|
Dams And Whitewater
I
read with great interest your feature on dam construction
in South America, "Two Jobs Not for the Faint of Heart"
(ENR 8/19 p. 30). Certainly these are very exciting and difficult
projects. As a "construction person," I, like most
of my peers, really enjoy seeing great projects. But having
traveled and rafted in this wonderful region it is difficult
to weigh the excitement of these projects with the loss taking
place. The BioBio is one of the most spectacular river running
locations in the world and Chile is seeking to dam it, much
like the Futalafu River, considered by many to be the greatest
river running location on the planet. If dams are erected,
these tremendous resources will be lost forever.
Developing nations are struggling
with providing affordable power for their economic development,
but does it mean we must forsake some of the world’s
greatest natural resources? China is on a similar path with
Three Gorges Dam, and the United States has done this as well
in our own Southwest. I urge those interested to further investigate
these issues and develop insight into the challenges these
regions face. One can find further information at places like:
www.earthriver.com or www.american.edu/
projects/mandala/ted/ice/chiledam.htm.
The greatest whitewater runs in
the world also have tremendous volume and gradient, making
them the choicest for hydropower. But we need to learn from
the past to build the future.
Davis-Bacon Realities
In
a past article, "Homeland Security Bill Stalls Over Davis-Bacon
Provisions," it is stated that traditional GOP opposition
to Davis-Bacon may be softening, the battle lines may be "blurring,"
but that the issue is stalling the Homeland Security Bill
(ENR 8/26 p. 9.) However true that assertion may or may not
be, all U.S. taxpayers should fervently hope that the real,
ongoing and costly distortion of Davis-Bacon law would someday
be addressed properly by those in a position to do so.
That problem, of course, is the
failure of the Dept. of Labor to properly determine prevailing
wages according to the law in areas which have a mix of union
and open shop contractors operating. The crux of the problem
is that in areas [where there is a mix of open shop and union
contractors], such as where our firm operates, DOL regularly
uses only the union contract wage rates and sets them as the
prevailing rate, instead of using a true multistage, weighted
average procedure as called for by the law. As usually is
the case, the devil is in the details.
Roughly speaking, 95% of the contracting
firms and 70% or more of the construction workers in our area
are open shop. However, prevailing wage rates set by DOL in
our county are the full union rates. It makes no sense and
unduly inflates every D-B project done in our county.
Make sure Davis-Bacon prevailing
rates are determined properly. If that were to happen, federal
project labor costs would not be unreasonably inflated in
mixed areas, and maybe the opposition to Davis-Bacon would
subside enough for it not to be so big an issue as to "stall"
important initiatives like the Homeland Security Bill.
CORRECTION
A People
item on the appointment of Steven J. Isaacs as principal consultant
of The Coxe Group incorrectly stated the firm’s headquarters.
The firm is headquartered in Seattle and Isaacs will be based
in San Francisco (ENR 11/4 p. 23).
|
