 photo by MELISSA GERR |
BY PATTY WENTZ
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According to OSHA, exposure to lead is one of the most common overexposures in industry. The Hawthorne Bridge is covered with lead-based paint on the span and grating.
The Hawthorne Bridge was built in 1910 and is the oldest vertical-lift span bridge operating in the United States.
So far, the bridge rehabilitation is on schedule and within budget and should be completed in March 1999.
The Columbia-Pacific
Building Trades Council, Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Multnomah
County, claiming that Abhe & Svoboda is not meeting the
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It seems as if the accusations against Abhe & Svoboda began almost as soon as the Minnesota contractor began working on the $21.8 million Hawthorne Bridge rehabilitation in the spring. Since June, Channel 2 news has twice documented sparks falling into the Willamette River. Since June, Multnomah County Commissioner Lisa Naito has twice called for investigations into the contractor's worker safety and environmental practices. And from the start, union representatives have been taking soil and air samples to monitor pollution from the work. Butch Niemann, Abhe & Svoboda's on-site project manager, doesn't know what to make of it. "We've never been watched so closely before. We've been working real hard, and we'll continue to do the very best that we can." Niemann has some influential allies. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality says the contractor has not only met all environmental regulations but exceeded reporting requirements. The Oregon Department of Transportation, which oversees the project, says there have been no serious problems. And the Oregon Occupational Health and Safety Administration says the contractor has a better-than-average safety record. Despite Naito's concerns, county officials are similarly gushing. The Multnomah County Bridge Project, which is administering the rehabilitation, gives the contractor high marks for cooperation and quick response time when problems are pointed out. Multnomah County Health Department says there is nothing to worry about. So what's going on? It could be sour grapes. Abhe & Svoboda is not a union contractor, and a good portion of the workers on the bridge come from out of state. That doesn't sit well with the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades. The union has launched a two-pronged attack against the contractor, charging Abhe & Svoboda with endangering the safety of workers and threatening the environment. John Kirkpatrick is adamant that Abhe & Svoboda is not following the rules. The union representative says his air sampling both on the east side of the bridge and at McCalls Waterfront Restaurant on the west side show high lead levels. He has gathered soil samples from under the bridge that he says show increased lead levels. He is also concerned about the release of lead into the atmosphere from sandblasting and cutting through the painted surfaces on the bridge. Although the top portion of the bridge is contained in the highly visible wraps during blasting, the grating doesn't have the same protection, and some of it was painted with lead-based paint. Despite Kirkpatrick's litany of environmental complaints, government regulators aren't showing many concerns. "The project is actually proceeding fairly well," says Ranei Nomura, who is in charge of the project for DEQ. "They haven't had any problems with the containment system, and any complaints have been dealt with quickly." While the sparks falling into the river made dramatic TV footage, DEQ and the county officials say they were not hazardous and did not merit any fines. One county official pointed out they are much less damaging than the fireworks that fall in the river every year during the Rose Festival. The testing that Kirkpatrick has done has been similarly dismissed. Both Multnomah County and Abhe & Svoboda have hired environmental consultants who they say are monitoring the air constantly and with more sophisticated methods. Kirkpatrick's complaints about working safety, however, aren't so easy to dismiss. While Kirkpatrick was showing a WW reporter the job site, a worker stopped cutting on the bridge railing and put on a respirator--something he should have been wearing all along--after noticing the visitors. Kirkpatrick has also photographed people working without repirators and without the OSHA-required restraint to keep them from falling in the river. OSHA has inspected the work site and last month issued four citations totaling more than $1,200. Two were, indeed, for workers not wearing a fall restraint, and one was for a worker not wearing a life vest while working over the Willamette River. Another was for a missing rail on scaffolding. OSHA characterized the infractions as relatively minor. A federal OSHA representative, however, told WW that Oregon OSHA is known for low-balling fines. It's tough to get a handle on Abhe & Svoboda's safety record elsewhere. OSHA will not give comparisons between companies, but the agency's Barry Jones says the contractor has a thinner file than most when it comes to safety violations. That doesn't mean there haven't been problems. Abhe & Svoboda has been cited three times for on-the-job fatalities. The most recent, in 1996, was in Wisconsin. In 1991 there was a fatality in Michigan. Closer to home, in 1984 there was a death at an Abhe & Svoboda job site in Umatilla, for which the company was fined $360. Earlier this year, the federal department of OSHA in Maine cited the contractor $70,000 for a willful violation against the standard that requires a safety harness. No details of the incident are available because the contractor has contested that citation. Doug Eakin, state structural codings coordinator for the Oregon Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the project, defends Abhe & Svoboda: "To me, it's one of the best-run, managed and overseen projects in the country. It's irritating that things are being blown out of proportion." At this point, Commissioner Naito has made it clear she is watching the bridge project closely. Her main concern is that while the county is responsible for oversight of its project, the problems--however minor--are being found by the union and media. "I just wish these complaints were coming from our own people," she says.
originally published September 2, 1998 |
