The late engineer Riccardo Morandi in 1979 warned about the corrosive effects of the sea air and industrial pollution on the bridge that bears his name in Genoa, Italy; that span collapsed last week, killing at least 43 people.

RAI state television unearthed the report Mr. Morandi wrote in 1979, a dozen years after Italy opened the Ponte Morandi bridge crossing an industrial valley in the city in Italy's northwest.  It's part of a heavily-traveled highway connecting the south of France with "the boot".

Morandi defended his reinforced concrete bridge design which he used in similar bridges all over the world.  But he was worried about a "well-known loss of superficial chemical resistance of the concrete" because of sea air and pollution from a nearby steel plant.  This combination appeared to cause degradation that was unique to the bridge in Genoa; his similar designs used in Europe, South America, and South Africa had no such problems.

"Sooner or later, maybe in a few years, it will be necessary to resort to a treatment consisting of the removal of all traces of rust on the exposure of the reinforcements, to fill in the patches," Morandi wrote, recommending an epoxy resin to cover the reinforcements with materials "of a very high chemical resistance".

Riccardo Morandi died in 1989.

Leap forward to this century, and Italian officials were concerned about the advanced corrosion underway on the key bridge support that gave way.  The news magazine "Espresso" reported that the head of the government team investigating the bridge collapse attended a meeting in February to discuss bridge safety.  Roberto Ferrazza signed off on the final notes that recommended that the supports be reinforced given the "trend of degradation".  Italian media reported that companies were already bidding on a 20 Million Euro contract to perform that work.