Related Links: Price Tag for Bay Delta Water Plan Swells to $24.5 billion Bay Delta Conservation Plan Homepage The California Dept. of Water Resources has revised again the state's proposed plan to convey water from the northern part of the state to the southern part. The proposed changes, released on Aug. 15, would shrink by 50% the total permanent footprint of the project and shift more than 400 acres of permanent and temporary construction impacts from private to public lands.The $25-billion draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) for California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has gone through a number of changes over
Related Links: Council's Draft Initial Comprehensive Plan List of Authorized but not Yet Started Projects The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council approved a draft plan to restore the Gulf Coast's ecosystem and economy. While the Aug. 28 vote in New Orleans is a step toward selecting and funding construction and other projects to restore the gulf's battered shorelines and economy, it could be at least a year before any new projects break ground, according to the Dept. of Commerce.Congress established the council under the RESTORE Act, a law enacted in July 2012 that requires 80% of Clean Water Act (CWA)
Related Links: U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Aug. 20 ruling EPA Webpage on Sewage Sludge Incinerators A federal appeals court has remanded portions of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2011 sewage-sludge incinerator rule to the agency for further review but left the current maximum achievable control-technology air-emission limits in place.At issue in the case was EPA’s methodology for setting new limits for emissions from new and existing sewage-sludge incineration (SSI) units at wastewater treatment plants. The new limits require numerous wastewater treatment plants that have SSI units to add costly air-emission controls, says Nathan Gardner-Andrews, general counsel for the
Related Links: Description of Sandia's advanced microgrid technology Video of Moniz's August 26 speech at Columbia University on climate change policy The Obama administration will provide $1 million for an effort to develop a more resilient electric grid for New Jersey’s public transit systems.U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) announced on Aug. 26 that they had signed a memorandum of understanding in which the DOE agreed to partner with New Jersey Transit, the state of New Jersey and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to assess New Jersey Transit’s energy needs.The DOE and
Related Links: Georgia Slapped by Court in Tristate Water Dispute 11th Circuit Appeals Court 2011 Opinion In the latest salvo in a decades-long dispute, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) says his state in September will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to force Georgia to share some of the water from the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint (ACF) river basins.According to a statement issued by Scott, the collapse of discussions, in 2003, among Alabama, Florida and Georgia "left Florida and Alabama in the same disadvantaged position" just as Georgia was able to stake more claims to the waters.The Apalachicola's water levels are
Related Links: PDF of the DOE Report Smarter Grids Finding Limits The Obama administration is calling for more investment in the electric grid to reduce system disruptions caused by increasingly severe weather due to climate change.Released on Aug. 12, the report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Dept. of Energy does not specify how much should be invested, but notes that, between 2003 and 2012, weather-related outages cost the U.S. economy an estimated $16 billion to $33 billion.Some of the strategies for modernizing the grid outlined in the report include working with utilities to harden
Photo Courtesy of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas Some say LNG terminals and liquefication equipment would provide thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to the economy. Related Links: DOE conditional approval of exporting LNG from Lake Charles Terminal U.S. LNG Boom Fueling Port Projects The announcement on Aug. 7 that the federal Energy Dept. would grant conditional approval to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas from a third U.S. terminal was met by cheers from several industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute and the Center for Liquefied Gas. But some of those same groups complain that the
Related Links: NLRB Fact Sheet on Union Election Rule Supreme Court to Hear NLRB Recess Appointment Case For the first time in a decade, the National Labor Relations Board will have a full complement of five members. But several federal court challenges to NLRB decisions and policies will keep the panel under a cloud of uncertainty for the foreseeable future.The NLRB decides cases that directly affect employers and unions, including those in the construction industry. In recent years, the board has ruled on issues such as union members' rights to display banners criticizing labor practices of contractors working at construction
Photo Courtesy DC Water The vessels for the Cambi thermal hydrolysis system, the first to be built in the U.S., are up but won't be operational until 2014. Related Links: Blue Plains Embarks on Three Innovative Environmental Projects Chesapeake Bay Remains at Risk Washington water and sewer utility DC Water is considering using green infrastructure to reduce the size or possibly replace two planned tunnels that would be constructed underneath parts of the city's Georgetown neighborhood and along the Potomac River waterfront.The decision is part of the "Clean Rivers, Green District" agreement—formalized in December 2012 between the U.S. Environmental Protection
Related Links: Federal Appeals Court Invalidates NLRB Recess Appointments Supreme Court to Hear NLRB Recess Appointment Case The U.S. Senate has confirmed a full lineup of five National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) nominees, ending a long-running stalemate between the White House and Congress over the board's composition.The series of Senate votes on July 30 on the nominees ensures that the board will have a full complement for the first time in a decade. The NLRB decides cases that directly affect employers and unions, including those in the construction industry. In recent years, the board has ruled on such issues as
