Small contractors replacing the deck on a small bridge last August may have started a big fire in the dry hills of eastern Washington state. No one was killed, but property damage costs are steep and liability insurers could face big claims.A dozen property owners in Washington state have filed a lawsuit blaming the bridge general contractor and steel erector for a fire that consumed 23,500 acres and over 60 homes in the area of Cle Elum, about 75 miles from Seattle. Initial assessments of the property damage put the total at more than $8 million, but the final cost
Environmental organizations and the oil-and-gas industry say one of the first litmus tests for President Obama's second term is his highly anticipated decision over a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
Related Links: A Second Obama Term Could Look Much Like the First (ENR 9/17/12 issue) Consruction's Campaign Dollars Are Streaming In (ENR 11/5/12 issue) After an estimated $6 billion in spending and months of fierce campaigning, the results of the Nov. 6 federal elections have left things about where they were: President Obama is still president, the Democrats have increased their Senate majority by a couple of seats, and the Republicans’ control of the House remains nearly as strong as it was.Will bipartisan deals now prevail where conflict once was the rule?"It's a new ball game, but the teams are
Related Links: Access the CPR Database for Construction Spending Can Leo Linbeck's Super PAC Remake Congress? As presidential and congressional campaigns head toward the Nov. 6 finish line, construction industry companies, associations and labor unions have pushed their campaign contributions to new highs. Even before final totals are in, they have surpassed the records set in 2008, the last presidential election cycle.Despite construction's still-tough market conditions, construction organizations and firms had contributed $101.1 million to federal candidates as of Oct. 25, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The total for the full 2008 cycle was $94.9 million. In
Related Links: EPA website on Pavillion investigation USGS report on sampling from Pavillion, Wyoming wells The American Petroleum Institute on Oct. 18 said its analysis of data released by the U.S. Geological Survey in September suggests the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s water-quality investigation in Pavillion, Wyo., could be flawed.That finding could point to bigger problems regarding the agency’s ongoing national study of the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on groundwater, the oil-and-gas advocacy group’s upstream director told reporters.Eric Milito, API’s upstream director, said that EPA’s approach in the Pavillion study could forecast the approach the agency will take for its
Related Links: Clean Water Action statement Statement from Reps. Mica, Gibbs U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wetlands status and trends report (Oct. 2011) As the Clean Water Act marked its 40th anniversary on Oct. 18, environmental groups and congressional Republicans took the occasion to voice their sharply differing concerns about how the landmark law will be applied in the near future.The conflicting birthday messages come less than three weeks before the Nov. 6 elections, the outcomes of which will play a large role in determining future Clean Water Act legislation and regulations.Both sides acknowledge the improvements in water quality since
Photo Courtesy of American Road & Transportation Builders Association CFO Bertram says DOT aims to streamline its reviews of TIFIA applications. Related Links: States Gear Up to Seek Expanded TIFIA Loan Aid MAP-21 Transportation Measure Goes on the Books Advocates of public-private partnerships to help finance transportation projects are hailing the new Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, or MAP-21, and hustling to take advantage of a key part of the statute: a more than five-fold hike in a Dept. of Transportation loan program.As states await word from DOT on preliminary requests for 2013 aid under its
Related Links: Transcripts of Supreme Court Oral Arguments High Court to Hear Water, 'Takings' Cases In one of the first cases it heard in its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court plunged into the murky task of determining whether damage caused by federally directed flooding is a "taking" of private property.The court heard oral arguments on Oct. 3 in Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. U.S. The commission contends that water releases from an Army Corps of Engineers dam in six consecutive years destroyed valuable timber. The commission says the flooding is a property "taking," which under the Fifth Amendment
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library Parts of the Corps' waterway network, including Lock and Dam No. 25 on the Mississippi, are more than 50 years old. Related Links: National Research Council Report ENR Blog: Signs of Life for a New WRDA Bill A new National Research Council study says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is losing ground in maintaining and upgrading the agency's huge, aging water-resources infrastructure.The Corps-sponsored report, released on Oct. 4, comes as there are stirrings in the Senate about a new, multiyear water-resources bill that would authorize Corps river locks and dams, harbor
Related Links: President Obama's CHP Executive Order Link to USCHPA website Administration officials say they are making a push to incentivize the use of combined heat-and-power, or CHP, energy systems to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and increase energy efficiency in facilities ranging from Veterans Administration medical centers to industrial plants.Speaking at the U.S. Clean Heat & Power Association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 3-4, officials from the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency described recent efforts to encourage greater use of CHP systems, which advocates claim are more efficient than dual-turbine systems. Currently, there are approximately 82 gigawatts