Photo Courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Energy Maintenance at site's inactive B Plant facility is among work to be affected. In a plan to save what it says will be between $7 million and $9 million annually over the next five years, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. is changing its subcontracting policies in hiring firms to help manage nuclear-waste remediation and demolition at the U.S. Energy Dept.'s Hanford site in central Washington. The changes come as cleanup budgets at the former weapon-production complex are expected to flatten or decline.The company, a unit of CH2M Hill Cos., manages cleanup of Hanford's

EGlen Frank's inaugural run as a project manager couldn't have had a tougher challenge: to bore a light-rail tunnel just 13.5 ft under Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle with a 200-ft vertical drop, a right-hand turn and S-turns through one mile.

Brian D. Winter never thought one project would set the tone for his entire career. Winter is the National Park Service's lead on the largest-ever dam-removal and river-restoration project in the U.S.

Photo Courtesy of Idaho Power Utility operators release silver iodide solution into the clouds when weather conditions are optimal, hoping to increase snowfall. Related Links: Scientific American: Does Cloud Seeding Work? Utah Cloud Seeding Home Page Idaho Power, which depends upon hydropower to serve about 500,000 customers in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon, is trying to augment its water supply by cloud seeding.While the concept dates from the 1940s, Idaho Power is pushing to expand its decade-old program to increase snowpack—and stronger runoff for its hydroelectric generation facilities—by as much as 15% annually.Cloud seeding involves injecting silver iodinde into supercool

A $107-million six-mile, single-track extension of the Portland Streetcar Loop was built entirely within city streets, presenting traffic management issues.

Photo by AP Wideworld August fire in Washington state burned thousands of acres and more than 60 homes. 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 the contractors and their liability insurers could face big claims.A dozen property owners in Washington state have filed a lawsuit that blames the bridge's general contractor and steel erector for a fire that consumed 23,500 acres and more than 60 homes in the area of Cle

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

Photo Courtesy of McKinstry McKinstry CEO Dean Allen, also president of a leading state group pushing engineering and related fields, chats with students. Related Links: Website of Washington STEM Website of STEMX, A Network of All State STEM Advocacy Programs Engineering Community's Licensing Debate a Lesson in Degrees of Separation Tennesee Geotechnical Engineer Reclaims More than Riverbanks Engineering Academies' First High-School Grads Plug-In Car Infrastructure Gives Training a Big Charge Auburn Students Work With Industry to Design Tomorrow's Tools  Dean Allen, CEO of Seattle-based contractor McKinstry, is not OK with too many kids in the state giving up on the

Executives at Ralls Corp., a Delaware-based company founded by Chinese nationals Duan Dawei and Wu Jialiang, say they disagree with President Barack Obama's recent decision to prohibit them from building four 10-MW wind farms near Boardman, Ore.