Tom Warne Report, 22 March 2013
The new head of Washington state’s transportation department announced this week that she has hired an expert to review the I-5 Columbia River Crossing, Highway 520 bridge and Highway 99 tunnel. Secretary Lynn Peterson announced that the former director of two of those projects, Ron Paananen, will examine the projects that he previously supervised before taking a private sector job.
“Ron is a trusted person by external stakeholders as well as internal to the department,” said Peterson. “He is a project manager now in the consulting world, with both quality and quantity of successes.”
The review is the result of last month’s discovery of design errors by the state Department of Transportation’s new Highway 520 bridge pontoons have caused cracking. The repairs and delays are expected to cost at least $100 million. The review will cost $305,000, due Sept. 30 and will be publicly released.