Balcony Collapse Kills Six, Cause Under Investigation

Six people are dead and seven seriously injured after a balcony collapse in downtown Berkeley, Calif. The victims, all students hailing from Ireland, attended nearby University of California, Berkeley on J1 visas. According to eyewitness reports, the students were celebrating at a birthday party in a fourth-story unit at the Library Gardens Apartments when the balcony collapsed. The balcony sheared off the side of the building and appears to have flipped over, landing atop a third-story balcony below. Four of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, and the other two died of their injuries at local hospitals, according to police. Berkeley officials red-tagged the apartment and other nearby balconies as a precaution while building inspectors determine the cause of the collapse. Segue Construction built the nearly 10-year-old complex. Greystar manages the four-story building's 176 units.

Transmission Developer Offers Lake Champlain Cleanup Funds

In a novel agreement June 24 with the Conservation Law Foundation, TDI New England offered $284 million to clean up Lake Champlain in exchange for support for its $1.2-billion Canada-to-New England hydropower transmission line project. The agreement was filed with the Vermont Public Service Board as part of permitting for the New England Clean Power link project to build a 154-mile, 1,000-MW underwater, underground transmission line. The deal would boost phosphorous cleanup and other programs by $110 million from the previously agreed amount of $162 million over the 40-year project life. Of the five Canada-to-New England clean energy plans, this is the only one with such a monetary deal.