Study of State Bridges Shows 2,125 Deficient Bridges

Despite large number of structurally deficient bridges, state officials say not to worry; also, Texas energy companies acquire out-of-state and international energy companies.

Four Percent of Texas Bridges Deemed ‘Structurally Deficient’

A rendering of the Crossroads Trade Center business park in DeSoto.

A Texas Department of Transportation report published in September 2006 identified 2,125 Texas bridges as “structurally deficient.” The most recent figures, released in August, show that the number is down to 2024, about 4% of the state’s approximately 50,000 bridges.

Randy Cox, state bridge engineer for TxDOT, says that although the state “has a limited budget, safety is a priority to TxDOT.” Problem bridges are shut down or given weight restrictions. “We would load restrict to a safe-operating load, and if it reached the point where it would no longer sustain minimum safe load, we could close the bridge,” Cox says. Cox adds: “We rely heavily on a thorough bridge-inspection program that insures the safety of our bridges.”

TxDOT spokesperson Mark Cross also says Texas bridges are safe and that there is no reason for Texans to worry about a repeat of the collapse in Minneapolis.

But according to a 2006 audit by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Texas failed to post maximum weight limit signs on some decaying bridges and calculations of how much weight certain bridges could carry was unclear. TxDOT says the audit was based on a small sample of information gathered more than five years ago. TxDOT has set a goal, meanwhile, to have 80 percent of state bridges in good or better condition by 2011.

While Texas transportation officials continue to insist that bridges in Texas are safe, as a precaution, TxDOT’s Bridge Division recently began inspecting bridges similar in construction to the Minnesota bridge—steel-deck truss bridges that carry vehicular traffic. Texas has 16 such bridges across the state.

TxDOT inspects every bridge on a public road at least once every two years and those with critical issues are checked more frequently, Cross says. At least every five years, divers inspect foundations and columns below water.

While Texas has never had a public bridge collapse due to a structural defect, the state has had its bridge disasters. In 2001, the Queen Isabella Causeway, which leads from the Texas mainland to South Padre Island, was damaged after a towboat captain lost control of a string of barges and currents drove them into a bridge support. Eight people died when their vehicles plummeted 85 ft into the channel.

Even before the bridge collapse in Minnesota, bridge safety been addressed recently as heavy rainfall this summer has brought many lakes and river levels to flood stages. Bridge experts from the Texas Transportation Institute, a research center at Texas A&M University in College Station, with funding from TxDOT, have put some 600 bridges on a “scour-critical list,” which identifies bridges that could be as risk for failure due to erosion.

"In terms of causes of bridge failures, historically scour, or soil erosion around bridge pilings, accounts for about 60 percent of collapses,” says Jean-Louis Briaud, manager of TII’s Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Program. “A distant second involves ship collisions at 12 percent,"

He adds that the TII is developing a methodology that will be more accurate in predicting erosion around bridge pilings. The new method of scour prediction could result in the removal of some of the bridges currently on the scour-critical list. Research will begin in September to measure erosion by placing monitors at some of the most critical bridge locations.

Briaud says that no matter how a bridge is constructed, “obtaining a zero-percent risk of failure is not possible. There are simply too many variables. But with research, we can more accurately determine those bridges that are indeed at the greatest risk.”

A list of the state’s structurally deficient bridges is available by logging onto txdot.gov.

Rio Vista Energy Partners Absorb Virginian Co., Three Others

Houston-based Rio Vista Energy Partners LP completed the acquisition of Virginia-based Regional Enterprises, Inc. for $9 million.

Regional Enterprises is principally engaged in liquid bulk storage, railcar transloading and transportation of bulk liquids, including chemical and petroleum products.

Rio Vista also entered into letters of intent to acquire assets and/or stock including certain leasehold interests of oil and gas producing properties and associated pipeline gathering systems from three privately held companies based in East Central Oklahoma. The historical estimated monthly revenues before allocation of interests were approximately $500,000 plus pipeline income.

Suez Energy Acquires Canadian Wind Power Co.

Houston-based Suez Energy North America affiliate has signed an agreement to acquire the Canadian wind power development company Ventus Energy Inc. The transaction will involve the purchase of 100 percent of the shares of Ventus for $124 million in Canadian cash. This marks the first entry of SUEZ into the North American wind energy market.

Incorporated in 2003, Ventus’ portfolio includes 25 wind energy development projects in six provinces in eastern Canada, including Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The portfolio is believed to be one of the largest portfolios of potential wind energy projects in Canada.

The Ventus portfolio includes close to 2,000 MW of electricity generation in various stages of development. The company has secured land rights to more than 17 million acres of land for construction of its projects. Ventus has 29 MW commissioned and operating at its Norway Wind Park and West Cape Wind Energy Inc. facilities in Prince Edward Island. The wind developer also has another 80 MW under construction and has received a further 99 MW of Power Purchase Agreements under the Ontario Standard Offer Contract program with the Ontario Power Authority, which will commence construction soon.

Fluor Selected for Eastman Chemical Contract

Irving-based Fluor Corp. was selected by Eastman Chemical Co. of Kingsville, Tenn., to provide front-end engineering and design (FEED) work for a $1.6 billion gasification project along the Texas Gulf Coast. The initial FEED scope has a contract value of $12 million and was booked during the second quarter.

Eastman Chemical will be the developer, operator, co-investor and customer of the project, which primarily will use petroleum coke instead of natural gas to produce industrial chemicals used in a variety of consumer-end products.

The facility will be located in Beaumont and is projected to be online in 2011. It will produce low-cost intermediate chemicals, including methanol, hydrogen and ammonia.

Half-Million Sq Ft Business Park Nears Completion

With a targeted completion by the end of this year, Dallas-based Hillwood nears the fruition of the construction of a 550,600-sq-ft speculative building at its 113-acre Crossroads Trade Center business park in DeSoto.

Located on the west side of Interstate 35E just south of Interstate 20, the 113-acre development will house three buildings totaling 1.9 million sq ft. Infrastructure construction and preparation for all three pad sites were completed late last year.

With its location at the crossroads of IH-20 and IH-35, the site has east-west, north-south freeway access. The first phase of the speculative building is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.