Photo courtesy of USACE Instrument packages at 28 points along the 7.5-mile levee include spider magnetometers, which slide down a tube as the soil below the levee compresses. Clusters also include two inclinometers that bow out of plumb in response to horizontal soil movement and settlement plates buried in the new lifts to measure placement and consolidation in the new work zone. A benchmark, anchored in a stable sand layer, completes the package. + Image Infographic courtesy of USACE Inclinometers bow out of plumb in response to horizontal soil movement and settlement plates buried in the new lifts. Related Links:
The Mississippi River & Tributaries flood control system fought like a champ through the record-breaking floods of 2011. Now it has an estimated $2 billion worth of scars to prove it.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t have the money to fix the MR&T system, but it already has identified 2,534 locations that need attention, at least 160 of which it says would not be able to withstand another flood.In an effort to rally the kind of broad support that was behind the genesis of the Corps’ MR&T Project, which was created after the disastrous floods of 1927, on Aug.12
Six years after South Korean steelmaker Pohang Iron and Steel Co. signed a memorandum of understanding with the Orissa government for India’s largest foreign direct-investment project, the $12 billion mega-venture remains a non-starter.The integrated steel project is mired in opposing political agendas, environmental conflicts and the country’s biggest issue: land acquisition by the government and ongoing protests by local residents who contend the land for the project was taken not for public use but for a private company.A memorandum of understanding on the 12-million-tons-per-annum integrated steel-plant-and-port project, signed in 2005, reportedly expired last year.Orissa steel and mines minister Raghunath Mohanty recently
Related Links: Corps To Update Missouri River Dams' Release Strategy Corps Delays Missouri River Manual Revision The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is still sending above-normal releases from its six Missouri River dams, does not plan to increase its flood storage capacity this fall and winter because of risks to downstream levees.Brig. Gen. John R. McMahon, commander of the Corps’ Northwest Division, says the planned release schedule announced July 29 will allow the Corps to get its system ready for the 2012 season when it starts March 1.“We came to the conclusion that this year we would not need
Related Links: Missouri Basin Flood of 2011 map and infographic The Missouri River, engorged by record rains and snowfall, has flooded thousands of acres in the Midwest and will remain out of its usual channel until October, says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' water management chief.The Corps has reduced outflow from earlier record levels at five of its six dams on the Missouri, but water continues to pour out of Gavins Point Dam in Yankton, S.D., at a rate of 160,000 cu ft per second until Aug. 1, when the rate is scheduled to drop gradually.As the eight states
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is reducing releases from six dams on the Missouri River as the reservoirs behind them empty the runoff of record snowfall and record spring rains. Related Links: Blame Game As River Rises Near South Dakota Homes The reductions will slow the record flow that has sent the 2,341-mile river over its banks and strained levees in six states.At Fort Peck Dam in Montana, the Corps started cutting back releases July 20 to 35,000 cubic feet per second from 40,000 cfs. On Aug. 1 the release will be cut to 30,000 cfs. Similarly, the Corps
Ethiopia has awarded Italy’s Salini Costruttori a $4.8-billion contract for the construction of Africa’s biggest dam on the Nile, in Ethiopia, despite stiff opposition to the project from both Egypt and Sudan. Image courtesy Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation The Grand Millenium dam will be 145 meters high and 1,800 meters long, with powerhouses on either side of the spillway. Related Links: China Inks Deal for Kariba Dam Upgrade Opposition could make financing the project difficult, officials say.The 5,250-MW-capacity hydropower dam, the Grand Millennium, has raised tension between Ethiopia and Egypt, with Egypt claiming the project will have a negative impact
One month after announcing ambitious plans to dig a 50-km-long shipping canal 100 km west of the Bosphorus Strait, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s scheme is being dismissed by some as election grandstanding designed to gain leverage for Turkey in talks with Russia to secure commitments of crude for the languishing Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline project. The proposed 50-km-long canal to bypass Turkey's Bosphorus would be wide enough to accomodate two tankers in either direction. The canal is located 100 km west of the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey and would connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. The grand canal scheme, which
The Missouri River, fed by record runoffs from a massive snowpack and heavier-than-normal spring rains in seven states, is in overflow mode and will continue that way through most of August. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is managing the river with releases from six mainstream dams, five of them discharging or ramping up to discharge 150,000 cubic feet per second and the sixth churning through 65,000 cfs.The Corps is watching its own levees and working with state and local sponsors on other levees to repair three breaches in Iowa and prevent others.The challenge now and the next two months:
Construction started this week in southern Colorado on a $2.3-billion, 62-mile pipeline that will transport water north from the Pueblo Reservoir for use by Colorado Springs and several Denver suburbs. Engineers from CH2M Hill, Denver, will rechannel up to 100 million gal. a day of water from the Arkansas River, which fills the reservoir, and pump it uphill more than 1,600 ft in elevation to two new reservoirs that will be located east of Colorado Springs. The 66-in.-diameter pipeline will be built under farms, ranches, suburbs, railroad tracks and four highways, including Interstate 25, which runs along Colorado’s Front Range.
RSS