More than seventeen years after the so-called Great Chicago Flood—a 1992 construction snafu in which a misplaced piling that was driven into the Chicago River hit an abandoned freight tunnel, flooding downtown basements and knocking out utilities—those infamous tunnels are at it again. Slide Show Photo: IDOT On the morning of Oct. 14, construction workers on Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway noticed that pavement was buckling. Directly underneath, workers were grouting an abandoned freight tunnel. On Oct. 14, workers for Lorig Construction, a Des Plaines, Ill.-based roadbuilder, were preparing to finish grouting a section of old tunnels underneath the Kennedy Expressway, a
Over half the 7.3 million cu m of tunnel spoil from London’s $26-billion Crossrail project is to be barged down the Thames River from tunnel sites to create new wetlands 100 kilometers away. Project owner Crossrail Ltd. (CRL) will fund land acquisition and earthmoving for the U.K.’s largest coastal habitat creation scheme, on Wallasea Island, next to the River Crouch, Essex. Photo: Crossrail Ltd. Low-lying Wallasea Island will be raised with tunnel spoil and converted into habitat for birds. CRL on Sept. 30 signed an agreement with Port of London Authority enabling barging the equivalent of a half-million truckloads of
Flooding has been a continuing and even predictable problem in Saint Petersburg, ever since Peter the Great founded the city that became the Russian capital in 1703 on low-lying land within the Neva River estuary. Now, after 30 years of planning, construction and delays, a $3-billion barrier fitted with floodgates and carrying one of the city’s major ring roads is nearing completion. Slide Show Photo: Halcrow Pivot gates are poised to swing together and meet in mid-channel to halt floods threatening Saint Petersburg. Photo: Halcrow The completed protection system is intended to prevent floods that regularly impact the city. The
The Senate on Oct. 15 approved the $33.5 billion fiscal 2010 water and energy conference report by an 80-17 vote. The bill now goes to the president for his expected signature. The energy and water bill is the third fiscal 2010 spending bill to be approved by a conference committee this fall. The Senate approved conference reports funding the legislative branch on September 30, and the Dept. of Agriculture on Oct. 8. The energy and water bill includes $5.4 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, $43 million above the amount appropriated in fiscal 2009. The total includes $2
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is hastening already-awarded rehabilitation contracts for the Markland Lock and Dam on the Ohio River after the lock’s downstream miter gate detached and sunk to the bottom of the lock chamber. The Corps says a “catastrophic equipment malfunction” on Sept. 27 disabled both 250-ton leaves of the miter gate, taking one off its hinges. It then crashed into the other. Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers One of the lock’s 250-ton doors came off its hinges and went to the bottom, damaging its twin. + Image Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sonar shows
The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority plans to accomplish two goals in one program with its $953-million upgrade of the 370-million-gallon-per-day Blue Plains wastewater treatment plant: treating combined sewer overflows and reducing nitrogen levels to meet more stringent federal water-quality requirements. District engineers say the program is a modification of an earlier plan to address the two problems separately. By coordinating the two projects, D.C. WASA will save money and use fewer resources, says Len Benson, chief engineer. “We’re doing more, faster, with better resulting water quality and [in a] more sustainable [way],” he says. Related Links: Breathing
The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture is launching a $320-million, four-year program to address excess nutrients in the Mississippi River Basin that contribute to the large “dead zone” that is void of oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River Basin Health Watersheds Initiative, announced on Sept. 24, will leverage funding in the 2008 farm bill for voluntary conservation programs administered by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) with state, local and private resources. It will help farmers in 12 states initiate conservation efforts to reduce nutrient runoff from farms. The states are Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota,
Many municipal wastewater systems built in the 1970s and 1980s are nearing the end of their useful lives, forcing municipalities and utilities around the country to look at ways of breathing new life into their treatment plants. The stimulus funding in the $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Slide Show Photo: D.C.WASA WASA designed a $935-million upgrade to the Blue Plains treatment plant. Related Links: D.C. System Will Handle Nitrogen and CSO Problems New Program Targets Farmers coupled with an expected increase in funding for the clean-water and drinking-water state revolving funds (SRFs), could offer some benefit to municipalities that
With a 500-participant, trans-Atlantic crowd and the venue of a science center—reached by a rollicking boat ride across New York Harbor from Manhattan—the H209 Forum, “Water Challenges for Coastal Cities,” struck an aquatic note from the start. The Sept. 9-10 conference at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., was a joint production of Dutch and New York interests who used the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic landfall in New York Harbor to launch a dialogue on mutual concerns about water challenges of all sorts, including increasing demand on water supplies and infrastructure and the prospective effects of
Three students of engineering, water management and environmental science are winners in a new international competition for proposals to advance sustainability in coastal cities. The competition targeted upcoming water-resources professionals and was part of the run-up to an “H209” symposium to be held Sept. 9-10 at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J. The event is a forum for water-management professionals and coincides with joint Dutch and New York celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the explorer Henry Hudson’s landfall in New York. The winners survived two rounds of competition and will present their papers on Sept. 9. First prize
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