The full story has yet to be told in the disastrous experiment with the Syn-crete surface laid down on several miles of I-15 in Salt Lake County this fall. But one thing already is clear - Utah taxpayers are going to get it in the neck.
Roads that don't hold up under heavy traffic, bad weather and salt and chains in the winter are nothing new. But to have a spanking new road surface come apart within weeks of being laid down is devastating.Syn-crete, a trade name for a material that was supposed to bond with existing concrete, is a product of a local company, Hodson Chemical Construction Corp.
The material was applied on I-15 between 5900 South and 3300 South at a cost of about $1.3 million. Patching has cost another $200,000 and now the Utah Department of Transportation says the whole thing must be torn up at a cost ranging anywhere from $300,000 to $900,000. And a new road surface must be put down, cost as yet unmentioned.
In addition, the traffic jam on I-15 caused by the original work will be repeated due to the tearing up and restoration of the interstate stretch.
The state is still exploring the question of liability, but Hodson Chemical says the project was clearly experimental and the state assumes the liability. Nothing about liability was spelled out in the contract.
The actual work was done after bid by a contractor. Hodson Chemical claims that Syn-crete did not fail and casts doubt on the procedure used - in other words, how the work was handled by the contractor.
All of this will have to be resolved by lawyers, engineers and negotiators. Meanwhile, some questions need to be raised.
For example, why did UDOT choose to use experimental Syn-crete on such a heavily traveled, crucial freeway link instead of someplace where any problems would cause less of a bottleneck? What was the hurry to use Syn-crete on such a large scale while all the problems clearly had not been ironed out? Why was the issue of liability not spelled out in contracts? There are real issues of accountability here.
Also, why was the experiment much bigger than the project initially recommended by UDOT engineers? And why didn't a couple of top UDOT officials learn about changes in the composition of Syn-crete until it was too late to change their minds about funding the experiment?
Answers to these and other questions are still due. In the meantime, UDOT - already hurting for funds to do all the critically-needed highway work around the state - has watched several million dollars go down the drain.