Washtenaw County contractors to discuss safety, sustainability at U-M building sites

Washtenaw County's construction leaders will get an update on University of Michigan construction safety and sustainable building at the Washtenaw Contractors Association's annual meeting today.

Two U-M officials, Marina Roelofs, executive director of Architecture, Engineering and Construction, and Jerry Schulte, Associate Director of Construction and Design, will speak to the group on new safety standards being implemented on all university work sites.

They will also address upcoming university construction projects.

Roelofs briefed contractors about the standards standards, which include increased training requirements and mandatory drug tests for workers on university sites, at a May meeting of the WCA.

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At the time, she said two construction deaths on U-M projects had spurred increased movement on the new standards. Since then, another worker died at the Mott Women's and Children's Hospital project, making the total three deaths in a span of 16 months.

Gretchen Waters, executive director of the WCA, said "a couple hundred" contractors met with U-M officials in September to give feedback on the proposal. She said the university seemed to be sensitive to contractors' concerns over flexibility on deadlines for implementing the standards, as well as whether smaller contractors would be under the same requirements as larger ones.

For example, Waters said, the preliminary new standards require 30 hours of training for workers, but it may take several weeks for some contractors to get that done. All in all, though, she said WCA membership was accepting of the standards.

"I don't think there's anything that seemed totally unreasonable to our folks," she said.

During the recession, Waters added, the university has become one of the only sources of steady work for local contractors.

"They're more important than ever. There's almost no private work being done," she said. "That's not going to change any time soon."

Waters said the focus on safety is important, and that well-established contractors would be comforted by knowing what the expectations are, and that all bidders would have to be up to a certain standard.

"A good contractor prefers it when expectations are spelled out," she said.

Green building will also be on the agenda, as Terry Alexander, executive director of the university's Occupational Safety and Environmental Health department will address U-M's new sustainability initiative announced in October.

University officials have focused less on the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards that have become a leading industry standard in sustainability, in favor of a system more focused on ongoing operational energy savings rather than building materials.

Freelance reporter Dan Meisler can be reached at danmeisler@gmail.com.