Photo by Angelle Bergeron for ENR Disputed project would replace temporary system of canal gate closures and pumps. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not comply with statutory and regulatory requirements in its award last April of a $675-million design-build contract for flood control upgrades in New Orleans, the U.S. Government Accountability Office ruled Aug. 4 in a bid protest decision.The Corps did not comment on the decision or provide details on how it will respond.GAO upheld protests by two losing bidders:PCCP Constructors, a Fort Worth-based joint venture of Kiewit Corp., Traylor Bros. Inc, and M.R. Pittman Group; and
The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District has agreed to spend $4.7 billion to make extensive improvements in its sewer systems and treatment plants over the next 23 years as part of a settlement with the federal government, the State of Missouri, and the Missouri Coalition of the Environment Foundation.In the settlement announced August 5, MSD will be required to install a variety of pollution controls, including building three large storage tunnels ranging from approximately two miles to nine miles in length, and to expand capacity at two treatment plants.MSD says it has already spent $2.3 billion over the past two
Related Links: First Report of the Jefferson County Sewer System Receiver Officials of Jefferson County, Ala., and the state are negotiating with creditors for another week while they try to avoid a $4.1-billion bankruptcy filing. All it took to reach this point is bad spending on a sewer system overhaul, bad financing and changing of the county's debt structure. If county officials decide to seek protection from creditors, it may become the biggest municipal bankruptcy ever. Jefferson County includes Birmingham, Alabama's biggest city.The Jefferson County Commission and creditors agreed July 28 to postpone until Aug. 4 a decision on filing after creditors
The cities of Binghamton and Johnson City, N.Y., and their Joint Sewer Board have filed a $20-million suit against 12 companies, charging them with professional negligence and malpractice after a 100-ft wall collapsed in May.The suit, filed July 22 in Broome County Supreme Court, also cites breach of contract and seeks “repair and replacement of various design and construction errors at the Binghamton-Johnson City Joint Sewage Treatment Plant, including, but not limited to, replacement of collapsed exterior walls, defects in design and construction of the Phase III improvements, methanol and BAF systems, removal of debris, replacement of filtering materials” and
Related Links: EPA Announces Plans to Regulate Coal Ash After Dike Failure, TVA Cleans Area Near Kingston Coal Plant Coal Ash Spill Has New Costs As John Kammeyer, P.E., Tennessee Valley Authority's vice president for coal combustion, drove up to the TVA's Kingston coal electricity plant at 3:30 a.m. on Dec. 23, 2008, and “saw all that crap across the road”—to be specific, 5.4 million cu yd of coal ash from the plant's ash pond—Kammeyer knew at once there had been an engineering failure.“I had never seen anything like that before,” he says of the wet coal ash that poured
EnvironmentalIt took three days, but workers at New York City's North River Wastewater Treatment Plant finally succeeded in stopping raw sewage from flowing into the Hudson River after a fire shuttered the plant on July 20. On average, the plant, located in Harlem west of the West Side Highway, treats 20 million gallons per day of wastewater. The plant has been in operation since 1986.The four-alarm blaze began in the engine room at about 11:45 a.m., shutting down pumps and causing millions of gallons of sewage to spill into the river. Dept. of Environmental Protection workers and contractors stopped the
EnvironmentThe meticulous cleanup of Montana's Yellowstone River continues following a July 1 ExxonMobil oil pipeline rupture that spewed 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the flooding river at the pipe's Silvertip crossing near Laurel, Mont.Bob Perciasepe, Environmental Protection Agency deputy administrator, told a U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on July 21 that 755 personnel on site included 610 people “currently in the field engaged in cleanup and sampling.”Exxon spokeswoman Rachel Moore says crews have deployed 57,000 ft of boom and about 277,000 absorbent pads to help sop up the oil. More than 60 private contractors—ranging from security to
As the investigation and cleanup of the ExxonMobil oil spill in the Yellowstone River continues in Montana, plans for a much longer oil line are coming under scrutiny. The State Dept. says it will consider the recent leak from the ExxonMobil pipeline as part of its ongoing review of the international TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline, parts of which originate in Hardisty, Alberta, and cross through the same river in Montana on its way to oil terminals located in Texas. “Since we're in the decision process, of course we're looking at what's happened in the ExxonMobil case, and we're interested in
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized new clean air rules on Thursday that have already forced utilities to close dozens of coal plants in lieu of installing billions of dollars of after-market pollution-control equipment.The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule reduces the amount of allowable levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide in 27 states in the East, the Midwest and Texas. The rule targets SO2 and NOX because they can cross state lines, react with the atmosphere and can contribute to harmful levels of smog and soot.“These clean air standards for power plant pollution will provide some of the greatest human
By treating ever-more wastewater rather than discharging it into its harbor, Hong Kong has been creating a growing mountain of sludge, which is set to overwhelm available disposal sites. With more sewage treatment capacity now under development, the Chinese Special Administrative Region is investing in one of the world’s largest fluidised-bed sludge incinerators. Image courtesy Claude Vasconi/Veolia The Tuen Mun is designed to handle 2,000 tonnes of sludge per day. Because of its isolated coastal location, the project includes a seawater desalination facility that will provide water for the site. Image courtesy Arup Completed in 1997, the sewage treatment plant
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