Derrick ‘Junior’ Lindsey sat at
his desk in the West end of the California Highway
and Transportation Materials Laboratory, munching on the apple that was left
over from his carry-lunch. Watching the
sweep-second hand make its rounds on the office wall clock. It was almost four-thirty. Time to quit.
No use starting another core sample at this hour. Besides, he'd already done two today. That's all Dan really expected. He'd finish the third one tomorrow. Dan wouldn't finish the bridge inspection
until noon and then it was a good
three-hour drive back to Sacramento. No, he wouldn't make it back tomorrow. He’d be too busy arguing with the paint
contractor on the Dos Palos Bridge.
All the contractors were the
same. Bid low, win the contract then try to find a way to make a buck. It was a losing game that the CHT
played. Take the low bid and then hope
that the State bridge inspectors could enforce the specifications. But they never could. The contractors knew how to wear the
inspectors down, especially on the big jobs like the Dos Palos truss
bridge. It was impossible to watch a
crew of forty blasters and painters; all hanging precariously from box beams a
hundred and fifty feet above the river.
Junior stared at the clock. How come he could see all this and the
contract people downtown couldn’t? He
leaned back in his desk chair and propped his feet up on the edge of his
oversize, State-issue waste can. Another
five minutes and he was out the door.
Dan Stockton strode down the
center of the closed traffic lane on the Dos Palos Bridge. The roadway undulated rhythmically under his
feet as the big, double-trailer rigs rumbled across the forty-year-old span.
The Dos Palos crossed the San Juaquin River between Los Banos
and Chowchilla on State Route 33. It was
one of the old box-beam designs that were both beautifully strong and a
nightmare to maintain. Every two or three years, a contract would be let for
the blasting and painting of those areas where rust was coming through the old
paint. But this year was different. The
State was paying almost two million to have the old paint completely
removed. The contractor would then apply
an inorganic zinc primer and two, water-based, acrylic topcoats.
Stockton stopped directly under
the contractor's makeshift, environmental enclosure, ninety feet above the
deck, and looked straight up. Were they
ready for his last inspection of the day?
He breathed the diesel fumes coming off the big 750 compressor. It labored to keep enough high-pressure air
delivered to the grit pots. From the
pots, the compressed air pushed abrasive grit through four-inch hoses, straight
up the side of the bridge. At the top,
four hooded men wrestled with high-pressure blast guns, cleaning the old alkyd
paint off the beams until the steel underneath turned “near-white”. He watched as thin clouds of blasting dust
grit and paint chips were forced from the seams of the enclosure. A light wind carried most of it to the
southeast and out over the San Joaquin, where it eventually settled and sank to
the bottom.
It was an environmental atrocity,
yet a big improvement over methods used just ten years ago. No enclosures, no tarps, nothing. Just tons of debris, mixed with old
lead-based, alkyd paint, flying in the wind.
Poisoning the beautiful river and pristine landscape that surrounded the
bridge.
“They're going to be ready for us
in about ten minutes,” the resident CHT inspector yelled to be heard above the
repressive din of the compressor. “We'll
take that one over there,” the inspector motioned to a Spyder
that hung on cables from the top of the span, the bucket resting against the
massive, upright steel members.
“Good,” yelled Stockton. He looked back up overhead. A blaster emerged from the top of the
enclosure, climbed up onto the top of the truss, stood, and walked easily over
to the spot where a second Spyder hung in waiting to
make the trip down. No harness. No tie-off to catch him if he lost his
footing. It was a ninety-foot drop to
the bridge deck and one hundred and fifty feet to the river.
“God dang it,” he swore to
himself, immediately scanning, searching for the paint foreman. He spotted him by the compressor and ran the
twenty steps. “Do you know your man is walking
that steel without a tie-off?” He
screamed the words to be heard above the compressor's incessant roar.
The foreman stood, turned slowly
and looked at him without expression.
“I said your man isn't tied-off,”
he screamed louder, motioning overhead with a straight arm.
The foreman still didn't respond.
“You're going to get my ass and
yours thrown off this bridge,” he stopped in mid-rant, reading the disdain in
the foreman's face. He didn't care. The contractors knew that these were hollow
threats. The State was never going to
give an inspector the authority to throw a contractor off the job for a minor
infraction. And, the foreman knew it.
“I'll talk to the crew at the end
of the