August 10, 2017

CT Construction Digest Thursday August 10, 2017

Joint board approves $13.3M for Memorial Boulevard project

BRISTOL - The resolution for appropriating $13.3 million for phase one of the Memorial Boulevard Community Cultural Center Project and 750-seat theatre was approved by the joint board Tuesday night.
The resolution states that only $500,000 of the $13.3 million can be used to finalize the project’s plans. The rest of the money can be allocated once the plans are finalized.
Joint board member Ron Burns voted against the resolution and said there is a lack of information about the project’s sustainability.
“With the fiscal state of our state, we don’t have any idea yet what type of municipal aid we will be receiving from the state,” Burns said. “We are not sure of the construction costs yet for the renovations to the building. I’m just wondering what happens if the theatre can’t make its operational expenses.”
The joint board is made up of members of the City Council and Board of Finance.
In the council meeting held immediately after the joint board meeting, the Ordinance Committee introduced and scheduled a public hearing to discuss a new section to the Code of Ordinances.
The new section will prohibit the storage, disposal or use of fracking waste. The hearing will be held on Aug. 16, at 5:30 p.m. in the first floor meeting room located in City Hall.
Also, an amendment to the purchase and sale agreement between the city and Bristol Hospital was passed during the council meeting.
“This is a technical adjustment based on the results of a survey that was prepared, which required an amendment to the contract,” City Councilor David Preleski said.  CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Pipelines are safe and efficient

Approval of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines has drawn the ire of many who claim that these pipelines pose a threat to the well-being of U.S. citizens. The rallying cry, “people over pipelines” has rung from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to the steps of the Capitol in Washington. Although these protests provide lurid headlines that sell newspapers, their claims are not realistic. Access to cheap and reliable energy is critical to the economic vitality of the United States.
In today’s energy market oil and gas are both relatively cheap and reliable energy sources. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, fossil fuels accounted for 81 percent of total U.S. energy consumption in 2015. That number is expected to remain relatively constant through at least 2040. Given the importance of these products to our economy, efficient transportation methods must be employed in order to keep energy prices reasonable and to produce and distribute these essential fuels in a safe and economical matter. Pipelines are both a safe and economical way to transport oil and gas. A 2014 report by the Congressional Research Service showed that pipeline is by far the cheapest method of transporting oil and gas. Moving petroleum products by pipeline costs $5 per barrel, compared to $10 to $15 per barrel by train and $20 per barrel by truck. Pipelines move much more product than these alternatives and do so at a much lower price. Pipelines do more than help lower energy prices. In 2015, pipeline construction resulted in a $10.2 billion increase in labor income as well as a $15.5 billion contribution to U.S. GDP. And although pipelines move much more product than other methods of transport, they require far less human capital, another testament to their superior efficiency. This increase in efficiency allows producers to drill more wells and produce more oil, which creates more jobs overall for the economy.
Publicized incidents like the 2010 natural gas pipeline rupture in San Bruno, California, that killed eight people understandably result in public wariness about the continued use of pipelines. However, when compared with both train and truck transportation, pipelines are the safest way of transporting oil and natural gas. A study by the Fraser Institute found that transporting oil and gas by pipeline results in fewer fatalities to operator personnel and the general public than any other transportation method. In fact, Americans are 75 percent more likely to die in a lightning strike than in a pipeline related incident. Pipelines usually run through remote areas and are often underground while trucks and trains carrying similar products often move through dense metropolitan areas. That means that when trains or trucks spill, it can be much more devastating for humans. A train delivering U.S. oil to Canada derailed in Quebec in 2013, killing 47 people. By contrast, the Pegasus pipeline spill, also in 2013, harmed no one and was contained relatively quickly.Despite their bad rap, pipelines are the most environmentally friendly method of moving oil and gas. Even though pipelines move a massive amount of product (almost 70 percent of all oil and natural gas moved in the United States) the average amount spilled per year is only 269 barrels. Transportation by rail results in the least amount of product spilled per year, about 83 barrels, but that number has increased dramatically in recent years as the amount of product transported by rail has increased. Even with that increase in rail usage, rail still moves only 3 percent of all oil and gas transports. Moving oil by roadway is the most dangerous for the environment, spilling 326 barrels annually while moving only 4 percent of all transported product. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Union protests United Bank's Goodwin Square work

The New England Carpenters union is taking to the streets of downtown Hartford on Wednesday to protest United Bank's hiring of non-union labor to work on its 68,000-square-foot renovation project at the Goodwin Square building.
The bank will move its corporate offices there from Glastonbury by year's end.
Union members are staging their demonstration from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. outside the 30-story office building at 225 Asylum St., according to Marc Okun, business agent for the carpenters union Local 43.
In addition to the vocal protest, the event also will include the display of a "large inflatable animal strangling a construction worker," Okun said in a news release.
He added that the bank hired Champagne Drywall Inc., based in Agawam, Mass., which he claims "fails to pay area standard wages and benefits to carpenters, which in turn lowers standards for workers in the local Hartford area."
Okun also attended the bank's annual shareholders' meeting in May, reminding United Bank CEO William H.W. Crawford that the union's pension fund holds more than 54,800 shares of the bank's stock.
He did not mention publicly the initiative to persuade Crawford to use union carpenters on the Hartford project. But before the session, Okun said that he was hopeful an accord can be reached with the bank and that union carpenters will be hired for the construction project.
Crawford after the meeting said he was willing to speak with union representatives about the issue, particularly given that they are shareholders. He added, however, that the project is being handled through a Bloomfield-based construction contracting company, Solidus Inc. He did not say whether the bank would seek to persuade Solidus to hire union workers.
Solidus has not replied to requests for comment, and Champagne Drywall officials could not be reached early Tuesday and Wednesday. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE

Demolition Begins at Hartford's Bowles Park Housing Complex

Demolition is underway at the Chester Bowles Park, part of an effort to revitalize the public housing complex in the city's Blue Hills neighborhood.
The labor represents the culmination of years of planning, financed by private and public funding, including two separate, $1 million tax credits from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority.
The project, overseen by the city's Housing Authority, is being developed by Overlook Village Redevelopment Associates, a partnersip of other agencies.
A majority of the crumbling, 1950s-era buildings in the complex have been torn down along Granby Street during the first phase of the project, Todd D. McClutchy of JHM Financial Group, a member of the Overlook Village partnership, said Tuesday.
In anticipation of the demolition, Bowles Park's 70 remaining residents were relocated late last year and will have the option to return to the new units when they're completed.
"There's been a lot of good progress initiated on these," McClutchy said. "Things are moving forward nicely."
The demolition is being overseen by the Capital Region Development Authority, which approved a $5 million grant for the work in September 2016.
Their work is being completed ahead of a ceremonial groundbreaking Sept. 19 at the site, near the West Hartford border.
Bowles Park, which will be renamed Willow Creek, sits on a larger, 130 acres that includes Westbrook Village, another public housing complex that is separate from the current project.
Ultimately, the first phase of construction will create 62 mixed-income rentals and 29 townhouses, as well as a community building for the residents, McClutchy said. He estimates that the "buildings should be put up in the next few months," with the phase formally finished in about 16 months.
It will be followed by a second phase, which would include an additional 43 housing units. That work will begin sometime before year's end and will run concurrently with the construction in the first phase, McClutchy said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE