Citing national security concerns, the Virginia Department of Transportation said Friday it will no longer release bridge inspection reports.

VDOT public information officers had openly shared reports about most Virginia bridges after the Minneapolis bridge collapse Aug. 1. Until the restriction, which began early last week, reporters and the public were allowed to view the reports, which include pictures and engineering notes, at VDOT's area headquarters. And VDOT sent them out by fax or e-mail to newsrooms on request. The only exceptions were reports on certain critical bridges.

Those releases were considered proper at the time, but the state has now reversed course after federal intervention -- not in response to a particular incident but just out of caution.

"We received a Homeland Security alert questioning [the] release of bridge data," said Malcolm Kerley, VDOT's chief engineer.

The reports, which are updated at least annually, are technical descriptions of bridges and traffic-carrying culverts, which number about 20,000 in Virginia. The analyses detail the structural integrity, damage from vehicles and other factors used to schedule repair and replacement.

But, in the wrong hands, the reports could provide specifics useful to someone planning to damage or destroy a bridge, officials said. Those details include the weakest or most vulnerable parts of a particular structure, VDOT spokesman Jeff Caldwell said.

Jim Reed, transportation program director at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said bridge inspection reports are generally public documents across the United States. Virginia's new restriction is "a new development I hadn't heard about," Reed said.

But Maryland Department of Transportation spokeswoman Kellie Boulware said that state has long restricted access, choosing to release summaries of bridge data but not inspection documents.

"We've never given them out in full," Boulware said

As it put the reports off-limits, VDOT posted condition ratings -- which don't include in-depth information -- for each Virginia bridge and culvert on its Web site. Kerley said what is not available is material that "would not be what I believe the general public would be concerned about."

The data can be found at www.vdot.virginia.gov/info/bridge_lists.asp.

Maria Everett, who directs the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, said there are arguments for and against the state's position. Virginia law protects anti-terrorism plans from public disclosure. On the pro-disclosure side, there's an argument that it's unreasonable to withhold bridge inspections on the basis as the state has done, because inspections are conducted for general public safety, not primarily as anti-terrorism initiatives. That said, bridge inspections do expose infrastructure vulnerabilities and government officials have the right to withhold vulnerability assessments from disclosure, Everett said. "Maybe the law is not precise enough," she said.

However, as a practical matter, buy-in from the office of the Virginia attorney general, which VDOT said it has, could "bulletproof" the new restriction from challenges that might be raised, she said.

The reports will still be available to bridge contractors and others who need them for the performance of their duties.