The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Dec. 29 sent a letter to the District of Columbia and six states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and outlining new penalties if they do not meet more stringent requirements for cleaning up water pollution. Bay advocates have criticized federal and state efforts to clean up the bay in the past because although states have been encouraged to meet certain milestones in reducing water pollution from point and non-point sources, they typically have faced no penalties for failing to do so—until now. Penalties could include expanding National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits to
The U.S. Energy Dept. announced on Dec. 28 a plan to treat thousands of cubic yards of radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory site in Idaho Falls, beating a court-ordered deadline by four days. The practice of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel produced about 9 million gallons of high-level liquid waste at the site over a 40-year span. DOE halted reprocessing in 1992, converting liquid waste into 5,750 cu yd of a powdered material called calcine, which it must now dispose of outside the state. The agency says it intends to convert the powder into a ceramic-like solid through a
Translating the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification into a standard for all international construction—which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has pledged to do—may be impossible. Photo: Tom Sawyer Corps holds workshop for staffers to acquaint them with LEED, which the Corps has committed to adopting as a worldwide standard. Related Links: Building Abroad Has Corps of Engineers Working Hard To Adapt Creating high-performance facilities is not the issue, but holding to a LEED rating is problematic. “LEED is a very U.S.-based standard, and trying to take that and apply it overseas
Environmentalists were disappointed by the two-week United Nations-sponsored Copenhagen climate- change summit, which failed to set binding emissions targets. But the Danish conference, attended by 119 government heads, has helped stimulate engineers to promote themselves as low-carbon champions. Indonesian floods are thought to be tied to climate change. Global summit in Copenhagen produced only an outline of how countries may address the issue, but engineering firms see clients who believe “decarbonizing” is going to happen. Related Links: Head Sees Climate Change Chances: Arup Group Gears up to Low Carbon 'Suffering and Economic Collapse' Atkin's Keith Clarke on Global Warming Regardless
Two weeks after an 18-in. three-phase common pipeline ruptured on Alaska’s North Slope, spewing more than 1,000 barrels of crude oil, produced water and natural gas from a 24-in. gash, cleanup workers are “trimming” the tundra by hand and with machinery in subzero temperatures to remove oil and produced water. At ENR press time, they had removed the bulk of the spilled material from the surface of the 8,400-sq-ft affected area, says Steve Rinehart, spokesman for producer BP Exploration Alaska Inc. Photo: B. Fultz, Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation Spilled material melts for collection with a vacuum rig. Small Bobcat-type
The National Science Foundation confirmed on Dec. 15 that it will delay until next summer award of a long-term contract, worth at least $2 billion, to manage support logistics for the federal governments’s huge polar research program in Antarctica. Raytheon Co., site contractor since 1999, will continue under its existing contract but is not proposing this round. The new contract, originally set for award this fall and about 12.5 years in duration, has generated proposals from seven teams, including those led by AECOM Technology Corp., CH2M Hill Cos., KBR Inc. and Fluor Corp. Parsons Corp. and EG&G Inc., a unit
One year after dikes failed at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired powerplant near Knoxville, Tenn., and sent coal ash spilling over 300 nearby acres and into the Emory River, contractors have removed two-thirds of the river waste and are halfway through the $1-billion cleanup. But the agency and regulatory officials are struggling with how to prevent a repeat of the Dec. 22, 2008, catastrophe. Photo: Sevenson Environmental Services Ash waste that spilled into the Emory River is most critical portion of TVA remediation project. Tom Kilgore, TVA’s CEO, told a congressional subcommittee this month that he expects cleanup and
Even some of the harshest critics of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are pleased by the swift rise of the $1.3-billion Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Storm Surge Barrier. The 1.8-mile-long, 26-ft-high concrete and steel wall-and-gate structure going up at the confluence of the IHNC, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) in New Orleans is designed to keep storm surge on Lake Borgne and the Gulf of Mexico away from the city’s eastern flank. Related Links: VIDEO: Heavy Lift Ballet: Finesse Surges Barrier Toward Finish Storm-Barrier Equipment Fleet Uneasy About Evacuation Plan Construction
A down economy could provide a positive boost to opponents of looming targets for construction- equipment emissions in California. A new study suggests formulas that were used by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to establish future emissions-reduction targets overestimated the levels of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter from off-road diesel equipment in the state. AGC says looming equipment emissions rules are based on projections now reduced by compliance and the recession. The findings are based on new data released from an inventory of construction equipment currently in use in the state conducted this year by the Sacramento-based board. The
The U.K.’s commitment to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050 is doable but will have a big impact on its building stock, infrastructure and economy, says a new report by Parsons Brinckerhoff, the New York City-based unit of U.K.-based contractor Balfour Beatty LLC. Based on two years of research, the report is one of the first independent studies of the “full implications” of the 2050 mandate on the U.K.’s power, transportation, industrial and building sectors, says PB. The report notes impacts such as the need to build extensive battery-charging infrastructure to meet the planned need for electric vehicles, develop
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