After a 15-month probe, the National Transportation Safety Board has determined the probable cause of last year�s fatal I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a design error that caused the failure of gusset plates on the 41-year-old 1,907-ft-long steel-deck truss bridge. They could not carry loads that included deck upgrades, construction materials, equipment and rush-hour traffic when it fell, killing 13 people and in�juring 145. The eight-lane bridge was a non-redundant fracture-critical structure. Slide Show Photo: NTSB I-35W bridge had gusset plates that were too thin Along with the main finding, which the board approved on Nov. 14, NTSB also

On the road to transportation funding, state departments of transportation are gripping the wheel and holding on for a bumpy ride. Decreasing revenue, a hazy future for the federal highway trust fund and a shaky lending market have led many state authorities to delay projects, rework deals and make deep cuts. Slide Show Photo: ICC Maryland is reducing its construction program but its $2.4-billion Intercounty Connector projects escaped the budget axe. Related Links: The Complete Top Owners Sourcebook with Market Data and Analysis The sluggish economy has hit many states, including Virginia, hard. Reduced revenue from fuel taxes and vehicle

Thousands of workers daily take the train from their homes at Slavutich, across 55 kilometers of unpopulated woodland and marsh in northern Ukraine to their workplace. No ordinary commuters, they are workers at the Chernobyl powerplant, scene of the world�s worst-ever nuclear disaster. Nearly 4,000 people work at Chernobyl, safeguarding the destroyed reactor building No. 4 and tending to the three surviving shut-down units. Among the construction teams is Alexander Nikolayevich Plotnikov, project manager at contractor Utem Engineering, Bucha. Slide Show Photo: Eric Schmieman Background radiation levels determine type of protective gear and how long workers are allowed to toil

Cleaning up Cold War-era nuclearweapon sites remains the U.S. Energy Dept.’s single-largest financial liability, totaling an estimated $266 billion, says a Nov. 17 agency report. Related Links: Huge Cleanup at Bomb-Making Megasite Is The New Atomic Fallout The report, validated by accounting firm KPMG, classifies DOE’s environmental-management program as an “unfunded liability” because its budget is set through annual congressional appropriations, as opposed to a dedicated funding stream. The report claims that factors such as the delay in opening the planned Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada could drive the cost higher. “Estimating this liability requires making assumptions about future activities

After more than 30 years of national and international consulting, Bob Sternhell, principal of Solutient Inc., New Orleans, is well versed in the intricacies of working with government agencies. His services include handling all the documents and transactions needed to capture federal risk mitigation grants after disasters so local governments, construction crews and homeowners can get to work. photo: Angelle Bergeron Sternhell has made a specialty of helping localities navigate the bureaucracy of landing federal risk mitigation grants for homeowners. FEMA The federal government declares disasters frequently, with Texas, California, Florida, Oklahoma, New York and Louisiana the leaders. Related Links:

Neither Bob Sternhell nor Bill Petty were interested in residential construction until the slow pace of re�building after Hurricane Katrina found them joining forces to elevate more homes around New Orleans than all other contractors combined. Photo: Angelle Bergeron/ENR Raising homes saves more than it costs. Related Links: Hazard Mitigation: Turning Good Intentions into Good Work Petty, president of the local division of Walton Construction Co., Kansas City, Mo., earlier this year formed Walton Mit�igation Services, a wholly owned Wal�ton subsidiary. He then joined with with Sternhell, CEO of Solutient Inc., a local information-technology firm, to form a risk-mitigation program-management

Borys Kulishenko is part of a generation to have grown up near Chernobyl and found work there since the accident 22 years ago. Now 28, Kulishenko was a small boy when his father was �forced� by the Soviet authorities to move from his job at Russia�s Kursk nuclear plant to work on Chernobyl's water-supply system a year after the accident, he says. Peter Reina/ENR Kulishenko settles into nuclear cleanup schedule. Related Links: Radiation Threat Still Permeates Chernobyl�s Entombment Graveyard for Nuclear Debris Expands Huge Cleanup at Bomb-Making Megasite Is The New Atomic Fallout “All the friends I went to school

Tri-City Herald reporter Annette Cary, who covers the U.S. Energy Dept.’s Hanford nuclear waste cleanup site for the Washington state newspaper, says employees there chafe at how high profile their work has become. For more than 60 years, their predecessors on the remote 586-sq-mile site toiled in total secrecy on a previous mission�to build America’s first generation of atomic weapons. Slide Show U.S. Dept. of Energy Probing for toxics long buried in underground tanks and demolishing old radioactive buildings are Hanford’s new mission. U.S. Dept. of Energy Probing for toxics long buried in underground tanks and demolishing old radioactive buildings

More than 250 trucks, troop carriers, excavators and even helicopters lie rusting in a corner of the�Buriakovka low- and intermediate-radioactive solid-waste site in the empty countryside some 25 kilometerss from Chernobyl. Used in the emergency after the accident, the vehicles will lie for de�cades in the field until they, or their rust, cease to radiate harmfully. The fate of the vehicles� drivers is not hard to guess. Photo: Peter Reina/ENR Rusting equipment lies in open area outside of Chernobyl although smaller items were buried. Related Links: Radiation Threat Still Permeates Chernobyl�s Entombment Homegrown Workers Staff the Job Huge Cleanup at

Most of Chernobyl’s workforce and staff live in apartments and bungalows at Slavutich, a 40-minute train ride eastward across the exclusion zone, through a piece of Belarus and over the Dnieper River back into Ukraine. Photo: Eric Schmieman Soviet-era artwork in Slavutich, Ukraine, near a memorial to workers who died at Chernobyl. Photo: Peter Reina Visitors are advised not to walk on vegetation in Pripyat. Related Links: Radiation Threat Still Permeates Chernobyl's Entombment The town of nearly 30,000 people was built in the wake of the accident to house families evacuated from the blighted terrain near the plant. Designed on