Legislature likely to consider crane safety law
Published in: Houston Chronicle
Date: 5/13/2005
By: L.M. Sixel
May 13–Many construction companies, refineries and chemical plants had no idea Texas had a law on its books for the last 16 years requiring them to install electrocution-preventing equipment on their cranes.
Now they want to get rid of it.
The Texas Senate has agreed with the industry, voting last month to dump the law that required insulating devices on cranes. The bill, introduced by Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, and Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, is expected to be considered by the House before the legislative session ends this month.
The industry argues that current federal safety regulations, which require cranes to be kept a certain distance from power lines, are sufficient. And until the federal regulation changes, the Texas law is unnecessary, they contend.
But don’t try to get that argument past Jennifer Moore. Five years ago, her 21-year-old son was electrocuted when the crane he was working on near Conroe touched an electric wire and sent 7,200 volts through his body, more than three times the voltage used to kill a person in the electric chair.
He is one of as many as 36 workers and as few as 10 workers, who, each year since 1992, have died as a result of a crane coming into contact with electric current, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Moore, a homemaker who lives in San Antonio, has spent the past several months telling her son’s story to legislators in Austin in hopes that they wouldn’t scrap the statute.
“It’s an uphill battle because the big energy companies, the big construction companies and the big chemical companies want to get rid of the requirement — anywhere, anyplace in Texas,” she said. “They don’t want to have to use insulating links on their cranes.”
Joseph Alexander, a trial lawyer with Mithoff & Jacks who represented the Moore family, said he believes an insulator would have prevented Moore’s death. The construction company eventually paid $4.25 million to the Moores to settle the case.
“The crane industry doesn’t want to pay to put the insulator on,” said Alexander, who has testified with Moore before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration about the need for tough federal regulations on crane safety.
But Don Jordan, Houston operations manager for private training company Crane Inspection and Certification Bureau, argued the insulators on the market aren’t big enough to handle some of the big cranes.
And the devices only protect the operator touching the load. It doesn’t protect the people on the ground or leaning against the crane, he said.
Insulators also give operators a false sense of security, said Peter Hovanesian, administrative manager at Scott Macon Equipment Services, which rents cranes in Houston.
They think: “Oh boy, we’ve got an insulating link. We don’t have to follow the OSHA regs, and we can get as close to the live wire as we want,” he said.
Sixteen years ago, the Legislature sought to reduce the number of electrocutions by requiring crane operators to install a protective device.
“It didn’t seem that expensive,” said former Texas Sen. Carl Parker, who proposed the legislation. “I don’t recall any opposition.”
But no agency was ever put in charge of enforcing the new law, which carries a criminal penalty of up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000, and construction and industrial companies that use cranes routinely ignored the regulation. And many weren’t aware of it until the Chronicle wrote a story two years ago.
“I’ve never seen one,” said Ronald Witt, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 450 in Houston, when asked about the use of insulators on cranes.
“If you are leaning up against the crane, and the crane swings and touches a high wire, you’re a gone sucker,” said Witt, who represents crane operators. “You’re dead. That’s it.”
For nearly the past decade, Hugh Pratt has been beating his head against the wall.
He invented an insulator — he got the idea one day in church — and signed up American Crane & Rigging as his Texas distributor.
Over the past year, they’ve hosted seminars to tell companies about the law and its requirements.
The sign-in sheets read like a who’s who of the energy and construction industry: Shell Oil, Zachery Construction, Centerpoint Energy, Oxy-Chem, Lyondell-Citgo and BP.
“Plants and large facilities are usually compatible with applicable state and federal laws,” said Walt Lewicki Jr., vice president of American Crane. But, he said, “we have had more opposition to this particular product than we ever anticipated.”
American Crane has sold a few of the devices that are attached to a crane’s cable. But for the most part, there has been unified resistance.
“I’m really surprised at the level of hostility we’ve encountered,” Lewicki said.
Companies are reluctant to put insulators on cranes in Texas because they’re worried they’ll get sued when a worker in a state that doesn’t require them is electrocuted on an unprotected crane, Pratt said.
The first question would be why all the company cranes aren’t insulated.
The devices aren’t cheap. Pratt’s Load Insulator runs about $6,500 and has a 20-year life. The devices can also be rented for about $450 a week.
Despite the state law, companies seem to be waiting for OSHA to mandate them, Lewicki said.
OSHA is expected to eventually require companies to install insulators. An OSHA rule-making advisory committee is preparing an analysis to assess the effect on small businesses.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Houston Chronicle