THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 6, 1996 TAG: 9604060272
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
A South Carolina company whose repair work on Interstate 95 was known to be crumbling nonetheless received $4.7 million more in road contracts from the state in 1994. Among the contracts Ballenger Paving Co. won two years ago was a $2.1 million job to fix seven miles of cracking concrete pavement the company had repaired in 1990, according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Ballenger, based in Taylors, S.C., had predicted that its 1990 highway repairs would last for 40 years, but only six years later the state is about to spend $14.7 million to repair Ballenger's work on I-95.
Ballenger also won contracts in 1994 for pavement repairs in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and in Henrico and New Kent counties. The Commonwealth Transportation Board voted unanimously to award Ballenger the 1994 contracts.
Lee Powell, president of the paving company, did not immediately return telephone calls Thursday seeking comment.
Virginia Department of Transportation spokesman Bill Worrell said he did not know if the department had told the transportation board of the problems on I-95, south of Emporia, when the contracts in Hampton Roads and Richmond were approved.
``Neither then nor now can we point to the contractor as having done bad work, and so we have no reason to say that,'' Worrell said.
State engineers said this week that one of the factors that contributed to the road's failure was that a milling machine used in the 1989-90 work removed some of the pavement's base.
The milling machine did not damage the base but created a cavity where water could collect between the pavement and the base, the engineers said. A drainage system installed at VDOT's request to carry the water away became clogged with sediment.
Worrell said removing a portion of the base ``was not an against-the-rules kind of thing.''
Ballenger Paving reportedly hired a subcontractor to do the milling. Worrell said contractors are responsible to VDOT for the work of their subcontractors.
Transportation Department engineers said Ballenger Paving's prediction that the repairs would last 40 years was unrealistic. The engineers said they expected them to last 10 to 20 years.
The engineers said this week that the circumstances that led to the pavement's cracking were unique and included rapidly increasing traffic and heavier weight limits on trucks.
KEYWORDS: ROAD CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS by CNB