Diesel Retrofits a Big Deal Your recent editorial, "Without Clean Fuel, Builders Will Be Running on Empty," opines that retrofitting construction equipment is "not a big deal," and the old phrase, "money talks," will dictate how the construction industry deals with the millions of legacy diesels that will not get scrapped for many years (ENR 8/15 p. 52). The California Air Resources Board (CARB) staff is working with the Construction Industry Air Quality Coalition (CIAQC) and other stakeholders to develop a control measure that will reduce particulate matter emissions from in-use off-road diesel engines. The proposed measure could include purchasing
VLAHOS Sitting on an ocean beachfront watching children building sandcastles, one lesson is clear even to a child: If you build too close to the water’s edge, your work is destined for disaster. When Jean Baptiste le Moyen de Bienville decided in 1718 to establish his settlement, now known as New Orleans, in the swamplands of the Mississippi Delta, little consideration was given to future problems. This lack of foresight resulted in placing yet another American city at risk. When Katrina hit New Orleans, it cut power to the pumping stations and, without a reliable backup system, the city’s protection
opinions UPDATE - 9/12/2005 ENR Team Reports From Battered Gulf Coast (Photo by Tom Sawyer for ENR) Following our tradition of on-the- scene coverage of major news events, ENR dispatched reporters and photographers to Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi to tell the story of relief and recovery in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane and subsequent flooding were an unspeakable human tragedy. There has been much talk of what should have been done 10 years ago or what could have been done five years ago. But this is today, and as always, engineers and contractors are on the front lines
Ivy When the weather forecasters began to warn that the hurricane might take a turn up the Mississippi River, pass over our scented, magical city, then stall over Lake Pontchartrain, dumping millions of gallons of water over New Orleans, I took one look at my wife and said, "We're leaving." She was six months pregnant. So as the city hunkered into an eerie quietude, and superhuman force transformed rain into a shower of small nails, we filled up the car, locked the door, and headed off Calhoun Street out onto the freeways and ultimately across the causeway. It was a
Prototype Works The sidebar in the feature article on mass transit, "More Transit Industry Participants See a ‘Green’ Signal Ahead," incorrectly states that the photovoltaic panels on the new Stillwell Terminal in Coney Island "did not deliver" (ENR 8/8 p. 32). Moreover, the quotes attributed to me are misleading. The PV panels perform as intended, providing 150kW of clean renewable energy to the facility. While the cost of this prototype PV installation exceeds the value of power savings over the life of the facility, the elegant solar energy roof contributes to the overall success of this facility and is helping
ENR Editor Learns How Crafts Cope at Nukes Suited Up. Armistead (right) with escort In his 31 years in construction, on the industry side as well as with Engineering News-Record, Senior Editor Tom Armistead has had many adventures. He erected transmission towers, visited an LNG plant in Trinidad and an offshore oil-production vessel in Newfoundland. He even covered oil and power reconstruction efforts in Iraq. But his visit to Pickering A Nuclear Generating Station for this week’s cover story was like nothing else he has seen. "This was my first visit to a nuclear plant," he says. "I think it
Code Complexities As chair of the Masonry Standards Joint Committee and a long-time ENR subscriber, I read with interest your article on building codes, "Structural Engineers Labor to Unravel Mysteries of Building Codes" (ENR 7/18 p. 26). On behalf of MSJC, which updates its Code and Specification at 3-year intervals and whose latest edition was published in 2005, I appreciate your assessment that we present relatively few difficulties for practicing designers. We continue to work hard on user-friendliness in a context of technical excellence, on the simplified design procedures that you advocate and on dialog to establish a code-development cycle
Cho Two major projects that I’ve written cover stories on opened in July. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough space in the magazine to do them justice. One is a signature cable-stayed bridge in South Carolina, and the other is a sparkling new airport terminal in Dallas. If variety is the spice of life, then covering the transportation beat is like tabasco, wasabi and Massaman curry washed down my gullet with a gulp of cider, Guinness and a shot of Jameson’s all at once. Raves for Ravenel The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, aka Cooper River Bridge, opened a year ahead of
Ellis Workers often are blamed for their own fatal falls because there always seems to be a rule that they didn't follow. The victims alive or dead are a convenient target because they can't effectively answer back. Now there is evidence showing that, no matter how careful you are, falls are inevitable with some exposures or hazards. I call these hazards Human Fall Traps, or HFTs, and they typically produce serious injury and death. There is no defense against HFTs because we can't perceive them until it is too late. This is because we are human; a good analogy might
Grapevine, Texas, in July? Why? CII! The Construction Industry Institute drew close to 500 owners, contractors and academics to Texas on the baking hot week of July 19. The group is devoted to doing much-neglected basic research about the business challenges facing the industry. Fortunately, we were literally “inside” the Gaylord Texan mega-hotel. There wasn’t much exposure to the natural elements--and that was a good thing. Rich in Research: For the research side of this story, please stay tuned for a related story coming soon to the web and the ENR print edition. There is a particularly interesting study about
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