Related Links: Toxic Chemical Spill Fouls Drinking Water Supply in Charleston, W. Va. No One's Job: West Virginia's Forbidden Waters Following the Jan. 9 toxic spill that shut down drinking-water supplies to 300,000 people, West Virginia regulators have cited Freedom Industries Inc. for numerous violations. Lawyers are filing lawsuits against the company, and state and federal probes are continuing.Water service returned to about 75% of West Virginia American Water customers in Charleston by Jan. 16, though pregnant women were advised by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to continue drinking bottled water because little is known about effects of 4-methylcyclohexane
Related Links: California Bay Delta Plan Undergoes More Changes Review the Full Bay Delta Conservation Plan After years of planning, the state of California released the latest version of its controversial Bay Delta Conservation Plan on Dec. 9. Encompassing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which drains about half the land mass of the state, the $24.75-billion plan aims to balance the goals of helping 56 species of plants and animals to recover while stabilizing Delta water deliveries to agricultural and municipal users.The plan's centerpiece includes $16 billion for three new water intakes outfitted with fish-protection screens at the delta's north end;
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ricardo R. Guzma U.S. Navy helicopter drops relief supplies on Nov. 14 at Tacloban Airfield in the Philippines. View from relief-effort military helicopter shows breadth of damaged area. One week after Typhoon Haiyan hammered the central Philippines, a key road in one of the hardest-hit areas has been cleared and relief aid is starting to flow. But the damage is severe and extensive, and it is likely to be some time before major cleanup and rebuilding can begin.While it was not immediately clear how involved engineering and construction firms would be in
Photo by AP Wideworld Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Visayan Islands in the central Philippines on Nov. 8 with sustained winds in excess of 148 miles per hour and storm surges estimated between 15 ft and 19 ft.It is reported to be one of the strongest storms to make landfall in history and comes on the heels of a magnitude-7.2 earthquake that hit, on Oct. 15, the central Visayan island of Bohol, destroying and weakening many buildings. The typhoon reportedly wiped out the port city of Tacloban on the island of Leyte. Initial estimates put the death toll at 10,000.Damage
Related Links: Arkansas Spill Zone Residents Await Plan to Return Home; New Leak in Missouri Ruptured Section of Arkansas Pipeline Sent for Lab Tests ExxonMobil Corp. violated federal safety regulations while operating the Pegasus pipeline that dumped about 5,000 barrels of oil in a Mayflower, Ark., neighborhood in March and should pay more than $2.6 million in penalties, a federal regulator determined.The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in a notice issued Nov. 6, claims ExxonMobil, and its ExxonMobil Pipeline Co., did not pay attention to known problems with pipeline integrity in 1991, 2005 and 2006.“The operator experienced
Related Links: After Dike Failure, TVA Cleans Area Near Kingston Coal Plant Cleanup from TVA Coal Ash Disaster Breaks New Ground The Tennessee Valley Authority should implement a groundwater protection plan to minimize the degradation of aquifers near its coal-fired plants, the Environmental Integrity Project says in a Nov. 6 report. The group credited the federal power producer for its decision to phase out ash ponds and replace them with landfills, which TVA did after about 5.4 million cu yd of wet ash from the 1,456-MW Kingston, Tenn., plant flowed over about 300 acres and into the Emory River in
Photo Courtesy Federal Emergency Management Agency Fargo wants to make reinforcement of temporary levees part of the past. Related Links: Risks Pile Up At Canada's Muskrat Falls Hydro Army Corps Plan Would Tame Red River, Prevent 100-Year Flood Flood Control on the Red River as a Complex Environmental Decision System On Oct. 24, the cities of Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn., moved one step closer to solving a perennial problem within the region: Red River Basin flooding. The U.S. House of Representatives authorized a plan to build nearly $2 billion worth of aqueducts and dams, as well as a 35-mile
Photo Courtesy of Bechtel McCullough at Hanford project site. Related Links: DOE Hanford Site Vitrification Plant Pushes Construction Deadlines DOE Inspector General's Audit Report of Hanford Vitrification Plant Design Control PDF Sept. 24 DOE Hanford Tank Waste Retrieval, Treatment, and Disposition Framework Report PDF Peggy McCullough, named in July as Bechtel National project director for the high-level nuclear-waste treatment plant at the U.S. Energy Dept.'s Hanford site in eastern Washington state, inherited a $12.2-billion project beset by delays and cost overruns since work began a decade ago, with numerous technical, budget and procedural challenges. The complex facility will turn 56
Related Links: U.S. DOT to Help with New Mexico Repairs New Mexico is looking at, so far, an estimated $6.87 million worth of road and highway repairs from recent heavy rains and floods that battered the state in September, transportation officials say.Other damage assessments have yet to be tallied, as local and federal officials look for funds to help kick off the repair work more quickly.Twenty-five of New Mexico's 33 counties experienced flooding and infrastructure damage since two major storms slammed the state between Sept. 13 and Sept. 24 and dropped more than eight inches of rain in some regions