$6M settlement reached in Big Dig death

BOSTON - After weeks of negotiations, the family of a woman killed when a Big Dig highway tunnel collapsed on her car has reached a $6 million settlement with the epoxy supplier blamed for the accident, family representatives and company officials said.

Powers Fasteners Inc. agreed to settle a lawsuit filed last year by Milena Del Valle's family, attorney Raipher Pellegrino, who represented her widower, announced Monday night.

Del Valle, 39, was crushed on July 10, 2006, when 26 tons of concrete ceiling panels came crashing down as she and her husband drove through a tunnel. Her husband, Angel Del Valle, suffered minor injuries.

Investigators determined that the ceiling collapsed because workers secured it with a fast-drying epoxy that was not safe to use for overhead loads.

"We are grateful that the Powers family company has done the right thing," the Del Valle family said in a statement. "We hope that (project manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff) and the other companies now show the same strength of character."

The Brewster, N.Y.-based Powers Fasteners is one of 15 Big Dig contractors and agencies sued by Del Valle's family, though it is the only one to face criminal charges in the collapse. The company was indicted in August on a manslaughter charge.

Powers Fasteners officials in Boston and New York did not immediately return after-hours phone calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.

In a statement to The Boston Globe, company president Jeffrey Powers denied responsibility for Del Valle's death but said Powers Fasteners hoped the settlement would "allow the healing process to begin."

"We also hope that this will lead others who, unlike Powers, truly were responsible for the accident, to do the same," the statement said.

Prosecutors accuse Powers Fasteners of failing to warn Big Dig contractors that its fast-drying epoxy glue was unsafe to use to suspend heavy ceiling panels and had a tendency to slowly pull away over time. Company officials insist they informed engineers overseeing the project that the fast-set epoxy was intended only for "short term loading." The company said it filled an order for its Standard Set epoxy for use in the ceiling and never knew that its Fast Set epoxy was used.

The wrongful death lawsuit claims tunnel contractors, subcontractors and others involved in the project were "negligent, grossly negligent and/or reckless in selecting and installing more than 1,500 unsafe and defective bolts in the tunnel project."

Del Valle's death led to tunnel and road closures and caused a public furor over the Big Dig project, which has been plagued by leaks, falling debris, delays and other problems linked to faulty construction.

The Big Dig, the most expensive highway project in U.S. history, buried the old elevated Central Artery with a series of tunnels, ramps and bridges.