A near failure of Arthur V. Watkins Dam, a leaking U-shaped earth-fill levee structure located 10 miles northwest of Ogden, Utah, is prompting a compressed-schedule repair, squeezing two years of work into one. The dam was within a few days of failure, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials say, threatening lives and major flood damage to surrounding property. General contractor Geo-Solutions Inc., New Kensington, Pa., is consequently running double shifts and using specially modified equipment to speed up repair work. It designed a 150-cu-yd-per-hour slurry plant fed by twin 60-ton silos for three times the output of a typical facility. Geo-Solutions
Louisiana has secured a $1.5 billion, 30-year loan from the federal government that will allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to bring the $14.3-billion Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (HSDRRS) to 100-year levels by 2011. "While most Corps Civil Works projects are cost-shared, because of the special circumstances facing Louisiana after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, we were able to take advantage of a rarely-used law that allows the United States to pay the full cost up front, giving the state 30 years to repay their share," says John Paul Woodley, assistant secretary of the Army for
As a sweeper playing defense on North Carolina State University’s soccer team, Lewis E. “Ed” Link Jr. had a knack for pattern recognition and teamwork. “I could anticipate. I could see the pattern, the big picture, and go to where the ball was going to be,” he says. The National Soccer Coaches Association of America thought he had a special talent, too: It named him an All-American in 1967, his senior year. His success on the field, Link says, came from playing with the strengths he had, rather than from trying to shape his style after an inappropriate model—like some
RSS