Motorists may have noticed some unusual orange signs in downtown Akron.
As you head south on North Howard Street, approaching state Route 59, you are told you are entering a blasting zone.
A short while later, there’s a sign that reads, “Turn off two-way radio and cell phone.”
Area residents who are keeping up with the local news probably understand the first sign. The blasts are being done to clear the way for that gazillion-dollar, super-duper megatunnel that will whisk away sewage and stormwater during heavy rains and put it in a giant hole under downtown Akron long enough to prevent it from further polluting the Cuyahoga River.
The project’s headliner is a monstrous boring machine that will gobble up enough Akron earth to create a 6,240-foot-long tunnel that is 27 feet in diameter. The beast is being built in Solon and won’t make an appearance here until 2017. But that doesn’t mean the contractors are just sitting around.
Workers have started blasting through rock to create drop shafts and consolidation sewers that will connect street-level drains to the tunnel. That show opened earlier this month near the intersection of West Market Street and Dart Avenue, where you’ll hear some firecracker-ish sounds once every weekday for four months.
A spot near Glendale and Rand avenues joined the party last week, but those blasts will only take place once every week and a half.
The third site, near the intersection of Exchange and South Main streets, won’t take up arms until early January.
So we understand the “blasting zone” part. But what do two-way radios and cellphones have to do with it?
I asked the city whether the radios and phones would be capable of setting off a blast and, if so, why the sign wasn’t as big as the Federal Building.
Or, I continued, is this more like a flight attendant telling you to turn off your cellphone — an oft-disregarded order that seems not to be a real safety issue.
A major but necessary digression:
Reports of electronic devices messing up navigational equipment on jetliners are out there, but there still isn’t any solid scientific evidence. Boeing engineers can’t replicate it on test flights or in the lab. Most experts will only say there is the “potential” for a problem.
That’s enough for me. I put my phone in “airplane mode” — which doubles as a great excuse for not returning texts.
But the orange sign in Akron is not even comparable to phones on a plane. The warning is the result of outdated requirements that have not yet been removed from federal regulations.
Mayoral press secretary and Assistant Law Director Ellen Lander Nischt provided a full explanation.
“First,” she said via email, “there is not a present risk that someone will be setting off a blast if they fail to comply with the signage by turning off their cell phone or radio. As you noted, the city and the contractor would have implemented additional safeguards if such a risk existed.”
One would hope!
“The signs were put up by Kenny/Obayashi, the contractor for the construction of the OCIT [Ohio Canal Interceptor Tunnel] in order to comply with OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] requirements.
“On all projects in the United States, OSHA standards require the prominent display of adequate signs warning against the use of mobile radio transmitters on all roads within 1,000 feet of blasting operations.
“When the OSHA regulation that requires the signs ... originated, blasting generally involved the use of electronic blasting caps. These caps are not regularly used anymore.”
Kenny/Obayashi isn’t using them, so the whole thing is a moot point.
Nischt says the city has been exploring alternative signage but is adamant that all the blasting operations be in formal compliance with federal regs.
Another interesting wrinkle in the project is warning whistles.
As above-average Beacon Journal employee Rick Armon recently reported, people within a half-mile or so of the blasts will hear five long whistles five minutes ahead of time, then five short whistles one minute ahead, then one long whistle after the blast.
Will the average Joe or Josephine have any idea what the whistles are about? Probably not. But maybe, like the rats in Skinner’s box, they may eventually become conditioned to respond to the whistles by pulling out their cellphones and recording the noise.
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com. He also is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bob.dyer.31.