Sandow 5 on track, despite shortages in trade labor
Labor, high winds have been challenges; summer will bring peak employment

By KEN ESTEN COOKE
Reporter Publisher

 Rockdale’s largest construction project is more than a third of the way complete and the massive Sandow 5 power plant is scheduled to take its 581-megawatts of power online by the end of next summer.
 Construction Manager Bob Donnelly said contractor Bechtel/Becon is “getting close to its peak employment” with 1,131 direct-hire workers on-site now. (That includes 850 on day shift and 281 working nights.)
 “Sub-contractors are also erecting the cooling tower, the HVAC system, doing heavy hauling and painting, and installing floors and fixtures,” Donnelly told The Reporter on Monday. “So there are another 70 people on site including them.”
 Donnelly said there are an additional 120 people in non-manual, supervisory positions as well.

Peak workforce
 And more are still to come with this summer being the peak for the contractor’s employee numbers.
 “Our peak numbers were reassessed upward to about 1,350 to 1,400 direct hires (by Bechtel/Becon),” Donnelly said. “We’ll be bringing in more within the next month and June, July and August should be our peak.”
 The project will then begin phasing out the workers as needed.
 Donnelly said the entire project is about 40 percent complete and he anticipates getting 7 percent finished each month until the job’s completion.
 “Once the piping systems and boiler work is complete, we begin the hydro work and that involves lots of pipe-fitters, boiler makers and electricians,” he said.

Tradesmen
 Donnelly said finding skilled tradesmen has been one of the biggest challenges for the company.
 “There is a shortage of skilled workers in the trades,” he said. “We are in competition with all the work going on around the country.”
 He said Bechtel/Becon was having difficulty finding large crane operators, pipe welders and tube welders. The company is even offering cash incentives for referrals by the workers.
 “The night shift is also hard to fill,” he said. “We even have a $2 (per hour) premium on our pay,” he said.
 One additional problem this spring has been high winds from the north and south. Donnelly said once winds hit 35 miles per hour, cranes are taken out of service. “That’s been impacting us a little bit too,” he said.
 
Schedule
 Donnelly said the overall project is less than one percent behind schedule. All engineering is completed and materials were bought on a contract basis.
 “The steel was bought over a year ago and fabricated in mills, so any more change in steel and copper prices won’t affect this project,” he said.
 Sandow 5 will contain 10,700 tons of steel (21.4 million pounds).

Unique
 Though Donnelly has helped construct power plants around the state and overseas in his 37 years with the company, he said this project is unique for two reasons.
 “This has a fluidized bed boiler,” he said. “The old types were using pulverized coal, but these new ones mix in coal and limestone and it burns much cleaner.”
 He also said that Alcoa Lake water was used to cool Alcoa’s old power units 1, 2 and 3 and Luminant’s Sandow 4 unit. But Sandow 5 will have its own cooling tower.
 “This has its own system and will prevent any additional heating of the lake water,” he said.
 Two separate cement retaining ponds were also constructed to handle the massive project’s runoff.
 Under judicial order, the Sandow 5 project is due to go on line by Aug. 31, 2009.

ken@rockdalereporter.com

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