Bridge contractor sued by city denies being responsible for massive water outage in 2019

DAYTON — Eagle Bridge Co. denied the allegations in a civil lawsuit filed by the City of Dayton accusing the Sidney-based company of causing a massive water main break in the city last February.

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.

Cox Media Group