It has taken years to gain traction but the widening U.S. crackdown on employment of illegal aliens at sensitive infrastructure sites finally is off and running. And so is another push by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to root out violent criminals in the U.S. illegally. Those initiatives are on top of a general one to choke off employment opportunities for illegals at all levels. That kind of action is chilling for some people but long overdue. As we have said before, immigration reform starts and finishes with the rule of law (ENR 4/17 p. 60). And that
Taking Umbrage Iam not an engineer and I could have written the editorial, “The Reshaping of New Orleans Is a National Problem”. My point is that the essay requires no knowledge of engineering. It is a political document. Most disturbing is your diagnosis of the causes of New Orleans’s situation. All of your symptoms are attempts to lay blame on the local population. I can assure you that the poor decisions about levee design, oil and gas development, and “overdevelopment” were made by national institutions and individuals. Also, the daily choices of Americans to build a national “culture” that serves mostly as
Let’s face it, New Orleans was a dying city before Hurricane Katrina devastated it last year, and the death now is almost complete. Instead of spending many billions of taxpayer dollars to restore the city to its pre-Katrina configuration, the time has come to start developing a plan for the city that embraces nature rather than fights it. Because of the vast amount of federal funding involved, this should be a national debate, rather than just a local one. The New Orleans of today will remain a potential disaster area no matter what the nation does. Its location near the
With relatively little fanfare, one of the most important panels in Washington, D.C., has begun work. No, it is not a top secret commission looking into federal eavesdropping on American telephone calls or a highly political probe into who ratted out a federal undercover intelligence agent. (Photo courtesy of the Federal Highway Administration) It affects far more Americans in everyday life. It is the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. Americans should not be turned off by the mind-numbing name. They should be turned on by the fact that the commission will play a key role in shaping
Aileen Cho If the inventions presented at Grand Central Terminal the week of May 21 ever make it into commercial markets, they will surely improve people's lives in various ways both big and small. Perhaps you're a kidney failure patient who will benefit from Dr. David L. Cull's device to regulate blood flow when connected to a dialysis machine. Or perhaps you are disabled, and need a wheelchair like that of Randall Kwapis, that will carry you easily over rough terrain. From automatic candle extinguishers to a new and better kind of pet nail clipper, the 25 semi-finalist inventions featured
BRUCKNER Gary Tulacz’s article, “Worrying about Labor Shortages,” in ENR’s Top Owners Sourcebook 2005, reflects the deep misgivings of leading owners regarding the current and future labor shortages in construction. Quite accurately Tulacz stated that “if there is a universal concern among large corporate owners, it is whether there will be enough people available to do the work on future projects.” And the same concern is voiced by major contractors and builders in the U.S. I recently spoke with many heads of construction management departments at U.S. schools. They all had the same plea: “Help us attract new talent to
Art Fox The world’s best-known mining engineer must be spinning in his grave as the keeper of a gold medal in his honor–the Hoover Medal Board of Award–goes year after year tangled in procedural underwear (and maybe inter-association conflict), failing to give the medal. The board has been unable to award one of the engineering profession’s highest honors in three of the past seven years. And now it has put aside yet another time a deserving candidate for the medal, deciding to make no award in 2006. I find this particularly offensive. I am the nominator of the candidate who
One person’s trash is another’s treasure and the relationship is a core underpinning of recycling. There has to be some value to the material being recycled and the value is determined by the marketplace. Massachusetts is betting on that with a bold, state-wide ban on the land-filling of most construction and demolition waste—asphalt pavement, brick, concrete, metal and wood—starting July 1. As the nation’s first statewide ban, the move is a strong one, designed to save limited landfill space and push recycling deeper into the economy (see p. 17). The danger is that the new regulations may be getting ahead
Who is the top engineer of all of New York City? The answer is no one. What single, high-level licensed design professional consistently has Mayor Michael Bloomberg�s ear on schools, roads and water supply. Again, that person doesn�t exist. RICHARD KORMAN Salvatore Galletta wants New York City to hire someone to do that job from an office in City Hall. Galletta is a short, amiable man with a mustache and he is also an engineer in the engineering audit office of New York City�s Department of Transportation. He is an active member of the National Society of Professional Engineers and
WIBLE Effective building codes and their efficient enforcement are vital to the safety of our citizens and the economic vitality of our communities. This has been amply illustrated by the U.S. Geological Survey report “Managing Risk in Earthquake Country,” marking the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, and by the April 27 follow-up session from the March 1-2, 2006 Blue Cascades III seismic disaster exercise in Bellevue, Wash. There is growing documentation of the urgent need to identify and eliminate administrative inefficiencies in the regulation of the design and construction of buildings. Lessons learned from hurricanes Katrina
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