Softwood Lumber Deal Announced
Offcuts
FEMA Tells New Orleans to Raise Houses 3
Feet
Immigration Agency Shelves OSHA
Ruse
Salvaged Millwork Presents Lead
Threat
Resources
U.S. to return $4 billion of duties;
Canada may face taxes, quotas
The U.S. and Canada held a joint news conference on April 27 to
announce a framework for an agreement to resolve the
longstanding lumber trade dispute between the two
countries.
Lumber has been a sticking point in trade relations for more
than 20 years. The Canadian government owns much of the
country's timber and charges a stumpage fee based on
forest-management costs to log the public land. The Coalition
for Fair Lumber Imports, an alliance of U.S. lumber producers,
maintains that since the fees aren't market-based, Canadian
lumber companies are dumping subsidized lumber on the U.S.
market at unfair prices. Prompted by this politically powerful
lobby, the U.S. has been collecting duties since 2002 on the
lumber it imports from Canada.
However, a U.S. federal court ruled early in April that the
duties had been collected illegally — and NAFTA trade
panels have repeatedly determined that Canada's lumber industry
is not subsidized. Though the U.S. continues to appeal to NAFTA
(despite the framework, the U.S. has filed another
extraordinary challenge), pressure has increased with each
ruling to cease the expensive litigation and come up with a
compromise.
When the new seven-year plan is finalized, both sides must drop
ongoing legal action. Of the $5 billion collected in disputed
tariffs, the U.S. has agreed to return about $4 billion to
Canada. The U.S. will pay half the remaining billion to members
of the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports; the U.S. and Canada
will use the other $500 million for marketing North American
lumber, and for "meritorious initiatives."
There will be no restrictions on future Canadian exports as
long as the Random Lengths Framing Lumber Composite Price
remains higher than $355 per thousand board feet. But if the
index — which was $377 on April 27 — drops below
$355, quotas and export taxes will come into play.
Canadian provinces will then choose whether lumber producers
will pay higher taxes with no export quotas, or pay a lower tax
and limit their exports to their share of 34 percent of the
U.S. market. The taxes will be paid to the province, not to the
U.S.
On the day the framework was announced, President Bush said in
a statement that he was "pleased," and Prime Minister Stephen
Harper declared, "Today is a great day for Canada."
Members of the opposition party in the Canadian Parliament,
though, asserted that the U.S. should honor the NAFTA rulings
and return all the duties. The opposition also questioned how
this deal, with its taxes and volume restraints, can be
considered free trade.
Still, the Canadian lumber industry has given its conditional
support — pending negotiation of the final details
— to an agreement widely reported as being inevitable.
Seth Kursman, a spokesman for Abitibi, a large lumber firm in
Canada, told Canada's Globe and Mail, "We've known from the
beginning that we must have a negotiated settlement so that we
can bring some finality to the issue."
South of the U.S.-Canada border, the Coalition for Fair Lumber
Imports released a statement supporting the deal. Remarked
chairman Steve Swanson, "All we have ever asked is that
Canadian timber and logs be sold in open and competitive
markets."
But Jerry Howard, executive vice president and CEO of NAHB,
charges the U.S. lumber industry with obstructing a free market
and criticizes the negotiations: "For an administration that
espouses free trade, there is no logical reason to ignore
repeated NAFTA rulings and to engage in one-sided negotiations
that would provide a massive subsidy to the U.S. timber
industry at the expense of millions of American
consumers."
As the U.S. housing market continues to cool, Howard notes,
lumber demand and market prices may well drop. Yet home buyers
won't see the benefits, because export taxes and quotas will
kick in to keep consumer prices up. "In short," he says, "this
is one bad deal for American housing consumers."
—
Laurie Elden
Offcuts
The Rhode Island Builders Association
launched a nonprofit program in January for soldiers involved
in combat since Sept. 11, 2001. "Builders Helping Heroes" gives
construction assistance to wounded veterans and the families of
those killed in action. The first project actually began a few
weeks before the official opening ceremony; in December
volunteers began renovating the Tiverton home of Terri Potts,
whose husband was killed in Iraq in 2004.
