America’s aging infrastructure—which, in 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated would require $2.2 trillion over a five-year period—continues to provide work for environmental contractors through American Recovery and Reinvestment funding. Photo:Courtesey of PCL Utilities are still retrofitting aging facilities, like the South Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant. Related Links: General Building: Firms Find Little Respite From Weak Economy Manufacturing/Telecommunications: Tough Market Requires Top-Notch Players Petroleum: Projects Cancelled in Uncertain Climate Power: Federal Policy Drives New Power Projects Transportation: Dearth of Funds Keeps Sector in Doldrums The Top 400 Contractors List Specifically, contractors are finding work in assuring the safety
BP’s Macondo well is no longer a threat to the Gulf of Mexico, retired-U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Sept. 4 after the blowout preventer was removed from the top of the well without the release of any additional oil. The BOP was shipped to a government facility in Louisiana for analysis. BP says it will still finish a relief well as an extra measure of safety later this month. Meanwhile, BP announced it would provide results of its investigation into the April 20 accident on the Deepwater Horizon on Sept. 8. An oil industry response task force Sept.
Photo: AP/WideWorld Seismic experts credit the development and enforcement of seismic provisions of national building codes with dramatically reducing the impact of the most damaging earthquake to hit New Zealand in nearly 70 years. The magnitude-7.1 temblor that struck Christchurch, the second- largest city, at 4:36 a.m. on Sept. 4 caused no significant damage to major buildings. Low-rise unreinforced masonry buildings, not engineered to resist quakes, sustained the most extensive damage. Water and sewer lines bedded in soft alluvium were stressed and pipe-joint displacement occurred, disrupting service. By nightfall, two-thirds of the city had water.
Enforcement of seismic provisions in the nation's building codes is credited with dramatically reducing the impact of the most damaging earthquake to hit New Zealand for nearly 70 years. A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand's second largest city, at 4.36 a.m. on Sept. 4, causing extensive damage to unreinforced masonry buildings, not engineered to resist sesimic loads, but no significant damage to major buildings. Investment in seismic retrofits appears to have saved some of Christchurch's most important historic buildings, including the Anglican Cathedral in the city's center and the Catholic Basilica. The major message from the earthquake is
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ $14.6-billion drive to bring New Orleans’ hurricane defenses to 100-year levels of protection by June 2011 could fundamentally change the way U.S. civil-works projects are funded and delivered, project leaders say. + Image + Image The Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System, or HSDRRS, is the largest civil-works construction program in Corps history. It was launched in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Already, on the fifth anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and with a year’s construction yet to go, the works now in place provide
Possibly bowing to congressional pressure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Aug. 23 that it will delay until October its implementation of tougher ground-level ozone rules for powerplants. “We are continuing to carefully consider the proposed options” and public comment received since the rules were proposed in January, EPA said in a statement. The rules had been set to take effect on September 1. But several U.S. senators, citing economic hardships, opposed the new emissions standards in an Aug. 6 letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. The new rules would further tighten limits on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide
The U.S. Energy Dept. now is seeking alternate locations for captured gas from its planned FutureGen 2.0 coal-fired powerplant project. DOE says it will still proceed with its flagship carbon capture and storage project despite lacking concrete plans on where it will store the carbon emissions. The $1-billion project’s partners were shaken on Aug. 11 when Mattoon, Ill., the long-planned FutureGen site, pulled out of the scheme. Town officials rejected DOE’s altered plans to retrofit a powerplant elsewhere in the state and instead store CO? emissions in a subterranean geological formation beneath Coles County.
Further reducing the scope of a land-purchase agreement originally proposed by Gov. Charlie Crist (I), the South Florida Water Management District agreed on Aug. 12 to purchase approximately 26,800 acres in the Everglades from the U.S. Sugar Corp. for $197 million. + Image Map: Courtesy South Florida Water Management District The district will acquire the land in the Everglades Agricultural Area and C-139 basin for water-quality and environmental restoration projects. The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) plans to close on the property in Hendry and Palm Beach counties in October. The deal includes options for up to 10 years
The U.S. Energy Dept. said on Aug. 5 it will abandon its original plan for the FutureGen 275-MW powerplant to test advanced carbon-capture and storage technologies; instead, it will use $1 billion in federal stimulus funding to refit and repower an existing coal-fired plant in western Illinois to capture carbon dioxide. The money will go to members of the FutureGen Alliance, a public-private group of U.S. and overseas utilities, power providers and others, to install new equipment at a 200-MW unit in Meredosia, Ill., in the Illinois River Valley. DOE has dubbed the new plant FutureGen 2.0. DOE had planned
The next time there is an oil-spill disaster, emergency response and remediation contractors will have a new generation of tools, thanks in part to techniques and equipment deployed after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon drill-ship explosion. ISAKSON The disaster released an estimated 4.9 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico during the ensuing 86 days. Full cleanup may take years. In a briefing on Aug. 9, Adm. Thad Allen, national incident commander for the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill, said that with a cap on the well apparently holding, the response now is shifting from source control to dealing
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