-based McCourt Construction is installing the new fixtures, with oversight by the state Transportation Department.
On Beacon Hill, state Senator Marian Walsh, a West Roxbury Democrat, floated a proposal that would create a commission similar to the Ward Commission that held public hearings 25 years ago on corruption in state construction projects.
Walsh wants to establish an eight-member committee selected by the governor, attorney general, state treasurer, and state auditor. The panel would be led by a retired state judge and include a layperson with financial expertise, an engineer, an architect, a former prosecutor, and a construction expert. The committee would have the power to subpoena anyone involved in the Big Dig, and would hold public hearings.
``We need to have a neutral independent investigation done; we don't have that currently," Walsh said.
She said Romney and Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, who are leading different investigations, are compromised by their political affiliations.
``The governor is investigating his own branch of government," she said. ``The attorney general is investigating a branch of government he's running against."
In addition, the lead Big Dig contractors gave $20,000 on April 27 to the Republican Governors Association, a campaign committee for GOP gubernatorial candidates nationwide that is chaired by Romney. Bechtel National Inc. and Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade and Douglas each gave $10,000, according to campaign finance documents filed Saturday.
State Senator Marc R. Pacheco, a Taunton Democrat who has led past Big Dig inquiries, said he supported Walsh's ideas but thought the timing may not be right now.
``I don't think we want to send the wrong message, that we are interfering with the investigations that are going on," he said. ``I want to see how these existing investigations play out."
But Pacheco wondered aloud why Romney has not been more critical of Bechtel/Parson Brinckerhoff, which has overseen the Big Dig project. ``I've heard nothing about what the governor plans to do with Bechtel. I want see how that will play out."
