Citizens of Fargo, N.D., and neighboring Moorhead, Minn., appear to have dodged another bullet, but only after an heroic, all-hands effort in late March in advance of floodwaters that ultimately surpassed a 1997 record flood. With little more than a week’s notice, an army of federal, state and local resources, along with sandbag-packing volunteers, built a maze of temporary dikes atop existing levees to withstand the onslaught of the rising Red River. Photo: U.S. Air Force Rapid erection of 38 miles of HESCO barriers helped raise levees in Fargo by 4 ft. At ENR press time, floodwaters in Fargo were
In a twist on the proverb “Set a thief to catch a thief,” physicists at the University of Texas at Austin have designed a system to facilitate the disposal of spent nuclear fuel that combines nuclear fission with fusion. The hybrid system will destroy 99% of the spent fuel, and the waste that remains will be less toxic than the spent fuel now accumulating in storage at nuclear powerplants around the country, the researchers say. President Barack Obama’s decision to halt further development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository in Nevada and “devise a new strategy toward nuclear-waste disposal” has
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will develop regulations for coal- ash storage by the end of the year, says EPA administrator Lisa Jackson. The March 9 decision comes 10 weeks after a dike burst at a storage impoundment at a Tennessee Valley Authority plant, spilling about 5.4 million gallons of coal-ash slurry. EPA will ask experts to assess the integrity of 300 units across the country that store ash suspended in liquid. It is working closely with dam safety experts because of structural similarities of coal-ash impoundments and dams.
Faced with growing demand for consistency in building rating systems, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has agreed to team up with its Australian and British counterparts to develop a common metric to measure emissions of carbon dioxide from new homes and buildings. The USGBC signed a memorandum of understanding on March 3 with the U.K. Green Building Council, the Green Building Council of Australia, and United Kingdom-based BRE Global Ltd. A working group representing each of the rating systems will seek to align the tools to provide consistency in measurement and reporting. Paul King, chief executive of the U.K.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has begun the long road to recovery at its Kingston Fossil Plant following a massive coal-ash spill on Dec. 22, 2008. The agency has pledged to make the areas “as good, if not better than they were before” in its long-term cleanup plan filed on March 2 with a Tennessee state agency. Photo: TVA Photo: Contractors will clear damaged area (top) and reseed. Related Links: After Dike Failure, TVA Cleans Up On March 9, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it will tighten EPA coal-ash regulations by the end of the year as a result of the
The U.S. Energy Dept. is headed back to the drawing board for a national nuclear-waste depository. President Barack Obama, making good on a campaign pledge, is seeking an alternate dump site to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. “I have consistently said that I am opposed to Yucca Mountain,” Obama told a Las Vegas crowd last January. “That will not change.” Photo: The U.S. DOE The budget at Yucca was cut $100 million for the rest of 2009. The U.S. Energy Dept. has spent over $10 billion since 1983 performing geological tests and studies at Yucca Mountain
The North American unit of U.K.-based BP will spend more than $161 million to resolve clean-air violations at its Texas City, Texas, refinery. It is the same plant for which BP was fined $50 million following a 2005 explosion that killed 15 contractor employees and injured 170 others. Under a new Feb. 19 settlement, BP agreed to invest most of the funds on pollution controls, maintenance and "improved internal management" at the plant. The pact with federal regulators, which also includes a $12-million civil penalty and $6 million to reduce air pollution from diesel vehicles, resolves BP’s noncompliance with a
Each year from 1998 to 2004, 59,000 acres of coastal wetlands were lost in the eastern United States, says a new report, "Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Coastal Watersheds of the Eastern United States", from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. More than half of the U.S. population lives in coastal counties in densities five times greater than inland counties, says the report. The construction of roads and buildings has accelerated wetlands loss, particularly along the Gulf of Mexico. A case study from Florida illustrates the challenges of restoring coastal wetlands,
Industry sources describe the funds provided in the final stimulus package for the environmental sector as a good start that could help the Obama administration meet its goal of jumpstarting the economy by creating and saving more jobs. But they acknowledge that the $20.6 billion allocated for environmental projects ranging from water and wastewater infrastructure to levees, Superfund and Dept. of Energy nuclear cleanup falls far short of what is needed to address current and long-term needs. Photo: AP/Wideworld While the Corps received $6.4 billion, some say that is not enough. More flexibility has been provided to states in some
New Orleans’ hurricane and storm damage risk-reduction system is much improved since Hurricane Katrina, but protecting lives will continue to require an emphasis on evacuation, especially until 2011, when the 100-year protection levels are scheduled to be in place. The risk remains high. Photo: Angelle Bergeron Debris behind floodwalls are evidence the walls took the load as the water came over. Those are the findings of a reconnaissance team sponsored by the National Science Foundation, through the Geoengineering Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association. The team’s inspections last October assessed system performance in Hurricane Gustav’s Sept. 1 landfall. The team plans to
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