Is $10 billion too much legal exposure for oil spills? While Obama administration officials work to encourage Congress to bolster the resources available for the oil disaster response and recovery efforts, one proposal that included a measure to raise the liability cap for oil companies, as the President also favors, has already taken a beating on the Senate floor. But Jeff Liebman, acting deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget says the administration should still find opportunities and a bill that can be used to attach its proposals to. Related Links: Oil-Spill Battlefront Spreads From Gulf to Washington,
The rig owner is claiming progress on capping a deepsea well gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, but, as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said on May 17, “We are nowhere close to the finish line. This disaster will not be over for Louisiana until our water and our shores are completely clean and our wildlife, our communities and our coastal industries are 100% restored.” + Image Illustration: Deepwater Horizon Recovery Team BP says it is managing to capture about 20% of the oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon well by inserting a new drill tube into the fallen
An ambitious project to bore a tunnel through the Continental Divide in the Andes of northern Peru has stalled after a powerful rock-burst severely damaged the tunnel-boring machine drilling the underground passage. Los Olmos tunnel workers dig out TBM damaged by shifting rock in April. Related Links: Odebrecht Pushes forward With Next Phase of Peruvian Irrigation Project On April 29, a large rock-burst struck the $14-million, 5-meter-dia, unshielded Robbins gripper TBM, damaging a cylinder connecting one of the grippers to the machine. Two workers suffered minor injuries when the operating cabin was partially crushed around them. Officials with Odebrecht Perú
As the works to complete the dam and tunnel that will divert water across the Andean Continental Divide in northern Peru struggle toward completion, the Brazilian company handling the job� is already preparing for the next phase of the project. La Concesionaria Trasvase Olmos S.A., a business entity created solely for the project by general contract Odebrecht Peru, is seeking the 20-year contract that will divert the waters from the Los Olmos project to irrigate 38,000 hectacres on the arid Pacific coast. On May 11, Peruvian President Alan Garcia signed the document clearing the way for the regional government of
Vast amounts of low-level radioactive waste could be transported to a new West Texas disposal site if a two-state commission, largely appointed by Gov. Rick Perry (R), allows it to accept waste shipments from 36 or more states. The Texas Low-Level Waste Disposal Compact Commission, one of several U.S. compacts set up to encourage state collaboration on low-level waste disposal, consists of six Texas members and two from Vermont to govern disposal in those states. Their waste, now sent to Utah, would be disposed at the Texas site, likely by next spring. The panel could also decide as early as
BP is fighting battles on multiple fronts. It’s battling the oil gushing out of the well after the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drill rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Related Links: Oil-Spill Battlefront Spreads From Gulf to Washington, D.C. Setting Oil Spill Liability Limit: Is $10 Billiion Too High? Resentment Flares Against Dutch Proposal To Mobilize Huge Dredging Fleet in Gulf It’s fighting what it claims is misinformation about the oil spill’s extent and environmental impacts. And in the latest skirmish, BP is defending itself against claims that its engineering documentation may have led to the blast
While a variety of groups from utilities to environmental organizations are clamoring for a climate-change bill that can pass the Senate, construction industry sources say prospects for the bill—rolled out on May 12 by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I- Conn.)—look slim. They unveiled the 987-page American Power Act without the support of Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who had worked with Kerry and Lieberman for several months to craft a bipartisan bill but who in recent weeks dropped out of the discussions. Photo: AP/Wideworld “We’re closer than ever,” says Sen. John Kerry (at podium) with Sen. Joe Lieberman (right).
In the latest round of a heated dispute between McCarthy Building Cos. Inc. and the owner of the distressed McGuire Apartments, a 25-story tower in Seattle, the St. Louis-based contractor maintains the concrete frame’s corroding post-tensioned slab system can be fixed for less than $2 million. McCarthy calls the local owner’s refusal to make “simple” repairs, its ejection of tenants and its proposed dismantling of the nine-year-old building “irresponsible acts.” + Image Image: Whitlock Dalrymple Poston & Associates Pitting Contractor’s summary of pitting corrosion on tendons of 25-story building’s post-tensioning. Photo: Whitlock Dalrymple Poston & Associates Samples Tendon failure tests
Writers of standards—both for general structural design and, in particular, structural steel design—rolled out their 2010 versions this month, completed in time to be referenced in the upcoming 2012 edition of the model “International Building Code.” An overriding goal, say the engineers responsible for the revisions, is to make the standards simpler to understand and use. Illustration: AISC Weld-access-hole geometry is included in steel standard, despite a patent issue. The major editorial change to ASCE/SEI 7-10 “Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures” from the 2005 standard is a “complete” reorganization into a multiple-chapter format—first introduced for seismic loads
In another congressional reaction to the Gulf Coast oil spill, six Senate Democrats from the West Coast have introduced a bill that would permanently ban new oil and gas drilling off the shores of California, Oregon and Washington state. The measure, introduced May 13, would reinstate--only for the West Coast--a longstanding congressional and White House prohibition on Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas exploration. That nationwide drilling ban had been lifted in 2008. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and was co-sponsored by her California colleague Dianne Feinstein, as well as Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden
RSS
