Dive Brief:

• A California legislative committee is carrying on an investigation into the building of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge — even though engineers found a solution to a problem with concrete tensioning rods and the bridge is carrying vehicles.
• Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, who chairs the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, is running the hearings, which have heard from California Department of Transportation workers claiming criticism was blunted or critics were moved to other projects.
• One issue has been whether the bridge is seismically sound. Transportation Department Director Malcolm Dougherty says it is, but some academic critics say it is not. 

Dive Insight:

The Bay Bridge garnered plenty of bad publicity when it turned out that 32 tensioning rods were corroded and broken. The problem was traced to hydrogen contamination of the steel, and one witness told a hearing session that hydrogen is "like kryptonite to Superman" for the steel chosen for the rods.