On Wednesday, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) questioned officials on protective infrastructure in U.S. highways, and bridges during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Senator Merkley.
00:02Senator Kelly, you are next. Welcome.
00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today.
00:10Administrator Batt and General Spellman, as I understand it, one of the contributing factors
00:18to this catastrophic failure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge was the lack of fenders on
00:23the bridge itself, which protect a bridge or a pier from the damage from a possible
00:31vessel strike in the case of a vessel losing control or just poor navigation.
00:39Can you both speak to whether your agency maintains data on which bridges in the United
00:46States have this protective infrastructure in place and which ones do not?
00:51Sir, we don't have the data, but I would just add to your comment.
00:55This bridge was completed in 1977.
00:58The Neo-Panamax-type vessels like the Dolly showed up in our waterways 40 years later,
01:05and so the concrete dolphins that were out there protecting Pier 17 and 18 and the fendering
01:13were clearly not sufficient for vessels of that size.
01:16Do you feel this situation exists in other places?
01:22Thank you, Senator, for that question.
01:23That has been a key focus for us since the FSK disaster.
01:28There's about 620,000 bridges in our national bridge inventory, about 4,000 of those, give
01:35or take, have as part of the inspection process.
01:40We require states to look at the dolphins and fenders and other pieces.
01:45We are working with AASHTO and the NTSB right now to get that full inventory looked at to
01:50see which bridges have the up-to-date protection and what can be done in order to bring them
01:57up to speed and up to code.
01:59If we are able to bring them up to code and install protective measures like these fenders,
02:05can the, is it possible for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to be the source of funding to
02:10do that?
02:13Happy to look into that and see if that, in addition to the Highway Trust Fund, would
02:17be an appropriate source of funding.
02:19Senator Kelly, I'd have to do the research.
02:21I'm not familiar.
02:22We could use that authority.
02:23In general, at this point, how would you prioritize these type of investments over other infrastructure
02:32projects that you have going on?
02:33Yes, sir.
02:34I think they have to receive the highest priority.
02:36In fact, I think in the core, we have to do a better job in our chief's reports that we
02:40send to Congress, and doing a better job in definitizing the importance of maritime
02:46safety and the impact.
02:48For example, today, we have harbors, major harbors in the country, where they don't have
02:53a 700-foot channel.
02:55They have a 500-foot channel for vessels of these size.
02:59They're not going to get any wider.
03:00What's the beam on this vessel?
03:04Serve just under 150 feet.
03:08We're not going to make them wider, because some of the ports, they can't afford the cost
03:12of the coral mitigation.
03:14We have that.
03:15Again, I think it's on the core, and our engineers to do a better job in definitizing the safety
03:21aspect of these bridges, so we can get to better economic ratios in our reports.
03:25It may have come up before I came in, but how far along is the mishap investigation
03:30here?
03:31Sir, that would be up to the NTSB.
03:36You don't have a timeline for when it- We're working with them, but they control the investigation.
03:40Do you know if part of the investigation was to see if there have been other close calls
03:45throughout the country that we may not have been aware of?
03:49Senator, I just would want to defer to the NTSB on what they're looking at.
03:53Sir, I would just, in their preliminary report that they released in mid-May, they mentioned
03:58that they are looking at other bridge collapses, the one in Tampa, Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas,
04:05to look at the protective measures, the dolphins and the fendering systems, and what can we
04:09take from the new bridges at those locations and bring forward to modernize our current
04:14inventory.
04:15It would be interesting to know, and I don't think you guys would have the info either.
04:17I think it might be something for the Maritime Administrator, somebody else in the Department
04:23of Transportation, how often we've had situations where ships have lost steering, maybe had
04:28to go to aft steering, which is a challenging thing to maneuver a ship, especially in close
04:34quarters when you're required to go to a guy who's basically at the back of the vessel
04:40in the engine room and you're talking to him over a radio.
04:44But it would be interesting to have that data as part of an investigation to see what is
04:50the likelihood that this could happen again.
04:52And I think that could possibly inform the priority you make on infrastructure investments,
05:00like do we really need to get these fenders and other mitigation measures installed.
05:05So thank you.
05:06Thank you, Mr. Chairman.