Related Links: New Study Says Infrastructure Already Feels Climate Change's Impact Wind Developers Active Across African Continent The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved the creation of a fund to support the continent’s “transition to green growth.” The African Climate Change Fund (ACCF) will scale up to a multi-donor trust fund, which will be hosted and managed by the bank.Speaking to the bank’s directors at a meeting in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, Alex Rugamba, director of the bank’s energy, environment and climate-change department, said the fund “will help facilitate countries’ access to the financing they need to protect their economies
Images Courtesy Of Novarka With the vault's first half completed, the second section is taking shape within the lifting towers. Spanning 257 m, the structure (below) will cover the entire sarcophagus. Related Links: Radiation Threat Still Permeates Chernobyl's Entombment Work on Enclosure for Chernobyl Begins Twenty-eight years after devastating explosions and fire partially destroyed Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear plant, the first half of a vast safe confinement has been completed. As work continues on the 25,000-tonne steelwork vault—tall enough to cover the Statue of Liberty—the parties to the cleanup are about to agree to a new construction price of around $2
Related Links: EPA Bristol Bay Profile EPA Study Says Pebble Mine Could Destroy Salmon's Habitat The Pebble Partnership is searching for another key investor to help fund its proposed Pebble Mine project in Bristol Bay, Alaska after international mining giant Rio Tinto gifted to two Alaska charities its 19.1% stake in the firm. A project spokesman says development of the mine, valued at $7 billion to $8 billion, will continue.Environmentalists oppose the mine, which would potentially include a large earthen dam and a containment pond to store up "tailings" waste from the gold, copper and molybdenum extracted. The project would
Related Links: Remarks by Deputy Attorney General James Cole at Press Briefing on Settlement Anadarko Statement on Settlement Anadarko Petroleum Group and some of its subsidiaries will pay $4.4 billion for environmental cleanup at several contaminated sites around the U.S. under a settlement reached with the U.S. Dept. of Justice.Announced on April 3, the total $5.15- billion settlement is the largest environmental enforcement recovery in the Justice Dept.'s history, the agency said. It will settle outstanding claims against the company and pay for the cleanup.A bankruptcy court in December found that the Kerr-McGee Corp., a subsidiary of Anadarko, moved its
Photo courtesy of Washington state DOT Slide Zone Slope above the Stillagaumish River had been timbered several times, which weakened soil stability. Related Links: Lidar Mapping Offers Exacting Detail, a Better Landslide Awareness Tool Landslide Mitigation Measures Fail To Save Plan To Build Bypass Bridges in Oregon New unstable-slope rules, updated in 2011 by the Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources, and unheeded warnings about logging as far back as 1988, could not prevent the March 22 landslide near Oso nor keep victims out of its deadly path.The event has killed at least 24, with 22 missing, as of April
Photo Courtesy of Cambrian Innovation Containerized EcoVolt process generates power from methane; clean water is a by-product. Related Links: Craft Brewer Purchases EcoVolt Bioelectric Technology Bio-Energy Box Coverts Beer Waste to Electricity How Cambrian's EcoVolt Bioelectric Wastewater Treatment System Works Craft breweries in drought-stricken Sonoma County, Calif., are testing a novel process that generates power while recycling wastewater.Developed by an MIT spin-off firm, the EcoVolt system "takes the wastewater stream and, through anaerobic technology, turns it into methane gas that we then turn into electricity using a micro- turbine," says Leon Sharyon, CFO of craft brewery Lagunitas. Matthew Silver, a
Related Links: Consent decree filed March 5 in federal district court Complaint filed in federal district court by U.S., W.Va., Pa., Ky. In a settlement with the U.S. Dept. of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency, Alpha Natural Resources Inc., a major U.S. coal company, has agreed to pay a record $27.5 million in civil fines and spend about $160 million for projects to curb discharges of pollutants from its mines in five Eastern states.Under a consent decree filed on March 5 in federal district court in Charleston, W.Va., the company, based in Bristol, Va., will settle thousands of permit violations
Photo by Jim Tetro Park amenities include a rain garden, pavilions, an ice-skating rink and a cafe. Related Links: 2013 Best of the Best Projects Winners ENR Mid-Atlantic 2013 Best Projects: Washington Canal Park The team transformed a parking lot for Washington D.C. school buses on the Anacostia Waterfront into a three-acre park that offers aboveground recreational amenities and a belowground stormwater sewer system. Runoff from seven city blocks is diverted to the system, which includes two underground 40,000-gallon cisterns; tree pits also collect runoff. The reused water provides nearly 95% of the park's needs, saving an estimated 1.5 million
NDA Developed since the 1940s, the 4-sq-km complex has been a weapons-making center, the site of the world's first nuclear powerplant, and a fuel-recycling and waste-storage facility. Related Links: British Report Says Sellafield Costs Soaring as Cleanup Lags Facing Tough Competition, URS Lands Huge U.K. Contract U.K.-U.S. Team Picked For $4-Billion Nuclear Waste Cleanup at Scotland Site U.K. officials have slammed the management of the huge U.S.-led cleanup program at the Sellafield nuclear-waste site, located in northwest England, months after it was awarded a five-year contract extension.The consortium, called Nuclear Management Partners Ltd. (NMP), "has failed to provide ... clear
Related Links: Elk River Chemical Spill Triggers Lawsuits, Investigations Toxic Chemical Spill Fouls Drinking Water Supply in Charleston, W. Va. Freedom Industries Inc. has until March 15 to remove all the chemicals from its storage farm that leaked into the Elk River near Charleston, W.Va., shutting down the drinking-water supply for about 300,000 people in January.Meanwhile, the state Legislature is acting on proposed regulations of similar aboveground storage tanks, residents continue to experience water problems, and grants are going to researchers to study water issues.Freedom must start "to dismantle, remove and properly manage the disposition of all aboveground storage tanks,