ESSEXVILLE - It was a day to be proud of, and the tradesworkers responsible for the mammoth generator conversion project at Consumers Energy's Karn-Weadock Generating Complex on Saginaw Bay were indeed proud.

On Sept. 21, Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 85 members, the Bay Area Association of the Michigan Plumbing Mechanical Contractors and Consumers Energy staff got together to host a behind-the-scenes look at the results of labor-industry teamwork focusing on piping installation.

Invited were area architects, design engineers, contractors, tradesmen - plus several dozen local educators and students who might be interested in a career in the pipe trades.

"You have to expose them to the trade," said Local 85 member Dan Taylor. "Parents may think their kids ought to go to college to be doctors and lawyers, but the trades offer good careers that pay well without college training."

The Karn-Weadock project cost $26-million to convert two oil-burning units to cleaner, environmentally friendly natural gas, according to Local 85 Business Manager Mark Lee.

Taking a key role, some 120 piping tradesmen working for Bay City's Monarch Welding put in over 50,000 hours to complete the massive conversion, with the overall job taking just 10 months instead of the usual 24.

Two years ago, The Building Tradesman featured the work of the Boilermakers at the Karn-Weadock plant, during a major outage of Unit 2, one of the plant's coal fired boilers. The entire plant produces up to a third of all the power produced by Consumers Energy.

About 350 journeymen workers took part in this project, which involved installation of a 48-inch manifold to route gas through three pipelines. The trades then put down more than 1,000 feet of 30- and 10- inch pipeline, revamped a pair of auxiliary boilers and installed 30 new burners in a three-story configuration to fire them, explained Bob Barcia, Project Manager, Monarch Welding, Bay City, and Local 85 pipe fitter.

The newly renovated units can generate a combined 1,276 kilowatts of energy - enough to power a city of 835,000, although they will be used primarily to handle peak loads, Barcia said.

As part of the obvious team effort of all concerned, Consumers Energy people were equally impressed by the perfect safety record on the project .

"Safety is one of our top priorities on every job and is the most important thing to our membership," said Lee. "There were no recordable incidents on this project, almost unheard of considering the size and complexity."

Monarch's Safety Director Chuck Chaffee said safety was simply a matter of good communications. "I made sure safety procedures and OSHA rules were to be followed by our people, and also informed Consumers people about specific policies," he said.

Monarch Welding General Foreman Tom Chambers said one of the walk-through's major goals was to showcase the work to the community. "The more we expose ourselves to the community, the better the quality of recruits we get," he said.

Attendees, including school kids and their teachers, took home a bundle of materials, including brochures about careers in the unionized pipe trades, information on the Bay Area Association, and various Consumers Energy materials about the Karn-Weadock plant,

As a career selling point for the pipe trades, Local 85 Organizer Jerry Marsden said the local spends about $300,000 on training and supports a 12,000-square-foot school in Saginaw, a full-time instructor and 26 auxiliary instructors.

"Training is the backbone of our industry," Lee said.
- Rose Szwed and John Lapp

Starting the tour, Dan Taylor, Local 85 member, right, escorts industry leaders through the Karen-Weadock complex.

LOCAL 85 Bus. Mgr. Mark Lee, left, greets Congressman Jim Barcia's aid, Jim Lewis, with a certificate of appreciation.