A Jan. 22 article in the San Antonio Business Journal headlined “Risk of LEED Decertification Looms Large for Real Estate” contains “several inaccuracies, causing unnecessary anxiety in the marketplace,” says Ashley Katz, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Green Building Council. The Washington, D.C.-based group developed LEED, a popular green-building rating system. Bradley S. Carson’s article is based on a challenge, filed to USGBC last year, to the LEED-New Construction Gold certification awarded in 2007 to Northland Pines High School in Eagle River, Wis. The article said the school could be subject to decertification as a result of LEED 2009 provisions

For many firms that focus on buildings, much of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s promise still hasn’t turned into contracts. Several federal agencies each have obligated less than half of their stimulus funding for building-related construction. Some projects for which contracts have been awarded haven’t seen a shovel move yet. Facing heavy workloads and looming legislative deadlines, agencies will be scrambling to get work out the door in coming months, including some huge projects. Some GSA projects tapping the stimulus are large, including the $435-million Coast Guard headquarters, rendered above, in Washington, D.C. Funding total includes $162 million from

Poor quality, often homemade concrete led to widespread building damage in Port-au-Prince following last month’s earthquake in Haiti, says Ken Hover, an engineering professor at Cornell University who had recently returned from the devastated city. Slide Show Photo: Ken Hover Some buildings suffered cracks rather than total failure from Haiti's devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12. Hover made his remarks Feb. 3 at the World of Concrete tradeshow in Las Vegas. He had performed structural assessments for two university-backed Port-au-Prince health clinics from Jan. 20-25. The clinics consisted of 15 separate structures. Hover says he used California's post-earthquake investigation

Regulators reminded the Southern California city of Long Beach late last month that, just as private-sector busineses must comply with safety rules, public agencies must meet the same standards or face expensive consequences. On Jan. 26, California’s State Water Resources Control Board announced it had reached a $6.2-million settlement with the city for improperly storing petroleum and waste oil in underground tanks. The settlement was the first enforcement of its kind in California against a public agency, officials say, and could result in work worth millions of dollars for specialty contractors to install monitoring systems throughout the state. The State

Despite an early-contractor-involvement award protest by Granite Construction, Watsonville, Calif., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expects to start constructing an estimated $155-million storm-surge barrier on the Lake-Pontchartrain side of New Orleans this summer. Photo: USACE/HPO Lift and sector gates would close the north end of New Orleans’ Inner Harbor Navigation Canal against storm surge, closing another chink in defenses. Related Links: New Orleans Surge Barriers Take Shape “We expect the ECI will be awarded in the next two to three weeks, and under a best-case scenario, we’ll start construction in July,” says Eric Stricklin, the Corps’ project manager. The

A bill that would have funneled as much as $100 million a year to road, bridge and railroad projects in Alabama was removed from the state Senate’s agenda on Tuesday after four days of debate. Sen. Lowell Barron (D-Fyffe) sponsored the legislation in an effort to create a state-funded stimulus bill that would whittle away at Alabama’s backlog of road and bridge projects. The money would have come from the Alabama Trust Fund, comprising about $2.6 billion in royalties from natural gas drilling off the state’s coast. Republication opponents argued the trust-fund money should remain intact. The Senate voted 20-11

Colombia has awarded the first two contracts for the $2.6-billion, 1,000-kilometer Ruta del Sol highway project. The largest such road effort ever undertaken in the South American country, the project will connect the capitol city Bogota and the Caribbean coast. + Image Map: Sue Pearsall The 1,000-km tollroad will link Bogota to the Atlantic Coast. In January, Colombia’s National Dept. of Planning and National Institute of Concessions (INCO) awarded the seven-year, $660-million contract to Helios Road Consortium, led by Colombian construction firm Grupo Solarte, to construct and operate the toll road. The group also includes Colombian construction firm Conconcreto and

High-speed rail advocates celebrated the Jan. 28 award of grants from the $8-billion pot that is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but officials must now figure out how to leverage the seed money into successful long-term programs. California and Florida, the anticipated big grant winners at $2.25 billion and $1.25 billion, respectively, are now pondering design-build and public-private partnerships along with other funding sources. + Image Image: U.S. DOT Florida, California and the Midwest all received big chunks of ARRA grants. The U.S. Dept. of Transportation was flooded with applications, receiving $57 billion in project funding proposals.

India plans to build 15, 600 kilometers of expressways by 2022 at a cost of more than $100 billion, and the concrete industry needs to be prepared for increasing demand, says the country’s transport minister. Starting in April, India’s daily average construction rate of 9 km of roads may increase to 20 km, says Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath. Mumbai-Pune Expressway is one of few India roads with some concrete paving Nath spoke at the National Seminar on Concrete Highway Projects, held in New Delhi last month, at which sponsors emphasized sustainability and quality. According to Sumit Banerjee,

The North Carolina Dept. of Transportation (NCDOT) has set Sept. 30 as the new target date for completing the Oak Island Bridge project in Brunswick County, N.C. Part of a new 4.5-mile link to connect Oak Island with the mainland south of Wilmington, the troubled $36.5-million project has twice experienced lengthy delays since work began in August 2007. Construction was halted for six months after a 121-ton concrete girder fell 40 feet from a temporary support brace in December 2008, killing one worker and injuring two others. Prime contractor Barnhill Contracting Co., Tarboro, N.C., and bridge erection subcontractor Lee Construction