It's not enough to keep up with the Joneses
anymore; now homeowners want to keep up with the Sopranos. A
study released in February by Therma-Tru Doors, "Driving
Design: From the Front Seat to the Front Porch," looks at how
American homeowners find inspiration for new homes and
renovations. While many folks still rely on home magazines and
neighbors for ideas, more than half of the survey's respondents
said they wanted a house they had seen on television or in a
movie. The hottest properties were Martha Stewart's farmhouse,
Tony Soprano's domicile in "The Sopranos," the house in "Home
Alone," and the homes in "Desperate Housewives."
A sand shortage in Maui, Hawaii, could mean
trouble for the booming Honolulu construction industry. Most of
the 318,000 tons of sand mined each year in Maui ends up in
concrete used in Honolulu. But because of heavy mining and
development on top of dunes, the supply may run out within the
next seven years. With no Maui sand, builders will have to use
alterna-tive mixes or imported sand. In either case, the
texture quality is expected to go down as the price goes
up.
Construction is off-limits in Park Ridge,
Ill., before 7 a.m., due to an ordinance passed in February by
the city council. Monday through Friday, construction is
allowed between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., and on Saturdays between 8
a.m. and 5 p.m. Construction activity that requires the site to
be fenced off may not be performed on Sundays and holidays. For
construction that doesn't require a fence, Sunday and holiday
hours are the same as Saturday hours.
For couples remodeling their homes,
disagreements are bound to be part of the process. Rachel Cox,
a marriage and family therapist in Northern California, learned
that lesson while working at her husband's construction
company. She now specializes in counseling couples as they deal
with the stresses of renovation. The most common arguments stem
from money issues, she says, though she has also had to mediate
conflicts over bathtubs and paint.
An Ohio jury awarded a retiree $700,000 after
a developer filled the man's lake with silt and mud. When Dr.
Stephen Luczek planned his lakeside retirement back in 1982, he
didn't foresee a housing boom. Twenty-four years later, though,
his fishing oasis was on the edge of Granite Development
Partners' Thornberry neighborhood. Luczek told the Cleveland
Plain Dealer, "I hope this will serve as a warning to the
builders that are not respecting the regulations governing the
ecosystem."
FEMA Tells New Orleans to
Raise Houses 3 Feet
The Federal Emergency Management Agency released
long-awaited guidance in April for rebuilding homes and
commercial buildings in flood-soaked New Orleans. A FEMA
document posted on both the agency's Web site
(
www.fema.gov) and the city's Web site
(
www.cityofno.com) recommends that homes
with repair costs exceeding 50 percent of the structure's value
be elevated to one foot above the existing base flood elevation
established by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the city in
1984, or to 3 feet above the nearest adjacent grade, whichever
is higher.
Homeowners who comply with the requirements will be eligible
for coverage under the FEMA-managed National Flood Insurance
Program and will receive significant breaks on private-sector
homeowners' insurance. Louisiana state officials say compliance
will also be required to qualify for rebuilding grants of up to
$150,000 per building from the Louisiana Reconstruction Corp.
when those become available.
In New Orleans, reaction to the new guidelines was mixed. Some
property owners expressed relief that the new guidance rests on
existing established flood-plain maps rather than on some new
assessment of risk. And by removing lingering uncertainty about
insurance eligibility, city officials say the new rules will
clear the way for work to begin on repairing or replacing the
city's thousands of damaged or ruined homes.
The yellow line on this New Orleans
residence shows how high floodwaters rose last fall. The
homeowner, who has flood insurance, is raising his house above
the base flood elevation.
