Only about 10 percent of the state’s estimated 7,000 construction cranes have been certified as required by new rules that take effect in a matter of hours on New Year’s Day, according to the state Department of Labor and Industries.

  It’s not like there wasn’t warning.

  The crane-safety rules were adopted by state lawmakers in 2007 after a deadly crane collapse in November 2006, when a 210-foot tower crane used to build a Bellevue office building collapsed, killing Microsoft lawyer Matthew Ammon in a nearby condo. An L&I investigation later found that the crane’s steel base frame wasn’t strong enough to support it. The frame needed to be four times stronger.

  The state agency sent out a press release Dec. 22 sounding the alert that the Jan. 1 deadline was near but only 700 cranes had been certified, including just 20 tower cranes — and there are an estimated 100 tower cranes currently erected throughout the state.

  Things picked up just a tad. By yesterday, 760-odd cranes were certified, L&I spokesperson Hector Castro told the PostGlobe. That’s still barely surpassing 10 percent.

  Castro surmises that a lot of crane owners may be waiting until last minute, as certification isn’t required until Jan. 1 and certification only lasts for a year. Also, he hears that a lot of cranes are sitting idle, so some owners may figure certification isn’t worth it (as a KUOW story indicates here).

  “There are a huge number of cranes not certified,” Dan McMurdie, manager of L&I’s Construction and Specialty Services program, said in the Dec. 22 press release. “Businesses should have been working on this all year, but if they haven’t, they certainly should now.”

   “The public should not be overly alarmed” about safety, McMurdie said.

   More precisely, McMurdie put it this way:

   “Cranes affected by the new requirements range from very large ones you see at construction sites to small ones delivering materials to a site,” McMurdie said. “The vast majority are safe, efficient and well designed, and the public should not be overly alarmed. But in order to remain in that condition and ensure the safety of workers and people passing by, regular inspections must be conducted and those who operate them must be properly trained.”

     Only about 50 people statewide are trained to certify cranes, according to L&I, and an inspection can take a few hours to a week or more, depending on the crane’s size and complexity.

    Inspectors from L&I will start their work in January to ensure cranes are certified, Castro said. The goal is 100 percent compliance. What Castro is hearing from the director is the agency is not interested in shutting down construction sites.