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I would not be surprised if pigeon poop caused corrosion.  Even the spiders might have contributed some detriment with their digestive products.  And there would be other types of birds as well, no doubt.  Speaking of guano, the bridge was also probably home to a large numbers of bats.  I can attest to the fact that bat urine will take solid color stain finish right off of a house.  I would assume that the inspectors were not only prevented from seeing the steel because of all this icky stuff, but they also probably felt that it was unfair that they should have to be exposed to it.   It has also been suggested that a de-icing system installed a few years ago that might have caused chemical corrosion.  And of course road salt has been implicated as a cause of corrosion.  But even though all of this could have been part of the cause, it was the responsibility of the inspection authority to learn the factors leading to a collapse and prevent it.  The one good thing about corrosion is that it gives you time to catch it.  So it all comes down to this question:  Why is the public being offered these explanations for a possible cause?There are two possible answers:1)        Inspection authorities are demonstrating diligence in probing the cause, making an honest effort to satisfy the public's need to know with as much information as possible.2)        Inspection authorities are making a smokescreen to obscure the fact that they failed to perform their job. If number two being the correct answer is not obvious, it can be arrived at by eliminating answer number one.  These inspection authorities are always telling us that they cannot speculate about a cause.  They must let their investigation run its course, and it might take a year or more.  The new bridge might be up and running before we ever find out why the old one fell down.  Moreover, since they are performing a formal investigation, there is no need for them to speculate.  In fact, if they did speculate, it might cloud their objectivity with pre-conceived ideas, and thus flaw their investigation.  So cognizant are they of the harm of speculation that they even warn the public to not speculate.And yet, despite all of this stern admonishment against speculation, they are publicly rolling out theories about the role of pigeons, spiders, road salt, and de-icing chemicals.  It ought to be pretty obvious that, in the case of this investigation, the need to shield themselves from blame is far greater than the need to learn the cause.   ~~~
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