Again, new pavement goes bad

A federal report says fixing failing asphalt on the state's newest interstate, I-795, will cost up to $22 million

A new federal report calls on the state Department of Transportation to make extensive repairs to crumbling asphalt on Interstate 795 between Wilson and Goldsboro, at a cost that could reach $22 million.

It's the second time the outgoing Easley administration has been hit with an embarrassing bill for bad pavement on an interstate highway.

The Federal Highway Administration says the DOT should replace failing asphalt and add a thicker layer of pavement the length of the 18-mile freeway. Poor-quality asphalt is blamed for cracks, ruts and potholes that appeared on I-795 in 2007, just 16 months after traffic started rolling on the state's newest interstate. The pavement was supposed to be good for 15 years.

A 68-page administration report released Thursday cites "high air voids" -- air pockets that allowed the pavement to crumble into itself -- and separation between pavement layers that are supposed to be bonded together. The DOT should review its system for assuring pavement quality, the report says.

Fixing I-795 could prove just as costly as the state's bungled concrete paving job on I-40 in Durham County. The DOT spent $22.4 million in 2007 to replace four lanes of crumbling pavement on a 10-mile stretch of I-40.

It wasn't clear Thursday whether the state will make all the recommended I-795 repairs, who will be blamed for the damage, what the final cost will be or who will pay the tab. People scheduled to take charge of the DOT next week will make some of those decisions.

Lyndo Tippett, the outgoing transportation secretary, appointed eight years ago by Gov. Mike Easley, received the federal report Monday. Gene Conti, tapped by Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue to succeed Tippett, said he would consider the I-795 recommendations after he takes over as transportation secretary Monday.

Jon Nance, the DOT's chief operations engineer, said DOT officials have not had time to study the report or to discuss it with federal officials and the contractor that built I-795, Wilson-based S.T. Wooten Corp.

"We're going to need to decide what's happened and decide what we need to do and when we need to do it," Nance said.

"There's no danger of having 18 miles of pavement fall apart overnight," he added. "It would not be prudent to go out and take up 18 miles of pavement and put back 18 miles of pavement."

Not enough asphalt?

When state officials were designing I-795 in 2003, local DOT engineers in Wilson warned that the pavement -- 5.2 inches of asphalt -- would be too thin and too weak to support cars and trucks. Many interstate highways have as much as 15 inches of pavement.

Wendi O. Johnson, who oversees DOT construction in the Wilson area, pleaded for an extra 3 inches of asphalt, which the DOT said would have added $2.8 million to the project's $196 million price tag. She declined to comment Thursday.

Jim Trogdon was Johnson's boss until 2005 and will return to the DOT next week as Conti's deputy. Last year he said that DOT officials should have accepted Johnson's recommendation and that the I-795 pavement failure was "preventable, absolutely."

Although the federal report calls for adding enough asphalt to make the pavement about 8 inches thick, it says I-795 was designed properly.

"The design thickness used in 2005 met NCDOT and industry pavement standards and should have performed to expectations," the FHWA report said.

Traffic counts on the four-lane freeway have been light -- only 8,600 cars and trucks a day, less than a third as many as on a nearby stretch of I-95. But some overweight trucks have been detected.