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Bridge company being sued over massive 2019 water main break wants case moved

SKY7: Keowee Street Bridge Construction

DAYTON — The Eagle Bridge Co., which is facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit by the city of Dayton accusing them of causing a water main break that caused water issues across the city and Montgomery County last year, wants the case moved out of Montgomery County.

“The City of Dayton is bringing the above action on behalf of the over 400,000 rate paying customers of the Dayton Water Company located within Montgomery County,” Eagle Bridge Co. said in a motion to move the case to a different county. “Any potential jury pool will have a financial vested interest in the outcome of this lawsuit. As a result, Defendant Eagle Bridge Co. cannot have a fair and impartial trial and this matter should be transferred to an adjoining County.”

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The city argues that the bridge company is being “factually incorrect” in its argument to have the case moved.

“While Dayton provides water to over 400,000 citizens in Montgomery County, almost 320,000 of those potential jurors are provided water through a contract between Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio,” the city’s lawyers argue. " The rate that those citizens pay for their water is controlled by Montgomery County and not Dayton. In addition, other political subdivisions provide drinking water to approximately 75,212 citizens in Montgomery County. None of these citizens will be affected regardless of whether Eagle Bridge is held liable. Accordingly, almost 400,000 citizens out of a county of 531,687 have no potential interest in this litigation."

The City of Dayton is asking for at least $2 million in damages in the civil lawsuit against the bridge contractor who was hired to replace the Keowee Street bridge.

The lawsuit alleges that Eagle Bridge Co. was negligent in its construction of the Keowee Street bridge and the surrounding construction work, causing a water main to break and leading to more than 150 million gallons of treated drinking water to dump into the river.

“The system lost water pressure and thousands of customers experienced water outages,” the lawsuit alleges. “Dayton experienced significant emergency costs in personnel, materials and equipment to shut off the water to the Water Main and to increase the water pressure to the rest of the system to restore service to its customers.”

Montgomery County hired Eagle Bridge in 2017.

A June 2019 demand letter from Dayton to Eagle Bridge Co. obtained by Cox Media Group through a public records request. The city at the time estimated a cost in lost water, emergency response, increased utility costs and final repair is likely to exceed $1.5 million.

“As part of its work under the contract, Eagle Bridge Company constructed two channels within the Great Miami River to divert the river during the construction of the new bridge,” says John Musto, Dayton’s chief trial counsel, in the demand letter. “The diversion channels did not include proper downstream provisions to adequately transition both flows and velocities during the normal construction and water conditions.”

“As a result, the two channels that Eagle Bridge Company created caused up to 30 feet of erosion,” Musto says in the letter. “This erosion dislodged and broke the city’s 36-inch water main that was buried in the embankment just 200 feet from the bridge on February 13, 2019.”

“We didn’t do any work on that water line at all,” said Thomas Frantz, Eagle Bridge’s vice president in July 2019. “They have made some allegations. It’s under investigation right now.”

Eagle Bridge Co. is asking for a jury trial in the case and hopes the case will be dismissed without prejudice.


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