Attitudes of Contractors Dissatisfy MTA Chief

Los Angeles County transit chief Joseph E. Drew has told federal authorities that he is not satisfied with the attitude of subway construction contractors toward safety and is striving to stress its importance, according to a letter obtained by The Times.

In the May 1 letter--sent in response to a Times article April 28--Drew told Federal Transit Administration chief Gordon Linton that he is considering withholding payments from contractors who endanger employees.

“The behaviors and attitudes of our contractors toward construction on all our projects must be changed,” Drew stated in his letter, which also disputes several of the findings in the Times article. He said he planned to meet with the chief executive officer of subway contractor Traylor Bros.-Frontier Kemper to “stress the necessity for full compliance with the safety standards we have implemented.”

Officials from the Indiana-based joint venture, which won the Studio City subway construction job with a bid of $124 million two years ago, declined to comment. An FTA spokesman said Linton was unavailable for comment.

Although Drew also could not be reached for comment Monday, Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Jim Smart said the letter was “trying to deal with the fact that we have regulations in place, and now we have to get human beings to follow them. It’s behavior modification. We want the contractor’s employees to be enthusiastic about their job, but not reckless.”

The article detailed a reporter’s seven-hour visit with a shift of miners March 22. During the visit, the reporter witnessed spotty use of personal protective gear by miners and their foreman, a diesel front loader that spewed excessive levels of carbon monoxide and diesel soot, a ventilation unit that in one instance blew noxious air toward workers, an overloaded personnel-lifting cage and a medical technician working as a gas tester without a state license.

An official at the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health said those conditions would be considered violations of state labor law if witnessed by one of the agency’s investigators. The agency said it began an inspection of the Studio City tunnels two weeks ago and would release the results within three weeks.

In his letter, Drew said that only Cal/OSHA and the federal OSHA, the worker safety agencies, could assess fines for safety violations. Nevertheless, he added, “we will review our contract documents to determine if the withholding of progress payments for safety violations is feasible.”

The FTA is the division of the U.S. Department of Transportation charged with overseeing the U.S. government’s 50% funding of the $5.8-billion construction of Los Angeles’ subway system. Drew’s letter comes as MTA officials lobby Washington for more subway funds.

Drew said in his letter that the MTA “places workplace safety as a top priority” and maintains that Traylor Bros.’ safety record is below the national average for recordable incidents and time lost to injuries. Still, he adds: “It should be noted that we and our contractors can and will do better.”

In a memo attached to the letter, the MTA acknowledges a few problems at the Traylor Bros. construction site detailed in the article, rebuts other points and does not mention several others.

The memo reports, for instance, that the MTA had notified Traylor Bros. in writing that it should strictly enforce weight limits in personnel-lifting cages or elevators.

The memo says The Times’ report that the carbon monoxide levels in the tunnel exceeded the legal limit is “not true.” It adds: “Gas test records on March 22 revealed that carbon monoxide levels did not exceed 23 parts per million. Current California Code of Regulations indicates a permissible exposure limit of 25” ppm.

During the shift visited by the reporter, a trainee gas tester sampled the air at 20 ppm at the tunnel face where miners were working for several minutes, and 40 ppm next to the diesel-powered loader that was supplying them with steel struts. The memo acknowledges that “any test results taken by [a] trainee would not be considered or used in an official report.”

The state Tunnel Safety Orders, Article 17, Section 8470, specifies that a certified gas tester sample the air in a tunnel “at the peak of diesel operation.” The law further sets a level of 20 ppm as the level at which work should be halted “immediately.” A Cal/OSHA official on Monday said the Tunnel Safety Orders’ action level of 20 ppm takes precedence in tunnels over other industries’ level of 25 ppm.

Drew’s letter also tells the federal government that The Times’ report that an MTA safety engineer only visits the Studio City tunnel construction site once a day is “not true.” He said a full-time MTA safety engineer has been assigned to the Traylor Bros. construction site for several months.

MTA spokesman Smart said the word “site” is at issue. He said the safety engineer is assigned to monitor Traylor Bros.’ construction of the starter tunnels described in the article and two deep shafts--one several hundred yards away from the tunnels and the other 2.5 miles away.