President Obama signed legislation on Oct. 1 that provides a one-month extension for the federal highway and transit programs as well as the appropriations for nearly all federal agencies. Obama also signed a separate bill that extends Federal Aviation Administration programs, including airport construction grants, for three months. The larger of the two measures is a continuing resolution (CR), which contains funds to keep federal agencies operating through Oct. 31, as well as a one-month extension of the current surface-transportation authorization statute, the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act; a Legacy for Users. The CR was needed because

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Sept. 30 that it would use the Clean Air Act to potentially regulate greenhouse gasses. Industry sources say the proposal, which applies to stationary sources that emit more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gasses annually, could result in litigation and construction delays if it were to go into effect. The same day, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced legislation to address global warming in the Senate. The House of Representatives passed a global warming bill last spring, but the Senate has failed to move forward on a comparable bill until

The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority plans to accomplish two goals in one program with its $953-million upgrade of the 370-million-gallon-per-day Blue Plains wastewater treatment plant: treating combined sewer overflows and reducing nitrogen levels to meet more stringent federal water-quality requirements. District engineers say the program is a modification of an earlier plan to address the two problems separately. By coordinating the two projects, D.C. WASA will save money and use fewer resources, says Len Benson, chief engineer. “We’re doing more, faster, with better resulting water quality and [in a] more sustainable [way],” he says. Related Links: Breathing

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture is launching a $320-million, four-year program to address excess nutrients in the Mississippi River Basin that contribute to the large “dead zone” that is void of oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River Basin Health Watersheds Initiative, announced on Sept. 24, will leverage funding in the 2008 farm bill for voluntary conservation programs administered by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) with state, local and private resources. It will help farmers in 12 states initiate conservation efforts to reduce nutrient runoff from farms. The states are Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota,

Many municipal wastewater systems built in the 1970s and 1980s are nearing the end of their useful lives, forcing municipalities and utilities around the country to look at ways of breathing new life into their treatment plants. The stimulus funding in the $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Slide Show Photo: D.C.WASA WASA designed a $935-million upgrade to the Blue Plains treatment plant. Related Links: D.C. System Will Handle Nitrogen and CSO Problems New Program Targets Farmers coupled with an expected increase in funding for the clean-water and drinking-water state revolving funds (SRFs), could offer some benefit to municipalities that

States are committing more American Recovery and Reinvestment Act highway funds to specific projects, and pavement improvements continue to get the largest share of those dollars. But the mix of ARRA-funded highway work is shifting a little, to more complex projects, the Government Accountability Office reports. Total federal ARRA highway outlays—reimbursements to states—also still lag well below obligations. GAO’s latest ARRA update, released on Sept. 23, shows states had obligated nearly $18 billion of $26.7 billion in ARRA highway aid by Sept. 1. That is a 7% gain from $16.8 billion obligated by July 17. The top ARRA highway category

The phone call was from Chicago, and Theodore Zoli, vice president and bridge technical director in the New York City office of HNTB Corp., was working on a project. When he took the call, he wondered what might be wrong. Daniel J. Socolow, director of the fellows program at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, broke the news to him: He was one of 24 recipients chosen to receive $500,000 over the next five years, no strings (or bridge cables) attached, for his work on bridge design and security reinforcement.“I almost fell off my chair,” recalls Zoli, 43.

The Tennessee Valley Authority will seek engineering and construction proposals next month to convert to dry storage all of its wet-storage impoundments for combustion by-products. The project, which will take until 2020 to complete and could cost up to $2 billion, follows the 2008 failure of a coal-ash pond at the utility’s Kingston, Tenn., powerplant that spilled 5.4 million gallons of waste material over 300 acres and into the Emory River. Cleanup could cost $1.2 billion. Photo: TVA Tennessee ash spill pushes TVA to rethink waste storage at all powerplants. Robert Deacy, TVA senior vice president for clean strategies and

Ocean Towers LP has hired Controlled Demolition Inc. to raze its incomplete condominium tower on South Padre Island, which is plagued by 14 in. of differential vertical subsidence between the post-tensioned, low-rise parking garage attached to the tower. According to the owner, the tower’s weight caused a layer of expandable clay under an upper sand layer to compress. Settlement followed, causing damage to the garage at the connection to the tower. The developer stopped construction last year, when the frame was topped out and half clad. The building, designed by Walker & Perez Architects with construction managed by Zachry’s Coastal

The Port of San Francisco and the city’s Dept. of Public Works has selected a design team consisting of Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz Architects, Pfau Long Architecture and cruise consultant Bermello Ajamil & Partners of Miami to submit a contract for approval for the conversion of Pier 27 into a new, modern cruise terminal. Port spokeswoman Renee Dunn Martin says this team beat out nine other firms that applied. It’s not a done-deal yet, she says, until the port and the DPW negotiate a fee proposal. A recommendation is due at the Port Commission’s next meeting on Oct. 27. A new