President Obama has chosen Victor M. Mendez, former director of the Arizona Dept. of Transportation, as his nominee to head the Federal Highway Administration, the White House announced on April 2. His nomination now will be considered by the Senate. Mendez joined Arizona DOT (ADOT) in 1985 as a transportation engineer and rose through the ranks to become the agency's director in 2001. At ADOT, Mendez succeeded Mary E. Peters in the top job. Peters also left to be FHWA administrator and later became secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Transportation. Photo: Arizona DOT Victor M. Mendez Mendez was active

Bowing to the realities of a severely weakened economy and a ballooning budget deficit, the state of Florida has drastically revised its proposed purchase of agricultural land in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee. + Image Photo: South Florida Water Management District Buying only 72,500 acres now, Florida has an option to complete a planned purchase of 180,000 acres within 10 years. The state’s goal continues to be “to connect Lake Okeechobee with Florida Bay and restore the natural flow” of water that created and sustained the vast Everglades ecosystem for thousands of years, said Gov. Charlie Crist

Contradicting the National Transportation Safety Board’s report that blamed too-thin gusset plates for the Aug. 1, 2007, collapse of the Minneapolis Interstate 35W bridge, an independent analysis has concluded that rusted, frozen roller bearings prevented thermal expansion and caused a truss chord to fail, triggering the gusset-plate failure. The analysis by Thornton Tomasetti, New York City, using forensic bridge information modeling, was presented to victims’ families and will be deployed in an anticipated lawsuit against URS Corp., San Francisco, and Progressive Contractors Inc., Minneapolis, in the next few months, according to Chris Messerly, one of the pro bono lawyers with

The Ohio Dept. of Transportation has scrapped a controversial plan to close the aging I-90 Inner Belt bridge in Cleveland while fast-tracking a replacement bridge. Instead, it will use $200 million in federal stimulus money and a mix of local and federal funds to build a new span while keeping the old one operating. The Inner Belt bridge, built in 1959 and similar in design to the failed I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, is a major safety concern and is rated “poor” on the federal bridge rating system. Its condition led ODOT to ban truck traffic last year. The agency last

The Dept. of Energy has announced how it will spend more than $9 billion in federal funds under the recently enacted economic-stimulus measure, with much of the money aimed at construction projects. DOE on March 31 released its plans for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's $6 billion to accelerate environmental cleanup work at former nuclear-weapons sites across 12 states around the country. Five days earlier, the agency disclosed its breakdown of $3.2 billion for a new Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program that the stimulus statute created. Photo: U.S. Dept. of Energy Funds at Hanford will help reduce

At least three electric utilities are seeking to retrofit aging coal-fueled plants to burn biomass in order to keep costs down, meet renewable portfolio standards and avoid having to comply with new emissions rules. “A lot of these coal plants are entering the twilight of their years,” says Dave O’Connor, manager of combustion performance for the Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, Calif. Repowering “is much cheaper than building a new greenfield plant and is a very cost-effective way to give them a new purpose.” Photo: Georgia Power Co. Georgia Power has received permission for Plant Mitchell’s $103-million conversion. O’Connor

Citizens of Fargo, N.D., and neighboring Moorhead, Minn., appear to have dodged another bullet, but only after an heroic, all-hands effort in late March in advance of floodwaters that ultimately surpassed a 1997 record flood. With little more than a week’s notice, an army of federal, state and local resources, along with sandbag-packing volunteers, built a maze of temporary dikes atop existing levees to withstand the onslaught of the rising Red River. Photo: U.S. Air Force Rapid erection of 38 miles of HESCO barriers helped raise levees in Fargo by 4 ft. At ENR press time, floodwaters in Fargo were

The National Gallery of Art’s East Building in Washington, D.C., is preparing for an emergency facelift. Some of the marble panels on its exterior are tilting outward, indicating problems with its veneer panel support system, according to Deborah Ziska, gallery spokeswoman. The panels are attached to the building’s exterior with stainless-steel anchor and clip supports. Local structural engineering firm Robert Silman Associates recommended the removal of all the gallery’s 16,200 panels, reinstallation with new supports and installation of new gaskets between panels. Photo: National Gallery of Art

Federal infrastructure stimulus announced in February could pave the way to faster development at Sacramento’s 244-acre Railyards. The long-planned mixed-use project owned by S. Thomas Enterprises was selected by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments to receive $20 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. The stimulus funds will push work on track realignment and road building ahead by six months, according to Suheil Totah, vice president of Thomas Enterprises. “This is tremendously significant for the project because the money wasn’t expected and now we will be able to move forward on items that had been put on

Four executives with one of the largest construction firms in South America, Camargo Correa, were arrested by Brazilian police Wednesday in connection with a year-long corruption probe. A total of ten employees of the firm were arrested as federal police carried out a series of raids on the company’s offices in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero — part of an investigation named Operation Sand Castle. Photo: C.J. Schexnayder The Campos Novos dam in southern Brazil built by Camargo Correa and completed in 2006. Investigators with Brazil’s federal prosecutor’s office specializing in financial crimes say Camargo Correa was laundering money