Dangerous liaison: Daring bridge project begins near dam

Thursday, Jan. 24, 2002 | 11:11 a.m.

Workers this week dangled from ropes and clung to narrow ledges of Black Canyon, shouting distance from Hoover Dam.

The crews are beginning engineering work for the construction of a planned $220 million bridge that should one day connect Arizona and Nevada about a quarter-mile south of the dam.

The work is demanding, dusty and potentially dangerous, and the crews working for several Western contractors are striving to avoid the fate of hundreds who died building Hoover Dam in the 1930s.

Risks include falling rocks, or workers falling from the rocks, and the threat of an accident involving the helicopters bringing heavy rock-drilling equipment to the canyon walls. At times, a helicopter Tuesday flew just a few dozen feet from the canyon wall, precariously hovering between a rock ledge below and high-tension power lines above.

"It's windy, it's steep and very exposed," said Nick Salisbury, president of Crux Subsurface, the contractor drilling 200-foot deep bore holes into the rock canyon walls. "But it's not a bad place to work. It's interesting."

Salisbury said he and other senior, more experienced company workers are the first to arrive at predetermined spots on the rock cliffs, which soar 1,000 feet or more above the Colorado River. They rappel down the canyon walls and set up relatively safe working spaces for their colleagues.

The Crux employees like the challenge of working in difficult places, Salisbury said. The company has done similar work across the Western United States, but this work "is one of the highlights for us."

So far, the contractors have not reported any serious accidents. They want to keep it that way.

The work, at this stage of the project, involves sophisticated studies of the geology of the sites that will anchor the bridge on both sides of the Colorado River, said Rich Bansberg, a senior geologist for AMEC Inc., a Phoenix-based contractor.

AMEC has three geologists working on the site. Crux has about a dozen workers drilling into the rock.

This week the workers carefully moved drilling equipment tethered below helicopters in place on the rock walls of the canyon. The drills will go 200 feet into the rock, ensuring that no fractures endanger future supports for the bridge.

Bansberg said contractors are drilling two samples on the Nevada side and one on the Arizona side.

Bansberg and his colleagues have a healthy respect for the dangers of the dam, Colorado River and Black Canyon. Documentaries of the dam's original construction show just how difficult and dangerous the job was.

But while Hoover Dam is considered a wonder of modern engineering, Bansberg said he believes the current era's project will be an impressive artifact.

"It's really a treat to be able to work on a job of this magnitude," he said.

The work is the first construction stage of what is planned as a five-year building effort. But it is only the latest phase of a long struggle to protect the historic dam from the ravages of heavy traffic -- and fears of deliberate sabotage.

Advocates for a new bridge have lobbied for the project for more than three decades, and a long-awaited approval for the environmental impact assessment and final go-ahead from the FHA came last year.

Dave Zanetell, the agency's manager for the project, said work on the canyon walls is proceeding on schedule. This would mean serious ground-breaking would occur next fall.

"The project is on a very aggressive schedule," Zanetell said.

But with security concerns focusing on the dam after Sept. 11, some would like to see the work proceed more quickly. The bridge is being funded by the Federal Highway Administration, Nevada and Arizona. The FHA sometimes pays incentive bonuses to contractors as the primary way of speeding up a construction schedule.

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska and chairman of the House Transportation Committee, on Monday heard from local officials about road issues in Southern Nevada. He assured them that he supports expediting the funding schedule for the Hoover Dam bypass.

"I'll do everything I can to make sure that happens," Young said, assuring the regional officials and elected policy makers that there is no need to aggressively lobby him on the issue.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., also is working for the expedited funding. Berkley, too, is a member of the House Transportation Committee.

In an October letter to Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, Berkley asked for funding support for an expedited construction program. The funding change would increase the total cost to about $234 million, she estimated.

Even if the funding schedule isn't accelerated, the project is almost certain to go forward. Already, the effort has $126 million of the total needed, although that funding is spread out over the life of the construction project, Zanetell said.

Most of the money for the bridge will come from the federal government, but Nevada and Arizona will pony up $20 million each.

Although the FHA is the lead agency on the bridge construction, other agencies are pushing for completion as quickly as possible.

"The sooner, the better," said Bob Walsh, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency in charge of the dam. The bureau dramatically increased security immediately after Sept. 11, diverting most Arizona-Nevada truck traffic on a long bypass through Laughlin.

But Walsh and others still fear a worst-case scenario: an attack that would threaten the entire region's water supply, cripple the dam's electricity production and scar the historic structure itself.

But those fears existed long before Sept. 11, government officials say.

"We've got a major highway that goes over a dam, which could be vulnerable to some kind of terrorist activity," said Scott Magruder, Nevada Department of Transportation spokesman. "That road is the lifeline between Arizona and Nevada.

"The Sept. 11 attacks just amplified the need for a new way across the river."