Demolition work on the Washington Bridge could resume soon after it was suddenly paused early last week to "preserve evidence."
NBC10 Boston affiliate WJAR reports that Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said Friday the demolition work on the westbound span of the troubled bridge will likely be able to resume in a matter of days not weeks, but there was no immediate word on when that might be.
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It was announced Tuesday that demolition would be halted, just hours before roads were scheduled to close in both Providence and East Providence.
According to the attorney general, pausing demolition to preserve evidence is a routine move from a lawyer's perspective.
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"At the end of the day, this was just a necessary step for the greater public good," he said.
Rhode Island is suing 13 companies, claiming they failed to timely and adequately identify worsening structural issues that ultimately led to the sudden and unexpected closure of the bridge in December.
Gov. Dan McKee tells WJAR that he wasn't aware the demolition work would need to stop until after it had already started.
"The legal team let us know, and we responded on the schedule that they provided to us," McKee said. "That was done and whatever notice was given to the cities is virtually the same notice that that our office had."
According to Neronha, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation should have been aware that evidence collection would need to take place, WJAR reports. Though, he says some evidence wasn't accessible before the demolition began, which is why the evidence preservation didn't take place before that work started.
Although demolition had been getting underway for weeks, Neronha tells WJAR that no evidence has been destroyed, and he does not believe there's a conflict of interest with Aetna Bridge Company -- who is doing the demolition work and is also one of the defendants on the state's lawsuit.
"I think it's something that has to be managed, and it's being managed, meaning I don't believe for a minute that Aetna would destroy evidence," Neronha told WJAR. "I mean, that would have a serious consequence, and they know that."
