Bo's Bridge firm says it was focus of inquiry

A vice president with Figg Bridge Engineers says she was unaware of the federal investigation until earlier this month.

By CRAIG PITTMAN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 26, 2001

One of the state's most prominent engineering firms has acknowledged that it was the subject of federal investigation into illegal dumping at a controversial Panhandle toll bridge that it designed.

Figg Bridge Engineers was never charged in the case, and officials of the award-winning company, which also designed the Sunshine Skyway bridge over Tampa Bay and the Seven Mile Bridge in the Keys, have long insisted they were never investigated.

Figg even filed a slander suit last year against four men who opposed another Figg project on Florida's East Coast because they said Figg was under criminal investigation in the Panhandle case.

Now Figg has dropped its lawsuit. Robert Rivas, the attorney for the men Figg sued, said Monday that he and his clients were "on cloud nine, man."

Charles Grande, Edward McKay, Roger Sharp and Kevin Stinnette had criticized hiring Figg to design a toll bridge between Port St. Lucie and Hutchinson Island because, they said, the company was part of a probe into illegal dumping at the Garcon Point Bridge near Pensacola.

The Garcon Point Bridge -- nicknamed "Bo's Bridge" because it was pushed by former House Speaker Bolley "Bo" Johnson, D-Milton, who later went to prison on unrelated tax evasion charges -- was designed by Figg and built in world record time by Odebrecht-Metric in 1999.

But state and federal investigators discovered that Odebrecht-Metric was dumping construction waste into eastern Pensacola Bay rather than disposing of it properly. Last year Odebrecht-Metric and three supervisors pleaded guilty to violating the federal Clean Water Act. The company paid $4-million in fines and restitution, and the supervisors paid $1,000 fines and were put on probation.

Construction workers said Figg's inspectors witnessed the dumping but did nothing. One Figg employee told investigators he did witness the dumping but his boss told him not to worry about it.

In its slander suit, the company contended it was never investigated in the dumping because "we had been told all along that we were not being pursued," company vice president Linda Figg said Monday. But this month a U.S. Justice Department official told Figg the company was a subject of the criminal investigation as early as April 1999.

The company revealed the Justice Department letter in legal papers filed last week, dropping its lawsuit. Linda Figg said company officials were surprised by the letter, which she said gave no further details about the investigation.

The Hutchinson Island bridge is now in limbo because state Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, yanked a $20-million appropriation he had arranged to go to the the project. Figg is now searching for another source of funding.

Pruitt took that step after Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed a $1.4-million state bailout of the Garcon Point Bridge, which has failed to draw enough traffic to pay expenses.

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