Members of the U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee are challenging the limits of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' mission for building natural hazard defenses. During a June 16 hearing on hurricane and flood protection work in Southeast Louisiana the narrow issue was the Corps' recommendation for an $800 million project to build permanent pumps and storm surge barriers at mouths of three New Orleans outfall canals. The committee chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the Louisiana delegation and witnesses backed a $3.5-billion "Option 2," instead, which would improve city storm drainage as well as perimeter defenses. Although the

In the face of opposition from the Obama administration, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leaders have unveiled major elements of a $500-billion surface transportation bill that would carry highway, transit and rail programs through the next six years and restructure Dept. of Transportation programs. Related Links: DOT's LaHood Seeks SAFETEA-LU Extension Other ENR SAFETEA-LU Coverage The proposal would represent about a 50% boost over funding for the past six years, but it doesn't specify where the additional money would come from. It also must contend with a radically different counter-proposal from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has called for an

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has proposed an "immediate" 18-month reauthorization of the federal highway program that also would infuse the faltering Highway Trust Fund with enough money to avoid a shortfall in August. LaHood said in a June 17 statement that he had briefed congressional lawmakers on the trust fund's problems and said that if money isn't added to the fund, "the trust fund will run out of money as soon as late August and states will be in danger of losing the vital transportation funding they need and expect." LaHood did not disclose details of his plan to fix

Hydro-Quebec broke ground last month for its Romaine Complex, a $6.5-billion hydropower project comprising four rockfill dams on the Romaine River, ranging in height from 34 m to 114 m and generating a total of 1,550 MW. The first powerplant will be commissioned in 2014, with final completion scheduled for 2020. The workforce is expected to peak at 2,000 between 2012 and 2016. The river is 500 miles east of Quebec City and flows into the Saint Lawrence River.

The board of Tampa Bay Water has approved staff recommendations for an estimated $125-million repair program for the agency’s four-year-old, 15.5-billion-gallon C.W. “Bill” Young Regional Reservoir. The earthen structure, which cost roughly $140 million to build, has been experiencing significant cracking since late 2006. Image + Source: Tampa Bay Water Cracking problem seems to be centered in erosion-control system, officials say. The authority also is moving ahead with a lawsuit against the three lead members of the project’s design and construction team: designer HDR, Omaha; contractor Barnard Construction Co., Bozeman, Mont.; and construction manager Construction Dynamics Group, Columbia, Md. The

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has released interim guidelines for its much-awaited High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Planning Grants program, which includes $8 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aid and other federal high-speed and intercity rail funds. States now must hustle to apply for the money, because FRA has set a July 10 deadline for filing "pre-application" forms. Related Links: DOT High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program Guidelines The first round of the rail grants will be awarded by mid-September, based on merit. In its guidance document, released June 17, FRA says projects will be evaluated and rated according

A joint venture between TAV Construction, based in Istanbul, and Consolidated Contractors Group, based in Athens, has won a $1.17-billion contract to expand Muscat International Airport, formerly Seeb International Airport, in Oman. The expansion includes a 240,000-sq-meter terminal building, runway, control tower and a rail link to the existing terminal. Work is expected to be completed by 2011. The project manager is a joint venture of France’s Aeroports de Paris and Pakistan’s National Engineering Services Pakistan & Partners.

The U.S. Energy Dept. says it will build a flagship clean-coal powerplant in Illinois, reversing a previous Bush administration move to scrap the ambitious FutureGen project in favor of smaller carbon-capture and -storage projects (CCS) around the U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and his industry partner, the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, a group of 20 leading power utilities and coal companies, reached agreement on the project: a 275-MW integrated gasification combined-cycle powerplant that could cost between $1.3 billion and $1.8 billion. The plant will be sited in Mattoon, Ill., 180 miles south of Chicago, and will be the first commercial-scale, coal-fired

Citing a need for smaller and more affordable nuclear reactors, Babcock & Wilcox Co. is developing a self-contained, modular 125-MW nuclear reactor to be built in its U.S. plants and shipped by rail to construction sites. B&W would like to secure turnkey contracts with utilities to manufacture and install the reactors, says Christofer Mowry, president and chief executive officer of the new Lynchburg, Va.-based division of Babcock & Wilcox, B&W Modular Nuclear Energy LLC. Photo: The Babcock & Wilcox Co. Four reactors combine for 500 MW. An array of the 15-ft-dia x 75-ft-tall modules could create small and mid-sized nuclear

By 2016, a solar satellite could begin beaming up to 4,000 MW a year via microwave to a receiving station in Fresno, Calif., now that Solaren Corp. has signed a 200-MW power sales contract with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Solaren, Manhattan Beach, Calif., is still designing the system, but plans call for an array of geosynchronous orbiting mirrors several miles wide to focus sunlight onto photovoltaic cells. An amplifier will convert the electrical power into a microwave beam aimed at a ground receiving station in Fresno County, where it will be converted to AC power and fed into the