Washington County officials said two county bridges are safe despite an employee's claims they're hazardous.

George Braswell, a heavy equipment operator in the Road Department, sued the county in December, claiming County Judge Marilyn Edwards and other supervisors had retaliated against him for pointing out the new Harvey Dowell and Stonewall bridges weren't being built as designed. In essence, the concrete end walls and columns weren't properly reinforced with steel rebar, according to the lawsuit.

At A Glance Washington County Bridges A county employee has raised questions about the construction of two county bridges. Stonewall Bridge • Location: Stonewall Road, western edge of Prairie Grove city limits • Size: About 160 feet long and 31 feet wide • Status: Piers and end walls complete, lacking bridge deck Harvey Dowell Bridge • Location: Mally Wagnon Road where it crosses the West Fork of the White River, near southeast Fayetteville • Size: About 175 feet long and 31 feet wide • Status: Completed in late 2013 Source: Staff Report

At A Glance County Bridge Allegations In a lawsuit against the county, Road Department employee George Braswell claims the two bridges were or are being built improperly. The county has said the bridges are safe and denied Braswell’s allegations. They include: Stonewall Bridge: • Workers used less rebar than needed used in east pier’s base; vertical rebar was segmented, and not hooked to the base. • In the west pier, workers drilled 8 inches into the bedrock beneath the base, put in vertical rebar, then poured the base’s concrete, then used segmented rebar instead of continuous bars. Harvey Dowell Bridge: • In at least one end wall, workers didn’t use L-shaped rebar to hook onto the wall’s base, instead pouring the base’s concrete, then drilling 8-inch to 10-inch holes for vertical rebar to go in. • The wall’s concrete was cast in sections going up, with segments of rebar driven down into the wet concrete of each section instead of casting concrete around the rebar. Source: U.S. District Court of Western Arkansas

Harvey Dowell reaches across the West Fork of the White River just outside Fayetteville's southeast city limits and has been open for more than a year. Stonewall will connect Stonewall Road across a creek on the west side of Prairie Grove when the county finishes construction sometime this year.

"Due to the bridge crew's deviation from the design plans, the Stonewall Road Bridge and Harvey Dowell Bridge are dangerously under-supported, and the structural integrity of each bridge has been significantly compromised," according to the lawsuit.

George Butler, who was county attorney until his retirement Dec. 31, disputed those claims.

"I know that there were some deviations, which is not unusual, but nothing to jeopardize the safety of the bridges," he wrote in a brief emailed statement on his last work day. "As we speak, and for the near-term future, the bridges are safe even if all the allegations are true. If corrective action is determined to be necessary, it will be done."

Verifying exactly how the bridges were built would require "expensive X-rays," Butler added, but in the meantime county officials would meet with Road Department employees to figure out if anyone did anything wrong. Steve Zega, who took over the attorney post this month, declined to comment beyond Butler's statement.

Braswell filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Western Arkansas. The county hadn't responded in court to the lawsuit by Friday.

The Allegations

Braswell's suit gives several specific details about how he says the bridges were supposed to be built and how road crews carried out the plans.

The end walls, which double as both retaining walls and bridge supports, are supposed to be crisscrossed throughout by a grid of unbroken horizontal and vertical steel bars, for example. The vertical bars go into a separate concrete base, latching into the base's own rebar cage with an L-shaped hook, fastening the wall to its base.

The bridges' engineering plans, provided by the county, confirm these specifications.

Braswell's lawsuit says workers violated the directions, using segmented rebar instead of continuous bars and going without the L-shaped hook. Workers instead drilled holes less than a foot deep in the cast concrete or the rock below for vertical rebar to be slotted into, Braswell claims.

Both bridges connect quiet, rural stretches of road, spanning creeks that border pastures and fields lined with tall, bare trees.

Stonewall's end walls and piers lack their bridge deck and are visible from up the road. Harvey Dowell's walls and piers show no signs of cracking or buckling to the casual observer, and the bridge passed an hours-long state inspection when it was finished in late 2013.

Braswell's description of the bridges is only the backdrop for his claims that several supervisors harassed and bullied him for talking publicly about the bridges' construction. He is seeking damages and relief for those claims, not for unsafe construction. Cities and counties typically are immune from being sued for performing governmental functions, including building bridges.

Everyone involved has stayed tight-lipped on the bridges' construction since the lawsuit was filed. The Road Department and Myers Beatty Engineering, which designed the bridges, referred questions to Zega. Braswell declined to speak in detail about his observations and expertise, said Josh Bailey, his attorney at Fayetteville's Morton Law firm.

"I think it's premature to interview Mr. Braswell at this time," Bailey wrote in an email. "We are only in the very, very early stages of the lawsuit, and there really isn't anything to add at this point."

Experts Weigh In

Braswell's claims wouldn't guarantee an unsafe bridge, though more information is needed for a firm judgment, said two University of Arkansas civil engineers who looked over the plans for the bridges' walls last week.

A set length of vertical rebar for a column or wall has to be embedded within the base, said Micah Hale, a professor who specializes in concrete design. The bridges' plans call for about 5 feet of bar within the wall, with another 9 feet or so in the base. If a shorter length of bar goes into either piece of concrete, a bridge's weight could pull out the steel, Hale said.

The L-shaped hook in the bridge plans is a kind of shortcut to get the minimum length, a way to hold more rebar in the same amount of concrete, Hale said. Concrete is also meant to be cast around rebar so the two bond together, said Gary Prinz, an associate professor specializing in steel structures.

Going without the L-hook or drilling rebar slots into dry concrete, as Braswell claims happened, could be problems, both professors said. But workers might have used an epoxy, or industrial-strength super-glue, to seal together the rebar and concrete, they said. Workers often use this tactic to reinforce older structures without rebuilding them, Hale said.

Some epoxies can be even stronger than concrete, which means the bridge could still be safe with less rebar in the concrete than planned.

"Mistakes are common, and you're going to need field modifications all the time," Prinz said.

As for the continuous rebar that's called for instead of segments, Hale said rebar segments typically would overlap and be tied together, which would work fine as reinforcement.

It's unclear whether epoxy or another impromptu solution was used during construction, or whether all of Braswell's observations were accurate. Braswell's lawsuit makes no mention of an epoxy.

After a Freedom of Information Act request for all modifications or changes to the plans made during construction, county officials provided records of two slight changes to Stonewall's positioning and its deck, but nothing to do with rebar.

NW News on 01/12/2015