Dive Brief:

• The New York State Thruway Authority, which owns the current Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River and is the client for the multibillion-dollar construction of a new one, says its contractor may lose as much as $1 million a month over the latest incident of a supply barge drifting off downriver.
• A barge loaded with pilings for the new bridge came unmoored Sunday and got about three miles before a tugboat caught it, and that was the third incident of barges coming untied and the fourth vessel involved.
• The Thruway Authority said it could cost Tappen Zee Contractors, a consortium, $1 million a month in withheld progress payments, though the authority did not say for how many months or what the actual penalty will be.

Dive Insight:

The authority is touchy about the loose barges because they raise public concern about damage they could do in downstream collisions, though that has not happened yet. There was a fatal accident involving a barge at the construction site, but a boat hit a barge that was where it was supposed to be that time. Nonetheless, the authority wants public buy-in for some design decisions, and it does not need the barges taking that support with them when they come untied.