Eric D. Lawrence

Detroit Free Press

The students at Burton Elementary School in Huntington Woods were expected to have a new playground on which to romp in early November.

Instead, school principal Maribeth Krehbiel projects the $460,000 state-of-the-art playground will not open until closer to the end of the month. The reason? A shortage of cement, a key component of concrete, is squeezing construction projects in Michigan and across the Great Lakes region.

If a homeowner wanted to get a driveway poured in the coming weeks, he or she might be told to wait a month or longer, said Daniel DeGraaf, who heads the Michigan Concrete Association.

"There are projects that may not get built this year because of this," DeGraaf said.

The cement industry, which provides the binding material for concrete in roads, sidewalks, housing foundations and all kinds of building projects, is in the midst of a "perfect storm," blamed in part on the hangover from last winter, when the Great Lakes nearly froze over completely.

That delayed the start of shipping for the state's cement in the springtime even as the economy was heating up, and an oil boom in North Dakota has tied up freight trains, leading to a logistical nightmare for a slew of companies.

Lafarge North America, a major cement producer in Michigan with a plant in Alpena, issued a statement blaming the harsh winter weather in early 2014 that led to a "steep drop in construction activities and the demand for cement."

"As the polar vortex continued, cement storage facilities remained full. When the weather warmed, construction picked up as did the demand for cement. However, transportation bottlenecks resulted in cement sufficient to meet pent-up customer demand was not able to make it to the Great Lakes region in what was an usually heightened and compressed seasonal demand period," the company said.

Some concrete customers have been told their projects must wait because the Michigan Department of Transportation has first dibs for road construction.

But DeGraaf said that concrete companies have been trying to balance the importance of all kinds of projects. He pointed out that the massive I-96 reconstruction should not be blamed as contributing to the shortage because it had been planned for before this construction season began.

"There's a myriad of priorities and, of course, every customer's project is most important to every customer," said DeGraaf, whose Okemos-based organization claims 200 members, including ready-mix concrete and cement companies. "I believe the ready-mix companies, they're more than just listening to somebody screaming the loudest, they're mindful of the importance of the (projects), and they're trying to prioritize."

Jeff Cranson, an MDOT spokesman, said contractors have to plan for any material shortages and order accordingly. Cranson pointed out that the cement shortage was not having an effect on MDOT projects.

The cement shortage this year is like nothing Bunky Wheatley's family owned concrete company in southwest Detroit has experienced since its founding in 1991.

Wheatley, a co-owner of Detroit Ready Mix Concrete, said customers in need of concrete might wait up to one or two days in a normal year, but this year, the wait could be two weeks or longer.

"Unfortunately, if you're not a regular customer of mine, we're taking you and putting you on a waiting list," Wheatley said.

In addition to the effects of the cement shortage, other factors are having an impact on Wheatley's business. The burgeoning economic recovery has made it harder for Wheatley to find qualified employees, he said.

Cement production and consumption in Michigan, which is an exporter to other states, has been on the increase in recent years after substantial declines during the financial crisis.

In 2007, production was at 5.3 million metric tons and consumption was at 2.2 million metric tons. By 2010, production had dropped to 3.1 million metric tons and consumption was at 1.6 million metric tons, with production and consumption increasing steadily after that to 3.6 million and 1.6 million metric tons respectively in 2013, according to U.S. Geological Survey information supplied by the Portland Cement Association.

There are some mixed messages on the cement-supply outlook for the rest of the year. Wheatley and others describe a frantic push to complete projects before colder weather and snow arrive. However, officials note that the road construction season typically wraps up by about Nov. 15, which could free up equipment and materials for other projects.

And Lafarge said in its statement that "conditions are now returning to normal and the supply situation is stable."

The company said it is "identifying additional storage facilities and reviewing options to expand our transportation network to avoid future occurrences of this type."

DeGraaf said industry authorities are hopeful that the cement shortage is limited to this year, but he acknowledged that forecasting the future can be a challenge, saying "we really don't know exactly what's going to be going on this winter."

But DeGraaf noted that the situation has not been completely negative.

"The good part of it is you see houses going up in the Detroit area," DeGraaf said. "There are signs of life in Michigan now, so the demand's going up. That's the good part of the message, but it has created a difficulty for the producers. They cannot supply all of the requests for cement."

The shortage means delays for the Burton playground, which requires concrete for its walkways, the area under a gazebo and the perimeter of a sensory garden.

The delay is disappointing but not devastating, Krehbiel said. She said that delays on any type of construction project are not uncommon and the 520 students in kindergarten through fifth grade eventually will have a modern, showplace playground to replace a 20-year-old, wooden structure, thanks to assistance from the city and community groups.

"I would love to have had it (done earlier), but what are you going to do if you don't have the product available?" Krehbiel said.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @_ericdlawrence.

Concrete or cement?

"Concrete is basically a mixture of aggregates and paste. The aggregates are sand and gravel or crushed stone; the paste is water and cement. ... Cement is manufactured by heating lime, silica, alumina, iron, and other materials at high temperature. The resulting substance is a marble-like ball called clinker that is ground, mixed with limestone and gypsum, and used to create concrete."

Source: Portland Cement Association (Portland is a generic term for cement)