Your Federal Tax Money at Work

Should I send the thank you note to Ted Kennedy or John Kerry? Take a look at the latest from the Big Dig...

The Big Dig — Boston's newly opened $14.6 billion highway tunnel project — has a seriously flawed wall that contractors knew about as early as 1999, and is riddled with hundreds of smaller leaks, consultants reported in another embarrassment for the builders and the city.

Repairing the wall alone could take months and will probably require the closing of some traffic lanes overnight, officials said Wednesday. They had no immediate estimate of how much the repairs might cost.

The problems were identified by a team of outside engineers hired by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority to investigate a major breach that caused a flood in September.

Turnpike Authority Chairman Matthew Amorello said that the tunnels remain structurally sound, a certain amount of leakage is inevitable, and the drainage system is keeping water off the roadways.

"There is no public safety issue," he said.

Nevertheless, it was more bad news for the Big Dig, the last major leg of which opened less than a year ago. The project — the most expensive highway project in U.S. history — was five years late and billions of dollars over cost, and has been plagued by allegations of fraud, waste and mismanagement.

The most stunning thing in the article was that the Big Dig was only five years late.