But complaints about the new guidelines broke out as soon as
they were released. FEMA did not explain the reasoning behind
its requirement to raise buildings by 3 feet even in areas that
were high and dry during last fall's flooding, which led one
HBA official to term the 3-foot rule an "obvious political
decision." Many homeowners said that insurance and grant money
will be insufficient to cover the estimated $50,000 to $100,000
cost of elevating damaged structures. And local newspaper
accounts reported that the news that damage exceeding 50
percent of value would be the threshold for compliance
triggered a rush to New Orleans building department offices,
where property owners petitioned to have estimates of damage to
their buildings lowered to 49 percent.
Perhaps most unsettling, however, are hints that the guidance
may be changed if FEMA's assessment of the flood risk or the
levees' integrity changes. The agency's announcement of the new
rules contained a warning that flood zone boundaries and flood
elevations could change, depending on the outcome of an ongoing
Army Corps of Engineers modeling study of potential storm
surges and a further analysis of the levees' flood protection
capacity.
The corps' existing analysis of the levees' capacity has been
sharply questioned by a peer review committee of the American
Society of Civil Engineers tasked with evaluating its plans for
levee repair. In a letter now posted on the New Orleans city
Web site, the review committee warns that the corps has not
adequately examined whether the unexpected mechanism of failure
that led to the breach of the 17th Street Canal flood wall
could recur elsewhere in the city.
The reviewing engineers also raise concerns about the assumed
strength of soils underlying the levees, the factors of safety
used in the original levee design, and the lack of statistical
analysis in the corps' predictions of the extent of flooding
likely to result from any future hurricane storm surge.
"Decisions made during the original design phase appear to
reflect an overall pattern of engineering judgment inconsistent
with that required for critical structures," note the review
panelists. "These findings present significant implications for
the current and future safety offered by the levees."
— Ted Cushman
Immigration
Agency Shelves OSHA Ruse
When workers at a North Carolina commercial job site gathered
one morning in July 2005 for what was purportedly a mandatory
OSHA safety-training session, they got an unwelcome
surprise.
According to the New York Times, after the government officials
passed out coffee and doughnuts, one man stood up and
announced, "I got good news and bad news. The good news is we
are not from OSHA, and the bad news is we're from the
immigration office."
At that point, immigration agents burst in and arrested 48
workers from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Ukraine on
illegal immigration charges.
Plenty of builders may find it difficult to muster much
sympathy for OSHA. But in the North Carolina case, the job-site
watchdog was itself the victim of a zealous federal agency. As
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials soon admitted,
the sting operation had been planned and carried out without
OSHA's knowledge or consent.
The raid raised a storm of protest from labor unions, groups
promoting workplace safety, and OSHA itself. The entrapment
operation was especially galling in light of OSHA's ongoing
effort to reduce the high death and injury rates among
Spanish-speaking workers in the construction industry and
elsewhere. "OSHA can't afford to let this become a pattern,"
says Jim Papian, spokesman for the United Food and Commercial
Workers Union. "They'd lose all credibility."
For the better part of a year, the ICE tried to gloss over the
issue by admitting that the phony meeting had been a bad idea
— while still reserving the right to run more such
operations in the future if it deemed them necessary.
But in March, the agency threw in the towel. ICE director Marcy
Forman announced that the agency's "use of ruses involving
health and safety programs administered by a private entity or
a federal, state, or local government agency for the purpose of
immigration work-site enforcement will be discontinued by
ICE."
For builders, that's good news and bad news. The good news is
that the next OSHA inspector to appear on your job site won't
be an undercover immigration agent. The bad news, of course, is
that he'll be an OSHA inspector. — Jon Vara
Salvaged Millwork
Presents Lead Threat
In February, an inspection prompted by the routine blood
screening of a Montgomery, Vt., child revealed an unexpected
source of lead contamination: the front door of a newly built
home. The child's parents, Mary Niles and Jacob Racusin, had
purchased the door — originally part of an 1800s
farmhouse — at a salvage yard, where it had been stripped
of its old paint. Unaware that a significant amount of lead is
often left behind after wood is chemically stripped, Racusin
sanded the door in an upstairs room of the family's house
before installing it.
