A former New Rochelle company is disputing a report issued earlier this month by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that states it played a role in the collapse of an Interstate 90 connector tunnel in Boston.
According to the NTSB, Powers Fasteners Inc., which moved to Brewster from New Rochelle last year, provided epoxy that was used on a portion of the ceiling for the tunnel ”“ known colloquially as “the big dig.”
A portion of the ceiling collapsed last summer, killing a woman, 38-year-old Costa Rican Milena Del Valle, who was in a vehicle traveling through the tunnel at the time.
The NTSB report, issued earlier this month, placed fault on construction companies Gannett Fleming Inc. of Camp Hill, Pa., San Francisco-based Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, and Modern Continental Co. of Cambridge, Mass., along with the Massachusetts Highway Department for failing to determine the long-term sustainability of the epoxy that was used. The NTSB faulted the use of an “inappropriate epoxy formulation” in the ceiling collapse. Several lawsuits have been filed relating to the incident. Del Valle”™s husband filed a suit against the “big dig” contractors, and the state filed a civil lawsuit against Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff and Modern Continental Co, seeking more than $150 million.
The NTSB report also faulted Powers for allegedly providing “inadequate and misleading information” about its Power-Fast epoxy.
Not true, according to Powers spokeswoman Karen Schwartzman, and she said the company has the documentation to prove it.
Schwartzman said Powers was asked in June 1999 to provide 120 units of its standard set epoxy for the project, at a total cost of $1,287.
Before the epoxy arrived, members of the “big dig” construction team began to fill holes in the ceiling with a different kind of epoxy, a “fast set” epoxy, which she said may or may not have been Powers”™.
In October of that year, when bolts on the ceiling were not holding, Powers engineers were asked to go to the job site to inspect it, she said.
Schwartzman said Powers engineer Stephen Rice had asked the project team on the site if he could perform a “pullout test” to determine if anything was wrong with the epoxy but was denied permission. Rice then filed a report stating he was not allowed to do the test.
“The NTSB said this test should have been done, but we weren”™t allowed to do it. That”™s documented in the report,” she said. “The NTSB made it clear that had this type of test been performed, the source of the problem could have been identified.”
Later in the fall, Schwartzman said, Powers was required to file another report with the contractors on the site, which she said stated that fast-set epoxy should not be used in this particular case.
“In that report, it clearly states what the limitations and appropriate uses of both kinds of epoxy are,” she said.
Schwartzman also said Powers had no part in the design of the ceiling or in deciding which kind of epoxy should be used, but merely supplied the epoxy they were asked to.
“Powers supplied $1,287 dollars worth of epoxy out of a $15 billion total project,” she said.
In a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe, Powers President Jeffrey R. Powers reiterated that his company”™s engineers filed a report that “clearly stated” the fast-set epoxy was approved only for short-term loads.
“Powers fully cooperated with the NTSB investigation, answering every question and providing every document requested,” Powers wrote. “The only thing we could not do is to make available the engineers who were involved in the 1999 inspection and review, as they are no longer with the company.”
Keith Holloway, an NTSB spokesman, said the agency would not comment on Powers”™ or anyone else”™s statements on its report.
“We stand by what”™s in the report,” he said.
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