The U.S Army Corps has unveiled a $1.7-billion, 10-year plan to restore to health the ailing Anacostia River in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The plan, two years in the making and released on April 19, identifies 3,000 projects to help restore the severely polluted river and watershed spanning 176 sq miles of land through a combination of stormwater controls, stream restoration, wetland creation and restoration, fish blockage removal, reforestation, and controlling trash and chemical contamination. However, finding funding to pay for the projects could be a challenge. Funding for the plan was authorized under the Water Resources and Development

International engineers and contractors may be eyeing China as the world’s largest consumer market, but the Chinese government still wants domestic industry firms to do some market-related globetrotting of their own, particularly in rail construction. Photo: Bombardier Corp. China purchased more than 60 Canadian-made high-speed-rail cars that will ride on domestic and global lines Chinese firms aim to design and build. Photo: Lou Rocco / ENR China Rail Construction top economist Shang Qingxi says the firm is now the country’s largest contractor. The state-owned China Railway Construction Corp. (CRCC) is now China’s largest and fastest-growing contractor, says Shang Qingxi, deputy

Engineering News-Record’s Senior Editor Tom Sawyer, and Jenna McKnight, deputy news director for McGraw-Hill Construction, spent a week in Haiti in mid-April staying with a local family and traveling throughout the Port-au-Prince area to meet with Haitian refugees and others already engaged in the start of reconstruction, as well as with representatives of foreign aid organizations and U.S. officials. One long-sought document that came to hand during the visit is the Haitian government’s Action Plan for National Recovery and Development, described below. Navy Capt. Jim Wink said, “Right now they have the attention of the world.” Wink, chief engineer for

Orient Express Hotels Ltd., the Bermuda-based luxury travel and real estate firm, plans to build and operate a $2-billion, 528-mile freight railway line that will extend its railway network in the Andean country to Brazil, the company’s Peru manager, Laurent Carrasset, said. Orient Express Hotels is best known in Peru for operating the train service from Peru to the famous ruins of Machu Picchu, but the company also has a significant presence in regular railroad interests, recently completing a $25-million upgrade of a rail line serving Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.’s copper mine in southern Peru.

Commercial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) for coal powerplants moved closer to reality in April after the U.K. approved legislation to subsidize four large-scale CCS demonstration plants. The nation’s Dept. of Energy and Climate Change recently committed “millions” to support front-end engineering and design by two utilities competing to secure subsidies for the first of those plants. Two utilities are competing for construction of demonstration “green” coal plants in the United Kingdom. DECC aims next year to decide whether E.ON U.K. plc., Coventry, or a team led by ScottishPower plc, Edinburgh, will get backing for a large demonstration unit able

Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run energy giant, has formally opened South America’s largest-capacity natural-gas pipeline, the 179-kilometer Gasduc III, near Rio de Janeiro, which required tunneling 3.8 km through Santana Mountain. The 40-million-cu-m-per-day, 38-in.-dia pipeline was built by Odetech, a joint venture of Odebrecht and Techint Engenharia. It is the largest-dia gas pipeline in South America.The pipeline awaits the completion later this year of the Caraguatatuba-Taubaté (GASTAU) gas pipeline, which will receive gas coming from the Santos Basin in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Dept. of Energy has awarded $452 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants to states and localities to help fund energy-efficiency upgrades to buildings. In announcing the “Retrofit Ramp-Up” grants on April 21, DOE said the federal funding will be complemented by $2.8 billion from non-federal sources over three years. DOE received more than $3.5 billion in applications, far more than the amount it had available. The largest of the 25 grants was $40 million, to the New York State Research and Development Authority. Maine, Michigan and Los Angeles County, Calif., each were awarded $30 million. DOE says

The team of European engineering firms which last month won a $200-million design contract for a nuclear-power research complex to be built in southern France, with a cadre of global sponsors, already is starting work, officials say. The engineering award for the $13- billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is the project’s largest contract awarded to date and one of the largest design awards of any kind in Europe. Photo: ITER A-TeamCardache complex in France will be built by a Franco-British-Spanish team. Photo: ITER Power ParkThe 42-hectare site has been prepared for foundation work to begin next spring. Photo: ITER

India’s goal to achieve 20,000 MW of solar power by 2022 is proving to be a challenge as the industry awaits tweaks to a draft policy that will determine the tariff and allow the country to import photovoltaic cells—a technology that is not established in the country. But the road bumps haven’t stopped the development of some solar facilities in the country. The grid is underpowered, but PV sector is gaining turf. While the country currently has almost no grid-connected solar power, a recent McKinsey& Co. survey ranks India as the most attractive destination in the world for solar PV

After nearly a decade of review, the Dept. of Interior gave the go-ahead for the nation’s first offshore wind farm the $1 billion Cape Wind project off the coast of Nantucket on April 28. The facility could be operational by as soon as 2012. But the Interior Dept. says it will require the developer of the controversial project, Cape Wind Associates, LLC to modify its proposal to minimize potential adverse environmental and aesthetic impacts of construction and operation of the facility. Cape Wind Associates is a joint business venture between Boston-based firms Energy Management Inc. and Wind Management LLP. The