SnapShot February 14, 2011 El Paso Water Utilities selected URS El Paso Water Utilities selected URS of San Francisco as the solar power consultant for the world’s largest inland brackish water desalination plant. The project will allow two of the plant’s five treatment trains—each requiring 500 KW—to run on solar power. The project is being carried out jointly with Fort Bliss, the U.S. Army post in El Paso, Texas. The plant has the capacity to produce 27.5-million gallons of fresh water daily. Photo: Courtesy URS Corp. Texas Desalination Plant Submitted By: Bruce Ross, on behalf of URS Corp., El Paso, Texas
We asked the up-and-comers in Louisiana about challenges facing the industry in that state. Related Links: Texas Top 20 Under 40 Also Starring: South Central 14 Under 40 BUSCH Sarah Busch Temporary job hooks her on construction career 34 Project Manager Landis Construction Co. New Orleans As a girl, Sarah D. Busch remembers visiting job sites with her father, but she never dreamed of joining the family business, until a temporary job answering job site phones convinced her construction was in her blood. She learned everything she could and progressed to project manager, heading up jobs for new and repeat
A parking-deck structure under construction partially collapsed Feb. 14 in San Antonio, injuring two construction workers at the University Health System’s University Hospital site. Related Links: Texas Parking Garage Job Idle Until Collapse Cause Known The 10-story, 3,000-plus-car garage is being built in three phases by a joint venture of Zachry Construction, San Antonio; Vaughn Construction, Houston; and Layton of Phoenix, as part of a $900-million system-wide expansion project by the public health system owned by Bexar County. Just before the collapse, workers reported hearing a rumbling sound, and construction supervisors evacuated the site, according to Melissa Sparks with the
Hoping for a bigger Super Bowl attendance at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the owner arranged for temporary sections to increase seating capacity. But some of those seats were not ready at game time. Eric Grubman, NFL executive vice president, said the problem was officials “just ran out of time” to complete infrastructure such as railings and steps, and to tighten risers. The stadium owner says that the $1.3-billion stadium was designed to fully accommodate the additional seats. Seating Solutions, the Commack, N.Y.-based contractor charged with installing the temporary seats, had no comment.
On The Scene February 14, 2011 Annual Texas Transportation Forum The sixth annual Texas Transportation Forum was held Jan. 4-5 at the Hilton Austin in downtown Austin, Texas. Edward G. Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and Democrat who recently joined NBC News as a political analyst, gave the first day’s keynote address. Rendell, still in office at the time, gave a talk to a crowd of attendees representing public and private companies and organizations with a stake in the future of Texas transportation. It was anything but sugar-coated. The Texas Dept. of Transportation, the forum’s primary organizer, touted Rendell in
ENR Texas & Louisiana congratulates the young men and women in our two-state region selected as the “Top 20 Under 40,” highlighting up-and-coming leaders and exceptional players working in the architecture, engineering and construction industry.
We asked the up-and-comers in South Central about challenges facing the industry in that state. Related Links: Texas Top 20 Under 40 Also Starring: Louisiana Six Under 40 Alabama ALLEN Stephen Allen Creates designs that change college campuses 36 Principal Williams Blackstock Architects Birmingham, Ala. A principal with Williams Blackstock Architects, Stephen Allen led the design team for the Auburn University’s student village, named 2009 Best Higher Education Project by South Central Construction magazine. In addition to his management responsibilities at Williams Blackstock, Allen heads up the firm’s intern development program, mentors young architects and designers and developed a company-wide
Big Brother is watching your tools. That’s the idea behind a new asset-management system from Snap-on Industrial. Photos courtesy of Snap-on Industrial In its place For its latest tool box, Snap-on installed four to six cameras that take high-speed snapshots of drawers as they are closed. A computer compares those images to stocked drawers and alerts asset managers of discrepancies. Born in the aerospace field, the company’s latest tool box is designed to help people in construction, especially those who work in high-risk areas that require tight security over “foreign-object damage” or “foreign-material exclusion”—such as nuclear powerplants—or those using large
Texas could become the nation�s leader in clean-coal technology, with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality recently giving its approval to three such projects. The powerplants, though, face some opposition from neighbors opposed to the new coal plants�clean or not. Map: Sue Pearsall for ENR Three clean-coal projects are estimated at nearly $8 billion in construction costs. On Dec. 14, the TCEQ gave an air-quality permit to Omaha, Neb.-based Tenaska Trailblazer Energy Center, allowing it to build a 600-MW, $3.5-billion clean-coal powerplant in Penwell. On Dec. 29, the state agency granted an air-quality permit to the Summit Power Group of
Dwayne Smith, a senior engineer at URS Corp., San Francisco, is a geotechnical program manager on a levee enlargement project in New Orleans that is shaving a decade off the time it normally takes to build and consolidate such a structure. Photo: Courtesy Angelle Bergeron Smith's design uses sand, fabric, rock and clay stabbed with 8.8 million linear ft of wick drains to speed the work. Related Links: ENR: The Top 25 Newsmakers of 2010 Joe Collins: Hoisting Hero Sent Clear Message to Industry When Voting for Higher Safety Randy Holman: Corps Manager Has the Right Rx for DOD�s Medical
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