No city in the world takes climate change and sea-level rise more seriously than Rotterdam. The great port is entwined by the channels of the Maas, Schie and Rotte rivers, which are part of the of the vast delta fed by the Rhine draining Germany, and the Meuse, draining out of France. And it stares directly out at the North Sea from the part of the country known as the Southern Lowlands. As larger cargo vessels abandon a wealth of old shipyards and warehouses in the town to move to bigger docks downstream, redevelopment plans for the huge old port

Elastogran GmbH, a Lemförde, Germany-based subsidiary of BASF Group, has begun commercial sales in Europe of Elastocoast, a system for reinforcing broken rock revetments with a polyurethane binder. Pilot installations to protect several quickly disappearing North Sea German Islands, including Hallig Gröde (shown here) armored in two projects in 2006 and 2007, have performed well. The binder is tumbled in a concrete mixer on-site and spread over a substrate. A Wyandotte, Mich., U.S. branch is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop design guidelines for U.S. use. Video Photo: Tom Sawyer / ENR Photo: Elastogran Related Links:

Reducing flood risk on the Mississippi River delta is big business. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working with a $14.3-billion appropriation to bring the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System to 100-year levels of protection by June 1, 2011. Photo: Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure Group Pile driving for $695 million IHNC barrier. Cost expected to climb. Related Links: Engineers Focus On Big Delta Threats Building With Nature by Weaving Defenses California Wants a Sea-Level-Rise Plan, But Money Is an Issue Connecting the Rocks Defining Protection To Know the Risk Climate-Proofing Rotterdam This will be

Although Marie Laveau no longer practices voodoo in New Orleans, another “dark art” —soils testing—is practiced there, under unprecedented scrutiny and at a higher level of intensity than ever before. “The work here is moving state of practice into state of the art,” says Dr. Rai Mehdiratta, program director for FFEB Geotechnical Consultants, a joint venture. He says the joint venture in the last two years has accomplished work that previously would have taken 15, “using more tools” in the process. “What we are doing here today, people will expect in the future,” he says. Video Photo: Angelle Bergeron /

California officials hope to soon begin holding public meetings to gather information for a sea-level-rise assessment report that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has asked the National Academy of Sciences to prepare by Dec. 1, 2010. But finding money for the contract is an issue. Slide Show Source: UACE Sacramento District Related Links: Engineers Focus On Big Delta Threats Contractors Brace for a Workstorm as Louisiana Projects Surge Building With Nature by Weaving Defenses Connecting the Rocks Defining Protection To Know the Risk Climate-Proofing Rotterdam Schwarzenegger asked the academy in November to convene a panel with representatives from the state’s resources

Nuclear powerplant development in the U.K. and U.S. is moving forward with vigor. In the U.K., imminent eBay-style land sales will lead to the first major financial commitments by power companies in the nation’s emerging nuclear-plant program. In the U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is processing 17 applications for 26 possible new nuclear powerplants even as new questions arise over whether the government’s Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository will ever open. Photo: NDA Greenfield site next to NDA’s Bradwell powerplant is being auctioned for new units. Construction of a fleet of new plants in the U.K. is not expected to start

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will develop regulations for coal- ash storage by the end of the year, says EPA administrator Lisa Jackson. The March 9 decision comes 10 weeks after a dike burst at a storage impoundment at a Tennessee Valley Authority plant, spilling about 5.4 million gallons of coal-ash slurry. EPA will ask experts to assess the integrity of 300 units across the country that store ash suspended in liquid. It is working closely with dam safety experts because of structural similarities of coal-ash impoundments and dams.

Faced with growing demand for consistency in building rating systems, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has agreed to team up with its Australian and British counterparts to develop a common metric to measure emissions of carbon dioxide from new homes and buildings. The USGBC signed a memorandum of understanding on March 3 with the U.K. Green Building Council, the Green Building Council of Australia, and United Kingdom-based BRE Global Ltd. A working group representing each of the rating systems will seek to align the tools to provide consistency in measurement and reporting. Paul King, chief executive of the U.K.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has begun the long road to recovery at its Kingston Fossil Plant following a massive coal-ash spill on Dec. 22, 2008. The agency has pledged to make the areas “as good, if not better than they were before” in its long-term cleanup plan filed on March 2 with a Tennessee state agency. Photo: TVA Photo: Contractors will clear damaged area (top) and reseed. Related Links: After Dike Failure, TVA Cleans Up On March 9, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it will tighten EPA coal-ash regulations by the end of the year as a result of the

The U.S. Energy Dept. is headed back to the drawing board for a national nuclear-waste depository. President Barack Obama, making good on a campaign pledge, is seeking an alternate dump site to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. “I have consistently said that I am opposed to Yucca Mountain,” Obama told a Las Vegas crowd last January. “That will not change.” Photo: The U.S. DOE The budget at Yucca was cut $100 million for the rest of 2009. The U.S. Energy Dept. has spent over $10 billion since 1983 performing geological tests and studies at Yucca Mountain