KevinFromTexas
Jul 28, 2008, 7:46 AM
From the Austin American-Statesman
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/07/28/0728crane.html
CONSTRUCTION SAFETY
Does Austin need rules for cranes?
Council member concerned by recent fatal construction accidents in Houston and other cities.
By Mark Lisheron
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, July 28, 2008
Motivated by crane collapses that have killed more than a dozen workers nationally over the past five months, Austin City Council Member Mike Martinez is asking that Austin assume some oversight in a city in which cranes are part of the skyline.
The city ought to at least have an inventory of cranes operating in the city and know that each has met its federal inspection requirements, Martinez said, though he otherwise isn't sure how much regulatory authority the city should have. Right now, the city plays no role in monitoring cranes.
Martinez said he intends to ask the council at its Aug. 7 meeting to pass a resolution calling on city staff to draft an ordinance that would allow the city at least to require crane inspections and halt crane operation on a construction site if inspections were not up to date. The inspections, he said, would not be done by the city.
"I certainly don't think we're in a situation of panic or worry at this point here in Austin, but I'm worried enough about it to want to know more about what the industry is doing with crane safety and regulation," Martinez said.
Local crane operators are not convinced that an additional overlay of regulation will make the public or the operators safer.
Austin and the state of Texas continue to foster robust construction. On any given day in Austin as many as two dozen of the tower cranes, some of them extending 10 stories into the air, move millions of pounds of construction materials.
Martinez said he began considering some sort of ordinance after a 19-story crane broke away from a construction tower and killed seven people, including the crane operator, on March 15 in New York.
Since then, crane accidents have been responsible for deaths in Miami, Las Vegas and again in New York on May 30. Four workers died on July 18 in Houston when one of the largest mobile cranes in the world fell. An 80-year-old man watching construction died when a crane crushed his car Thursday in Oklahoma City.
There has been no loss of life in Austin because of crane operation in at least 30 years, local operators said. A mobile crane four stories high fell Oct. 11 at an apartment building under construction at Ninth and Red River Streets, but no one was hurt.
Relying on random inspections
The National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators, a nonprofit group in Fairfax, Va., has used this series of high-profile collapses to intensify pressure on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to improve the industry's safety and training standards, which have not been modified since 1971. National groups representing tower crane operators and equipment manufacturers have joined in calling for more training and higher standards in crane operation.
Among the OSHA requirements are annual inspections by a private or government inspector approved by the U.S. Department of Labor and inspections by a qualified employee before each use of the crane.
OSHA's enforcement is done through random inspections of cranes in operation. Last year OSHA did about 23,000 random inspections, but the national nonprofit commission has said that is an unacceptable sampling on the estimated 4 million construction sites that are active at any given time in America, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.
State and city governments largely leave the job of regulation to OSHA. Texas is one of 35 states with no crane regulation. Should Austin pass an ordinance, it would join only six other U.S. cities — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Omaha, Neb., — that have separate inspection requirements, according to the nonprofit commission.
In spite of the recent crane collapses, the number of fatalities involving cranes has been relatively steady: about 82 deaths a year nationally, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, gathered for the decade 1997-2006. The number of fatalities dropped from 87 in 2004 to 72 in 2006.
Seven people died in crane accidents last year in Texas, according to CraneAccidents.com, which collects national industrial accident data. So far this year, eight have died in the state, the Web site reported.
New York's most recent crane collapses have come in spite of city and state inspection and licensing. In the most deadly of the collapses, investigators found that a city inspector falsified a document and that he hadn't done an inspection he was paid to do.
Can city improve safety?
In Austin, construction companies must indicate in paperwork they're required to file with the city whether they plan to use cranes. But the contractor is not required to outline the length of the use or where on the construction site the crane will be placed.
No city permits are required to operate cranes, although the Texas Department of Transportation requires permitting to transport the larger, heavier cranes on state roads.
Local crane operators and contractors are skeptical that a local ordinance, particularly one that does not require some specialized training for city employees, would improve upon what OSHA already does. Phil Thoden, president of the Austin chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, drafted a letter to Martinez, with copies sent to the City Council and Mayor Will Wynn, asking that they familiarize themselves with current federal requirements and seek input from people in the business of operating cranes.
Martinez, who did not speak to Thoden about his proposal, has acknowledged that his knowledge of the industry at this point is limited.
"Given the oversight that OSHA currently exercises over construction crane safety, we are not inclined to support a duplicative role by the city," Thoden wrote.
The current OSHA system requiring annual inspections works because it places responsibility and liability on the crane company, Mike Green, president of Crocker Crane Rentals in Austin, said.
Green, whose company operates 21 cranes (none of them the type that currently tower over Austin) and employs 18 people, has his cranes inspected annually by an independent inspector. His crane operators fill out a safety checklist daily, he said.
He wonders whether the City of Austin intends to assume liability by getting involved in the inspection process.
"I do my inspections not because the federal government or some local entity tells me to, but so I can sleep at night," Green said. "If I am sued for an accident, I lose everything I've worked for all my life. I live safety day and night. Who has more on the line: me or the city?"
