TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - Testing will begin in coming weeks on the Veteran's Glass City Skyway Bridge, after the Ohio Department of Transportation learned it may have used grout with high levels of chloride, or salt, when building the bridge.
High chloride levels could accelerate corrosion inside the bridge, although an ODOT spokesperson said there is no immediate or short-term impact on safety.
Mike Gramza, with the Ohio Department of Transportation, said they were notified in November by the Federal Highway Administration and Sika, the company that supplied the grout, that there may be high chloride levels in the product.
A spokesperson for Sika said they learned, after construction, that the grout may have contained the high chloride levels.
The grout came from a Marion, Ohio facility. According to Sika, production of that grout has since been suspended at that facility.
It is unknown if ODOT used grout from one of the high chloride batches.
"We know we used the grout from the company, we don't know if that grout has an issue or not," said Gramza.
The grout was used inside the bridge deck, just below the road surface.
"The grout is protecting the strands in the bridge that pull the bridge together, the strength of the bridge. The grout protects that from corrosion," said Gramza.
ODOT said as many as 10 bridges in Ohio may have used the high chloride-level grout, including the Veteran's Glass City Skyway and the Maumee River bridge in Napoleon. Gramza said if the grout came from the affected batches, it could potentially impact the life span of the bridge.
"Longer-term maintenance issues could come up- and that would be our only thing that we would want to get corrected right now, if needed," said Gramza.
Sika is developing a plan to test the grout inside the Veteran's Glass City Skyway this spring. Gramza said ODOT will assist in that testing, and also take its own samples to be tested independently. The bridge will stay open to traffic during the testing.
Gramza said because ODOT does not know the scope of the issue, if any, it is too early to know of a solution.
"It's premature at this point. We need to find out if there is an issue at all, and we'll evaluate what to do from there," said Gramza.
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