September 7, 2012 – Fort Kent, Maine-Authorities say differences between GPS systems in the U.S. and Canada were behind the international bridge construction error this summer that severed a wastewater discharge pipe.
A spokeswoman for the New Brunswick Department of Transportation tells the Bangor Daily News () the GPS coordinate system upon which surveys typically are based is different in the U.S. than in Canada.
She says the problem was not, as has been speculated, a failure to convert metric and standard measurements.
Workers on the bridge connecting Fort Kent and Clair, New Brunswick, were installing a large metal wall in July when a pipe carrying treated effluent from the Fort Kent wastewater treatment plant to the river was severed.
The error had no environmental effects.
The cost of the $13.9 million project is being shared.