The Brightwater wastewater treatment plant near Seattle is nearing completion. Although the job is a year late and carries more than $200 million in disputed claims, for the most part, Washington state's King County officials are pleased with the project.The $1.8-billion project includes 13 miles of deep-bore conveyance, ranging below the surface from 40 ft to 440 ft, as well as four portals and a pump station to a Puget Sound marine outflow station.The project started off routinely enough in 2005, but a failed tunnel-boring machine caused delays. With the mining on the tunnel finally completed this past August—nearly a

EnvironmentThe meticulous cleanup of Montana's Yellowstone River continues following a July 1 ExxonMobil oil pipeline rupture that spewed 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the flooding river at the pipe's Silvertip crossing near Laurel, Mont.Bob Perciasepe, Environmental Protection Agency deputy administrator, told a U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on July 21 that 755 personnel on site included 610 people “currently in the field engaged in cleanup and sampling.”Exxon spokeswoman Rachel Moore says crews have deployed 57,000 ft of boom and about 277,000 absorbent pads to help sop up the oil. More than 60 private contractors—ranging from security to

After months of wrangling between the Calgary Airport Authority and the city of Calgary,  the airport's $2-billion expansion has received a last-minute add-on: a tunnel underneath the 14,000-ft-long, 200-ft-wide runway. Rendering Courtesy of Calgary Ariport Authority  The  $1.4-billion terminal is already in construction and substantial work recently started on the $620-million runway—the largest project of its kind in North America.The two entities reached a tentative agreement in May, allowing the city to construct a six-lane extension of Airport Trail east under the runway to connect to the northeast section of the city, also keeping open the possibility for future light

U Canyon—a huge, windowless concrete monolith that housed secret Cold War-era plutonium and uranium processing work at the U.S. Energy Dept.'s Hanford site, the former nuclear-weapons production facility in eastern Washington—has sat empty and inert for more than four decades. Now, however, the cavernous structure will become a beehive of activity as a technology test site, featuring a first-time DOE process in which 20,000 cu yd of specially formulated, cement-like grout is pumped beneath the edifice to stabilize its radioactivity before final demolition. U.S. Dept. of Energy Crews are filling underground cells with grout at the former nuclear weapons plant

Without solid commitments from potential customers and the emergence of North American shale gas as a price-competitive energy source, the proposed $35-billion Denali pipeline in Alaska, owned by subsidiaries of BP and ConocoPhillips, has called it quits. Backers abandoned Denali, but TransCanada line's backers say they'll push forward. “As far as Denali is concerned, we are finished,” says Scott Jepsen, vice president of business services for Denali – The Alaska Gas Pipeline LLC. “The focus of Denali has always been to move natural gas from the North Slope. Our work here is over."Denali will also withdraw its Federal Energy Regulatory

After 50-plus years in the making, the Alaska state Legislature recently gave the Alaska Energy Authority approval to build and own a new dam on the Sustina River in the Watana area. The 600-MW hydroelectric dam will be the first of its kind built in the United States in more than two decades. Photo By Google Courtesy Of Alaska Energy Authority The Sustina River dam site was first proposed in the 1950s, but the project was stalled by cost estimates. Gov. Parnell supports its revival as a component of renewable-energy goals. Preliminary work on the $4.5-billion Sustina Hydroelectric Power Project,

With work finished in April on a major support facility, the $12.2-billion waste vitrification complex at the U.S. Energy Dept.’s Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington state is nearly 60% complete and on track to meet its mandated 2019 operating deadline, officials say. Photo: Courtesy Of Bechtel Group Equipment is lifted into a vitrification plant at a DOE nuclear waste site. The Hanford Waste Treatment Plant is intended to turn the site’s 56 million gallons of liquid radioactive and chemical wastes left from past decades of nuclear weapon production into vitrified glass logs. The wastes now are stored in aging

A federal appeals court in San Francisco sent the state of Alaska back to “looking at all its options” after a May 4 ruling halted a proposed 51-mile, $500-million highway from Juneau to a new ferry landing in Katzehin. The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court upholds a 2009 lower-court opinion that the project's final environmental impact statement (EIS) was not valid because it did not include an alternative that would improve transportation with existing assets, namely upgraded ferry service. The planned project—a major increase from the original 2006 estimate of $100 million—would have built the East Lynn Canal

A federal appeals court in San Francisco sent the state of Alaska back to “looking at all its options” after a May 4 ruling halted a proposed 51-mile, $500-million highway from Juneau to a new ferry landing in Katzehin. Map By Walter Konefal For ENR The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court upholds a 2009 lower-court opinion that the project’s final environmental impact statement (EIS) was not valid because it did not include an alternative that would improve transportation with existing assets, namely upgraded ferry service. The planned project—a major increase from the original 2006 estimate of $100 million—would

A federal appeals court in San Francisco sent the state of Alaska back to looking at all its options after its May 4 ruling shut down a proposed 51-mile, $500-million highway from Juneau to a new ferry landing in Katzehin. Photo courtesy Scott Logan/Alaska Transportation Priorities Project Proposed road would be along a route that is prone to avalanches. The decision by the U.S. Ninth Circuit court upholds a 2009 lower court opinion that the project’s final environmental impact statement was not valid because it did not include an alternative that would improve transportation with existing assets, namely upgraded ferry