But the engineers in charge kept quiet. They filed no written report. They didn’t brief their boss. And when they asked federal regulators for money to fix a corrosion problem that “could’’ lead to falling light fixtures, they didn’t disclose that one had already fallen.
Internal e-mails and Transportation Department reports obtained by the Globe show that last winter’s light fixture collapse presented a more hazardous situation than Secretary Jeffrey B. Mullan disclosed to the public, and one that could add $200 million to the already-gargantuan price of the Big Dig.
State records also show that his agency’s attempt to solve the problem was both more secretive and sluggish than he admitted. Engineers, led by Mullan’s close associate Helmut Ernst, didn’t even send the fallen fixture to a lab for analysis until March 16, instead leaving the crucial piece of evidence in a South Boston maintenance facility along with mounds of road debris.
“I have to ask what we have been doing for six weeks. No testing yet?’’ lamented Mullan in an e-mail hours before a March 16 press conference where he belatedly told the public about the light fixture hazard in the tunnels.
Despite these private doubts, Mullan told reporters he and his staff had “spent quite some time’’ investigating the incident and that he was disclosing it after getting “a better idea of exactly what we were dealing with.’’ He said they had deliberately kept the incident quiet to avoid panic while they worked.
Mullan’s story crumbled a few days later when he admitted that he didn’t even know about the light collapse until a month after it happened. As word spread that Mullan’s job might be in jeopardy, Mullan forced someone else out instead. Not Ernst, his former first deputy, but Frank Tramontozzi, who was Ernst’s supervisor while the state highway administrator was on family leave. Mullan concluded that Tramontozzi, not Ernst, was most responsible for leaving him in the dark on an important safety issue.
