Related Links: Drought in Western U.S. Has Water Utilities Considering a Range of Solutions Project to Provide Woodland and Davis with More Sustainable Water Supply Although the drought in the West is being called historic, utilities and engineering firms are developing solutions to ensure water supplies continue to meet demand in the future, even as populations swell and climate change intensifies.That was one of the recurring themes at ENR's first Western Water Summit, held in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Nov. 13.According to Roger Pulwarty, director of the national integrated drought information system and senior adviser for climate at the National
Photo by AP Wideworld Since August, a number of contracts have been signed for infrastructure and dredging work. Related Links: Egypt Moves Forward on $6-Billion Petrochemical Project Expansion in Natural Gas Production Spurs Big U.S. Export Plans In an attempt to rekindle national pride and demonstrate his administration’s ability to move the country beyond a turbulent political period, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last August announced that the Suez Canal would be expanded to enable more vessels to transit the waterway and boost the country’s revenues.Now in the early stages of construction, the expansion project is estimated to cost $4
Rendering Courtesy of Bend Park and Recreation District The project in Oregon will construct a safe-passage channel (top), white-water channel (center) and habitat channel (bottom). Related Links: Creative Dam Removal Based On Site's Unique Topography Elwha River Restoration Project Involves Largest Dam Removal Effort in U.S. History A dam upgrade in Bend, Ore., will provide three distinct river channels, all engineered to match differing—and often competing—needs.As part of an upgrade to the Deschutes River at the Colorado Dam, the Bend Park & Recreation District hired engineer Otak and contractor Hamilton Construction to turn some 500 ft of in-city river into
Related Links: Project to Provide Woodland and Davis with More Sustainable Water Supply Roller-Compacted Concrete Dam Raise Project Will Store Water New Desal Project in Central Texas will Be Largest Inland Plant in U.S. U.S. Drought Monitor Desalination Advocates are Pinning Hopes on New Plant in Carlsbad The signs are hard to miss. Along freeways throughout California, digital billboards caution drivers: "Serious drought underway. Conserve water." Beyond the highways, a closer look at the landscape reveals record-low reservoir levels, smaller amounts of snowpack on mountaintops and large swaths of barren earth.California is in the midst of its third consecutive year
Related Links: Drought in Western U.S. Has Water Utilities Considering a Range of Solutions In Central Texas, a new brackish-groundwater desalination project is under construction. When complete, the project will be the largest inland desalination plant in the country, project officials say.The San Antonio Water System will diversify the city's water supplies with this new facility. The total cost for the three-phase project is estimated at $411.4 million. Valued at $119.3 million, phase one is now under construction.Zachry–Parsons is acting as construction manager-at-risk on the first phase of the brackish-groundwater desalination program, which consists of a new water treatment facility
Photo Courtesy of MWH The existing intake (above) will be replaced by the new, state-of-the-art intake and fish screen (below) which will be built along the Sacramento River. Photo Courtesy of MWH Related Links: Drought in Western U.S. Has Water Utilities Considering a Range of Solutions A new project for the Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency to replace deteriorating groundwater supplies with more-reliable surface water from the Sacramento River in California broke ground in April.CH2M Hill won a $141-million contract to design, build and operate a new treatment plant; raw-water pipelines, connecting a new intake on the Sacramento River to the
Photo Courtesy of San Diego County Water Authority The roller-compacted concrete, placed in layers, used less time and water than conventional concrete to produce. Related Links: Drought in Western U.S. Has Water Utilities Considering a Range of Solutions Construction on the world's largest dam-raise project of its kind wrapped up this summer, providing the San Diego County Water Authority with an additional 152,000 acre-ft of water, more than doubling the capacity of the St. Vincente reservoir.The project involved removing two inches from the surface of the original St. Vincente dam, then using roller-compacted concrete to add—in layers, one on top
Photo by Matthew Kraus/flickr Cars awash on 15th Street in lower Manhattan, New York City, during Superstorm Sandy. Related Links: Flood Risk Management: Call for a national strategy ASCE's Post Katrina Statement: What Must We Do Next A task force of the American Society of Civil Engineers, formed to assess the nation's response to the ASCE's eight years of repeated, urgent calls to improve flood risk management as a national priority, delivered its report on Sept. 22 with the finding that there has been only limited progress.But the ASCE committee delivered an analysis of why progress is lacking and, significantly,
Related Links: Whooshh Pneumatic Fish Handling System Features VIDEO: John Oliver Discovers the Salmon Cannon (Youtube) Volitional fish Entry Feasibiliity Study Wild and hatchery-spawned fish are commingled in this fall's Chinook salmon run on the Washougal River in southwestern Washington state. The state Dept. of Fish and Wildlife wants them separated and has turned to an engineered solution for help.Whooshh Innovations, Bellevue, Wash., is trapping migrating salmon, manually culling marked ones from hatcheries and, from the river, shooting them live through a pneumatic tube, up a high bank and into tanker trucks. The peak so far is 400 fish a
Photo Courtesy of Ganga Action Parivar The Ganges River, India's holiest river, is also it's dirtiest. Officials vow to clean it up within three years. Related Links: Indian Water Resources Ministry webpage The 100-day-old government’s newly established minister for water resources, Uma Bharti, on Sept. 15 committed to cleaning up India’s largest and holiest river, the 2,500-kilometer-plus Ganges, within three years.The Ganga Action Plan was released by Bharti’s predecessors two decades ago but barely accomplished any of its goals.The pledge comes at an opportune time. The population of people and industrial units in India near the Ganges is ballooning, creating
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