Bill Shea reports in Crain's Detroit Business:
"The owner of the Ambassador Bridge has filed a federal lawsuit in Detroit against the Federal Highway Administration seeking to prevent public disclosure of a 2007 safety and condition inspection report of the span, saying the report’s public release jeopardizes national security and violates a confidentiality agreement.
The Detroit International Bridge Co. said releasing the inspection report, which follows the federal National Bridge Inspection Standards set forth by the highway administration, also violates the federal Critical Infrastructures Protection Act of 2001.
The lawsuit, which seeks to prevent the report’s release, was filed Friday on behalf of the bridge company by Farmington Hills-based Nedelman Gloetzner PLLC.
“DIBC was advised by counsel for the Federal Highway Administration on September 25, 2009, that the Federal Highway Administration intends to publicly disclose the 2007 Inspection Report, despite the threat to national security by the threatened disclosure,” the suit says.
James Steele, FHA’s Michigan division administrator who is also named in the lawsuit, said his office was going to release the report because of a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request. He declined to say who the FOIA request was from, and deferred all comment to the agency’s Washington D.C. headquarters. FHA policy is not to comment on litigation.
The FOIA requested was made by Congressman John Dingell, said Mickey Blashfield, the bridge company’s director of governmental relations. The bridge company has offered to let Dingell see the report himself, but doesn’t want it released beyond officials."
I hope to read that report. I have been very concerned about what appears to be another "demolition by neglect" campaign by the DIBC. I have not observed any rust abatement in several years. The guardrails are rusted through in many places. You can see the river through some of the pavement cracks. But the DIBC doesn't want the public to know. I wonder if the bridge collapsed or was put out of service for awhile, if the DIBC would care. they might just, lickety-split, throw up the new Bridge.
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