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/07/28/0728crane.html
CONSTRUCTION SAFETY
Does Austin need rules for cranes?
Council member concerned by recent fatal construction accidents in Houston and other cities.
By Mark Lisheron
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, July 28, 2008
Motivated by crane collapses that have killed more than a dozen workers nationally over the past five months, Austin City Council Member Mike Martinez is asking that Austin assume some oversight in a city in which cranes are part of the skyline.
The city ought to at least have an inventory of cranes operating in the city and know that each has met its federal inspection requirements, Martinez said, though he otherwise isn't sure how much regulatory authority the city should have. Right now, the city plays no role in monitoring cranes.
Martinez said he intends to ask the council at its Aug. 7 meeting to pass a resolution calling on city staff to draft an ordinance that would allow the city at least to require crane inspections and halt crane operation on a construction site if inspections were not up to date. The inspections, he said, would not be done by the city.
"I certainly don't think we're in a situation of panic or worry at this point here in Austin, but I'm worried enough about it to want to know more about what the industry is doing with crane safety and regulation," Martinez said.
Local crane operators are not convinced that an additional overlay of regulation will make the public or the operators safer.
Austin and the state of Texas continue to foster robust construction. On any given day in Austin as many as two dozen of the tower cranes, some of them extending 10 stories into the air, move millions of pounds of construction materials.
Martinez said he began considering some sort of ordinance after a 19-story crane broke away from a construction tower and killed seven people, including the crane operator, on March 15 in New York.
Since then, crane accidents have been responsible for deaths in Miami, Las Vegas and again in New York on May 30. Four workers died on July 18 in Houston when one of the largest mobile cranes in the world fell. An 80-year-old man watching construction died when a crane crushed his car Thursday in Oklahoma City.
There has been no loss of life in Austin because of crane operation in at least 30 years, local operators said. A mobile crane four stories high fell Oct. 11 at an apartment building under construction at Ninth and Red River Streets, but no one was hurt.
Relying on random inspections
The National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators, a nonprofit group in Fairfax, Va., has used this series of high-profile collapses to intensify pressure on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to improve the industry's safety and training standards, which have not been modified since 1971. National groups representing tower crane operators and equipment manufacturers have joined in calling for more training and higher standards in crane operation.
Among the OSHA requirements are annual inspections by a private or government inspector approved by the U.S. Department of Labor and inspections by a qualified employee before each use of the crane.
OSHA's enforcement is done through random inspections of cranes in operation. Last year OSHA did about 23,000 random inspections, but the national nonprofit commission has said that is an unacceptable sampling on the estimated 4 million construction sites that are active at any given time in America, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.
State and city governments largely leave the job of regulation to OSHA. Texas is one of 35 states with no crane regulation. Should Austin pass an ordinance, it would join only six other U.S. cities — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Omaha, Neb., — that have separate inspection requirements, according to the nonprofit commission.
In spite of the recent crane collapses, the number of fatalities involving cranes has been relatively steady: about 82 deaths a year nationally, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, gathered for the decade 1997-2006. The number of fatalities dropped from 87 in 2004 to 72 in 2006.
Seven people died in crane accidents last year in Texas, according to CraneAccidents.com, which collects national industrial accident data. So far this year, eight have died in the state, the Web site reported.
New York's most recent crane collapses have come in spite of city and state inspection and licensing. In the most deadly of the collapses, investigators found that a city inspector falsified a document and that he hadn't done an inspection he was paid to do.
Can city improve safety?
In Austin, construction companies must indicate in paperwork they're required to file with the city whether they plan to use cranes. But the contractor is not required to outline the length of the use or where on the construction site the crane will be placed.
No city permits are required to operate cranes, although the Texas Department of Transportation requires permitting to transport the larger, heavier cranes on state roads.
Local crane operators and contractors are skeptical that a local ordinance, particularly one that does not require some specialized training for city employees, would improve upon what OSHA already does. Phil Thoden, president of the Austin chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, drafted a letter to Martinez, with copies sent to the City Council and Mayor Will Wynn, asking that they familiarize themselves with current federal requirements and seek input from people in the business of operating cranes.
Martinez, who did not speak to Thoden about his proposal, has acknowledged that his knowledge of the industry at this point is limited.
"Given the oversight that OSHA currently exercises over construction crane safety, we are not inclined to support a duplicative role by the city," Thoden wrote.
The current OSHA system requiring annual inspections works because it places responsibility and liability on the crane company, Mike Green, president of Crocker Crane Rentals in Austin, said.
Green, whose company operates 21 cranes (none of them the type that currently tower over Austin) and employs 18 people, has his cranes inspected annually by an independent inspector. His crane operators fill out a safety checklist daily, he said.
He wonders whether the City of Austin intends to assume liability by getting involved in the inspection process.
"I do my inspections not because the federal government or some local entity tells me to, but so I can sleep at night," Green said. "If I am sued for an accident, I lose everything I've worked for all my life. I live safety day and night. Who has more on the line: me or the city?"