After the one-year-old child was diagnosed with an elevated
blood lead level, Niles contacted the Vermont Housing &
Conservation Board's Lead Hazard Reduction & Healthy Homes
Programs. Robert Zatzke, program coordinator and licensed lead
inspector and risk assessor, went to the Montgomery house and
took dust samples.
Analysis of dust from the room where Racusin had sanded the
door three months earlier indicated high levels of lead —
and samples from the door itself, says Zatzke, exceeded the
lead-hazard level for floors by almost seven times.
"This story has probably been repeated dozens of times," says
Zatzke, "except other families don't happen to get their child
tested, so they never know of the contamination and
poisoning."
There are other documented cases. As early as 1998, the Centers
for Disease Control — also tipped off by the high lead
level of a child who had undergone routine blood screening
— investigated a company specializing in
antique-furniture restoration. Though the furniture was
chemically stripped before entering the shop, testing of the
child's father and other carpenters revealed blood lead levels
that exceeded OSHA limits. The CDC concluded that enough lead
was left behind after stripping that the shop needed to
implement lead-safe work methods.
Once precautions such as respiratory protection and HEPA
vacuums were put into place, the woodworkers' lead levels
dropped.
No federal standards or laws specifically regulate the reuse of
wood products containing lead-based paint. Thus, salvage yards
and other companies that strip wood don't have to post warnings
or educate their customers, and often even employees of these
businesses have no idea that items stripped of lead-based paint
should be handled using lead-safety precautions.
Racusin, the father in the Vermont case, had an elevated level
of lead when he had his own blood tested in February, three
months after he had sanded the door. Although children are most
susceptible to the health problems associated with lead, adults
too face risks from exposure. Ill effects include high blood
pressure, digestive problems, nerve disorders, memory and
concentration problems, and muscle and joint pain.
Although only a small amount of paint is
visible, enough lead was left behind on this stripped door to
create a hazard when the homeowner sanded it.
Zatzke recommends that builders who work with salvaged items
like doors and windows follow the lead-safe practices outlined
in the EPA/HUD/CDC publication "Lead Paint Safety: A Field
Guide for Painting, Home Maintenance, and Renovation Work"
(www.hud.gov/offices/lead/training/additional_training.cfm).
As for the lead-contaminated door, Racusin and Niles returned
it to the salvage yard and followed Zatzke's instructions "to
meticulously wipe down the walls and surfaces where dust
collects, and HEPA vacuum and mop the floors."
The results from the following round of dust analysis came back
clean. — Laurie Elden
Resources: Housing
Design for Narrow Lots
As part of an overall strategy to encourage thoughtful
infill housing on narrow urban lots, the city of Portland,
Ore., held a design competition in 2004 and published the
winners in two monographs. More than 400 architects submit-ted
plans for homes no wider than 15 feet to be placed on
25-foot-wide lots.
Jurors in the first phase of the competition selected 49
"designs of excellence," which are compiled in "Living Smart:
Big Ideas for Small Lots." Judges in the second phase whittled
the field down to 23 designs, now featured in the "Portland
Catalogue of Narrow House Designs."
City planners have taken the results of the competition one
step further. As of April 24, two of the winning home designs
(see images) became part of an expedited permit program. Since
the "Living Smart" house plans already comply with the building
code, anyone wanting to use them in Portland can skip the
house-plan review and go straight to having a site plan
approved. The plans aren't for sale, but are given out with the
building permit, after payment of approximately $14,800 in
permit and related charges. The total fees include a discount
for using the approved plans.
Both monographs are available at no charge; order them by mail
from the Bureau of Development Services at 1900 SW Fourth Ave.,
Portland, OR 97204, or online at
www.livingsmartpdx.com.
Floor plans, elevations, and specifications for the two Living
Smart homes can also be viewed at the Web site.
Portland architect Bryan Higgins lives in
the home he designed for the Living Smart
competition.
Roxana Vargas-Greenan and Trent Greenan
of Berkeley, Calif., created plans for two versions of this
house: one with a garage (shown) and the other with an
office.