Willamette Week continues to blow holes in the CRC scam: Democratian remains mostly silent.

"If it's important to the people of Clark County, you'll read about it in the Willamette Week."

Willamette Week should get a Pulitzer in investigative journalism for their year's long expose' of the corrupt, inept and incompetent CRC scam.  And today's effort is no exception.

March 13th, 2013 ANDREA DAMEWOOD | News

Limbo Dance

CRC officials have spent millions to overcome a bridge design that’s too low. They still don’t have it right.

(RE)DRAW BRIDGE: The U.S. Coast Guard has returned a required permit application from the Columbia River Crossing, saying the CRC’s work was so insufficient that the Coast Guard cannot consider reviewing it. - IMAGE: Parsons Brinckerhoff

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Tags: Columbia River Crossing

When Oregon lawmakers recently agreed to hand over $450 million for the Columbia River Crossing, they put a condition on the money: Settle questions about how high the bridge needs to be.

CRC officials have spent more than $165 million planning the $3.4 billion project, but they failed to design a bridge tall enough to satisfy federal law and allow for the river’s ship traffic.

The project’s backers assured state legislators this was a problem that was all but solved. Gov. John Kitzhaber assured a legislative committee Feb. 11 the CRC has been “studied and analyzed and restudied and reanalyzed. The result is a project that’s ready to be built.”

But documents obtained by WW suggest the proposed CRC spans are not only too low, the project hasn’t come close to fixing the problem.

In January, CRC officials applied for a permit from the U.S. Coast Guard, which has the authority to decide whether or not the bridge’s clearance—originally designed at 95 feet but now proposed at 116—will obstruct too many ships.

Planners spent more than a year and $1 million getting the permit application ready. 

Now comes the Coast Guard’s response: The application isn’t even close to being adequate—it’s full of holes and incomplete answers.

The letter, sent March 8 to the directors of Oregon and Washington’s departments of transportation, guarantees even more delays in the project, which is trying to get the bridge height approved by Sept. 30. Meanwhile, the CRC project burns through money—$2.9 million alone in December, according to project documents.

The Coast Guard letter cites three major flaws in the CRC’s application. But the most glaring oversight is the CRC’s failure to fully evaluate the biggest issue involving the bridge height: the number of jobs it would put in jeopardy.

“The application identifies a projected financial impact to three industrial fabricators, but does not provide the underlying data or analysis that supports it,” Rear Adm. K.A. Taylor wrote in the letter. 

Four manufacturers operate on the Washington side of the river at the Columbia Business Center, with 4,000 employees earning $300 million in salaries, according to a letter to the Coast Guard by business center operator Killian Pacific.

CRC officials say they could pay the businesses $30 million to $116 million to “mitigate” their losses.

Three companies—Thompson Metal Fab, Oregon Iron Works, and Greenberry Industrial—manufacture massive offshore oil platforms. Each needs well more than 116 feet of clearance to move the rigs they manufacture about a mile upriver from the current Interstate Bridge.

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