The Golden Crossing General Partnership, operator of the Golden Ears Bridge, is suing CHM2 Hill Canada Ltd. and Bilfinger Berger (Canada) Inc., claiming the contractors responsible for designing and building the span have wrongfully refused to fix defects in the bridge’s vibration dampers.
Golden Crossing GP filed a notice of civil claim in BC Supreme Court on April 10. Golden Crossing claims the defendants, together as design-builder of the project, are responsible for rectifying defects as part of their original agreement dating back to February 2006.
The bridge, according to the lawsuit, uses cable stays with a system of 48 dampers to absorb vibrations, which were supplied by a subcontractor called Freyssinet, though the company is not named as a defendant.
After the bridge was finished, the lawsuit says, Golden Crossing “noticed leakage from the dampers and reported this leakage” to the defendants, but a 2012 report by the supplier “indicated there were no defects in the damper assemblies and that material identified was grease residue from installation,” the claim states. Four years later, another report by Freyssinet concluded there was no oil leakage, but Golden Crossing later had a third-party team of engineers test samples from the leaking dampers. The team, according to the claim, found that hydraulic oil had been leaking from the damper assembly bladders on some of the bridge’s stay cables.
However, the defendants responded to the findings by “denying the existence of a defect relating to the leakage, which they continue to assert is residual grease from installation, and denying any responsibility in connection with the matter.”
In October 2017, another third-party expert tested 15 of the bridge’s 48 dampers, finding two “did not comply with specifications and concluded that this could be the result of a loss of damper fluid or a non-sufficient amount of damping fluid in the damper assembly. This new information confirmed the existence of a defect.”
Meanwhile, non-party Freyssinet and the defendants “have continued to deny the existence of a Defect or to take any responsibility for rectifying the matter,” the claim states.
Golden Crossing seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract and negligence. The allegations have not been tested or proven in court and neither of the defendants had filed a response by press time.
