MichiganRadio

Bridge Officials Accuse State of Sabotaging Project DEARBORN, MI (Michigan Radio) - An ongoing dispute between the state and the owner of the Ambassador Bridge is intensifying.

The bridge connects Detroit and Windsor. For months, drivers have been making their way around a massive construction project designed to connect the bridge to Detroit's freeways.

The joint project between the state and the Detroit International Bridge Company has been inching toward completion. But bridge officials say the state is holding up progress.

Dan Stamper is the president of the bridge company. He's standing in front of a ramp the state built. It's supposed to connect I-75 to the bridge.

"And instead of opening it, they used it as a landfill," he said, pointing to loads of dirt piled along the quarter-mile stretch of fresh concrete.

"Beginning earlier this month, MDOT has dumped approximately 10,000 tons of construction waste on the West Grand Boulevard ramp, east service drive, which is right behind us," he said.

Stamper says the dumping is deliberate sabotage. He says the state is retaliating against the bridge company for filing a lawsuit against a competing bridge project about a mile downriver.

The Detroit River International Crossing would be a publicly owned bridge. It has the backing of officials in the U.S. and Canada. It would draw cars - and revenues - from the Ambassador Bridge.

"The lawsuit was filed I think on the 14th or 15th of May, and the dirt started showing up on the First of June," Stamper said.

Michigan Department of Transportation Metro Region Engineer Tony Kratofil doesn't deny that the state dumped the dirt, and did it deliberately. But he says it had nothing to do with the lawsuit challenging the publicly owned bridge downriver.

"They're trying to draw a lot of relationships between the Gateway Project and the DRIC project. In our mind, they're separate projects, and separate issues," he said.

The Gateway Project will connect the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit's freeways.

The design was approved by the state and federal governments. But Kratofil says the bridge company has made unilateral and illegal changes to the design. Among other problems, Kratofil says the company took a public street and made it part of its plaza.

"And because they have this track record of just taking this public property, and private property without anybody's permission or consent, when it came time to store some construction materials, we decided to put it in that area of the service drive, really to protect the public interest," Kratofil said. "We didn't want them to take the service drive and incorporate it into their plaza like they did with 23rd Street."

And at least some of the bridge's neighbors say they believe the bully here is the bridge company - not the state.

"Their tactics are guerilla tactics," said Deb Sumner, who lives just a couple of blocks away.

"The bridge company closes roads, streets, without permission," she said. "They go ahead and they block businesses, existing businesses that haven't sold out to them."

Sumner says she wants the heavy trucks that rumble through her neighborhood off the surface streets.

That's what the Gateway Project is supposed to accomplish.

But for now, the dirt piles are a visible symbol of a standoff between a powerful company and a frustrated government.

Contact Sarah Hulett at sarahhu@umich.edu © Copyright 2012, Michigan Radio