A three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a bid by several states, led by Georgia, to have their challenge to the Obama administration’s June 2015 Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule heard by the court.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has signed an agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority; the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association, which represents regional utilities; and the U.S. Southeastern Power Administration, a federal hydropower marketing agency, to provide $1.2 billion over 20 years for the repair of hydropower facilities.
As construction industry groups await a Supreme Court ruling in a narrowly focused Clean Water Act case, they also are seeking clues as to how the justices may view a much more important matter that has not yet come before them—an expected frontal challenge to a wide-ranging U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-Army Corps of Engineers regulation governing federal jurisdiction over the “waters of the United States.”
Aiming to boost infrastructure investment as a bigger economic priority in U.S. policy for the next administration, a new coalition is pushing to gain support of its “Blueprint 2025” initiative in Congress and with key presidential contenders.
According to the city of Spokane, Wash., the $125 million upgrade to the Riverside Park Water Reclamation Facility will create the most effective phosphate removal process of its kind in the U.S.
A planned $2-billion flood-control project for the Fargo, N.D.-Moorhead, Minn., metro area allocates $5 million worth of construction funding from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in its 2016 work plan, said Terry Williams, corps project manager in St. Paul.
The flood-swollen Mississippi River began moving through part of the Bonnet Carré Spillway, north of New Orleans, on Jan. 10 as part of a strategy to “make room for the river” and avoid more flooding, which had damaged parts of Missouri earlier.