Breathing Concrete Dust On the 35W Bridge Rebuild

As I recall, Governor Pawlenty picked the highest cost longest time bid, which was also an out of state company to rebuild the 35W option. Apparently the high cost had nothing to do with worker safety:

That concrete dust does terrible things to your lungs. And during the day, all is well for the cameras, everybody wears a respirator, OSHA and NTSB are on site, and all is well.

But on second and third shift, that stuff breaks down, the cameras aren't there, and the guys are there laying concrete, breathing in that dust, and not being supplied with respirators.

My neighbor's friend's son brought his own respirator and went down and in the freezing cold, jackhammered out all that concrete on the river. Did that for weeks and then went to OSHA and handed them his vilely gunked up mask and asked them why EVERYBODY wasn't required to wear one. Seems that about five minutes after he did that, he was suddenly and mysteriously LAID OFF from the very lucrative Union Job.(Rosebuddear at DailyKOS)

However never underestimate the courage of ordinary people:

He is pursuing a court case, though, because he thinks that allowing other guys to work down there in the Hole and breathe concrete dust is wrong and bullshit.(Rosebuddear at DailyKOS)

This mis-management is just typical. Not only has Republican Governor Pawlenty vetoed a transportation bill that could begin the fix the "structurally deficient" bridges and eroding transportation because it would cost too much. Remember that when that Pawlenty had ordered unnecessary extra investigations and also picked the highest cost longest time bid to build the bridge.

The lawsuit claims the contract is illegal and harms taxpayers, because the Flatiron bid is more expensive and has the longest construction time over the three losing bidders.(Star&Tribune)

And the claim of highest quality just does not hold up:

The world-renowned Santiago Calatrava included his ideas for the new I-35W bridge in his letter to the governor....

The letter was dated Sept. 17, two days before the contract was awarded to a team led by Flatiron Constructors of Colorado.

Calatrava wrote that he had partnered with the Walsh/American Bridge team and had created a design that could meet the state's budget and timetable(Star&Tribune)

Basically, more and more Republican waste, mis-management and corruption. Good government does exist, it just does not exist under Republican administrations.