A construction team led by Spanish contractor Sacyr Vallehermoso SA has won the Panama Canal expansion’s largest contract to date, the design-build job to build a third set of locks on both the waterway’s Atlantic and Pacific openings. Photo: ACP Current Panama Canal facilities are a tight fit for ships. Related Links: Panama Widens Horizons Ten Minutes with CH2M Hill’s Mike Kennedy The team, which includes two U.S. engineers, proposes to construct the locks, a job estimated by owner Panama Canal Authority (ACP) to cost $3.48 billion, for $3.12 billion, ACP said on July 8. � ACP says that the

Faster, stronger and greener elements need to be part of bridge construction in the U.S., accomplished through fast-track project-delivery methods, Accelerated Bridge Construction techniques or alternative materials, according to a variety of industry officials. Fiber-reinforced polymers (FRPs) could contribute to all those themes, said speakers at the International Bridge Conference held in Pittsburgh on June 14-17. “The ABC mantra is ‘Get in, get out and stay out,’” noted David White, marketing manager with Sika Corp., Lyndhurst, N.J., a manufacturer of FRP components. “FRPs will fit all of that, especially the ‘stay out.’” But the higher initial cost of installing composite

A small precast-concrete bridge in New Jersey is being replaced with a hybrid-composite beam structure that could have a service life of 100 years. This is the third project using the technology, which combines a glass-fiber reinforced shell, self-consolidating concrete for compression reinforcement and high-strength continuous steel fibers for tension reinforcement. Photo: HC Bridge Co., LLC Hybrid-composite beam in New Jersey was installed with an excavator. HC Bridge Co. LLC, Chicago, is supplying beams for the $1.34-million state Rte. 23 Peckman’s Brook Bridge in Cedar Grove, N.J. The 50-year-old four- lane, 66-ft-wide, 30-ft-long bridge is considered structurally deficient and is

In a special session on July 2, the Texas Legislature refused to extend the authority of the Texas Dept. of Transportation to build privatized toll roads in agreements with private developers. The refusal comes at the end of a two-year moratorium on private toll-road construction passed in 2007. It is a setback for Gov. Rick Perry (R), who had appointed a Legislative Study Committee on Private Participation in Toll Projects. One member, Bob Poole, director of transportation policy for Los-Angeles-based Reason Foundation, says the committee’s 2008 report concluded the state needs tolling and private capital, although rules should be modified

A recent study from the National Academy of Sciences predicts so-called “green” refrigerants that replace ozone-depleting ones will contribute to global warming if left unchecked. Published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study presents new data about modern hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are considered greenhouse gases. The study claims HFCs could contribute the equivalent of up to 45% of carbon-dioxide emissions by 2050. Under that worst-case scenario, even if countries adopt a 450-ppm cap on CO2, “You still would have overshot it by about 50%,” says Mack McFarland, a scientist at refrigerant maker DuPont and

To safeguard downstream residents, work now is under way in California to seismically upgrade the San Pablo Dam. The $54-million project involves removing an existing buttress, strengthening the downstream foundation using cement deep-soil mixing and constructing a new 85-ft-high by 950-ft-long buttress. The San Pablo Dam, located near El Sobrante, is an 89-year-old, 38,600 acre-ft drinking-water impoundment. It is managed by the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), which serves 1.3 million people in parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Photo: EBMUD Trestles carry flumes (above) for building the original dam, while soil-mixing augers now work to strengthen the

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and contractors building a $695-million storm surge barrier in New Orleans are wrangling with the U.S. Coast Guard over an evacuation plan for heavy equipment that neither stymies construction nor risks damage to levees and floodwalls from storm-tossed vessels if a hurricane comes in. The Coast Guard is demanding the armada of floating equipment now at work on the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Storm Surge Barrier clear the area if a storm threatens. Typically, many tropical storms pass within a five-day run of the city during a hurricane season. This year, that

Though green-building experts and construction lawyers laud the good intentions of the U.S. Green Building Council about its popular Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green-building rating system, many have serious concerns about at least one new requirement in the latest version of LEED, which went into effect on July 1. The requirement, a “precondition” of certification for all buildings under LEED Version 3, says owners must commit to sharing building energy and water-usage data for at least five years after a new building is occupied or an existing building is certified. Another change sending shudders down the spine of

Mobilization has begun in Southern California for excavation of the foundation of what authorities are calling the largest raise of a concrete dam in the U.S. and the largest using roller-compacted concrete in the world. A groundbreaking ceremony on July 9 will kick off the project to raise San Vicente Dam, Lakeside, Calif., in the final phase of the San Diego County Water Authority’s Emergency Storage Project. “It will more than double the capacity of the reservoir,” says Kelly Rodgers, authority project manager. “San Diego relies primarily on imported water.” Water supplies from the Colorado River and from northern California

If finished by 2011 as planned and supported by an effective stormwater pumping system, the $14.3-billion hurricane and storm-damage risk-reduction system of levees, gates and floodwalls going up around New Orleans will “dramatically reduce” vulnerability to flooding and potential loss of lives and property during extreme storms events, according to a new report that explains the extraordinary risk-analysis tools developed to study the system since Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in 2005. “If it’s constructed and performs equal to what we assume it will in the model, it’s going to be a hell of a system,” says Lewis “Ed” Link, the director