Photo Courtesy of Waterkeeper Alliance A mix of coal ash and contaminated water spilled into the Dan River over several days. Related Links: Dan River Ash Spill Information Cleanup of TVA Coal Ash Spill (2011) A spill from a coal-ash pond at a retired Duke Energy coal plant near Eden, N.C., that turned the Dan River black, then gray, has been plugged, but environmental advocates worry the spill's ecological impact will be far-reaching.Wet coal ash poured into the Dan River over a period of days, beginning on Feb. 2, as a result of a broken 48-in.-dia stormwater pipe under the
Related Links: Q&A: 10 Minutes With DOT's Ray LaHood Call To Upgrade Infrastructure Transportation policy leaders agree that infrastructure funding is a bipartisan issue, but consensus on raising the federal gas tax remains elusive.Former U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, addressing a Feb. 4 forum in Washington, D.C., said, "We should have raised the gas tax already and index it to inflation. I would've raised it by 10¢," he said to applause.But a fellow panelist on the Bloomberg Government-hosted discussion of U.S. infrastructure investment, Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said it was
Related Links: Denver International Airport Launches South Terminal Redevelopment Program City of Denver Selected as ENR Mountain States' Owner of the Year Denver International Airport is suing the city's Regional Transportation District to recover $53 million in costs for contracted work on the airport's Hotel and Transit Center Project, still under construction. Airport officials filed the lawsuit after a mediator refused to grant DIA the full amount from RTD. The money would be used to pay for site excavation, roadways, train-platform construction and other infrastructure work at the airport terminal. Both agencies say the other one should pay for the
Photo courtesy Walsh Austin The 1.2-million-sq-ft replacement terminal is said to be the largest public works project in Los Angeles history. Related Links: 2013 Best of the Best Projects Winners Team Pilots Safe Delivery Of LAX Global Gateway Coordinating the $1.3-billion replacement terminal at LAX—the largest public-works project ever in the city of Los Angeles—was "like working on your car while it was driving 60 miles per hour down the freeway," says Jimmy Cole, senior project manager for Walsh Austin Joint Venture.The job, which kicked off in February 2010 and wrapped up December 2012, was turned over in six phases
During a 2010 preconstruction meeting with the owner-developer of Seattle's super-sustainable Bullitt Center, the 50,000-sq-ft project's consulting engineer had a minor meltdown over electric-plug loads—the silent killer of green-building power conservation.
Photo courtesy of Fentress Architects Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center, Denver Related Links: Judicial Center Completed Two Months Early 2013 Best of the Best Projects Winners The 600,000-sq-ft Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center (CJC) capped a prominent, important project for the state of Colorado. The site is situated along the perimeter of Denver's historic Civic Center Park and next door to the state capitol.Designed to create a more efficient state judicial system, the CJC consolidates seven judicial and legal agencies that had leased office space in 10 different Denver locations.The halls and floor of the four-story glass atrium
Photo courtesy W architectural Photography This $65-million mixed-use residential project was built on a triangular infill site at busy La Cienega Boulevard and Burton Way. Related Links: 2013 Best of the Best Projects Winners Dramatic Infill Project Offers High-End L.A. Living The 253,000-sq-ft modern apartment development, featuring a mixed-use layout and a yacht-like shape, sits on a hemmed-in, triangular infill site that serves as a gateway to Beverly Hills, Calif., at one of Los Angeles' busiest intersections. The 90-ft-tall tower gives commanding views of the Hollywood Hills, downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean.Building the post-tensioned concrete-and-glass structure that mimics
Related Links: Racking Up Big Points for Prefab FMI Says Modular Construction Set to Grow In the late 1960s, Texas general contractor H.B. Zachry Co. built a 500-room, 21-story Hilton hotel in downtown San Antonio for the city's HemisFair global exposition, and ended up creating a benchmark in modular construction.To get the Hilton Palacio del Rio Hotel built by HemisFair's April 1968 start, the contractor—now called Zachry Construction Corp.—built the rooms eight miles off site and placed them in the hotel's steel skeleton. The completed room units included plumbing fixtures, lighting, beds, TVs and even ashtrays. A crane hoisted the
Courtesy Dragados USA The Portugues Dam is the first roller compacted concrete, thick-arch dam attempted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Related Links: The 10 Largest-Capacity Hydropower Plants When the heavy rains come as they do every year, the steep mountain slopes on the southern side of Puerto Rico can become deadly. The Portugués and Bucana rivers often overflow with a rapidity that threatens the municipality of Ponce downstream.The formal completion ceremony for the $386-million Portugués Dam on Feb. 5 marks the end of a long odyssey to solve the flood-control issues that imperil the Caribbean island's second-largest urban
Related Links: Report Shows Improved Water Quality in Chesapeake Bay CH2M Hill Now Will Run Troubled Port of Anchorage Expansion Job Two firms competing for a program and construction-management contract under Miami-Dade County's federally mandated sewer-repairs project are at odds. AECOM Technical Services and CH2M Hill are accusing each other of improprieties during bidding for the $1.6-billion project.AECOM fired the first shot, asserting that CH2M Hill violated Miami-Dade's ethics rules and standard procurement practices by sending hundreds of pages of proposal documentation directly to county officials prior to a Tier 2 presentation before a committee assembled on Aug. 28, 2013,
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