A near failure of Arthur V. Watkins Dam, a leaking U-shaped earth-fill levee structure located 10 miles northwest of Ogden, Utah, is prompting a compressed-schedule repair, squeezing two years of work into one. The dam was within a few days of failure, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials say, threatening lives and major flood damage to surrounding property. General contractor Geo-Solutions Inc., New Kensington, Pa., is consequently running double shifts and using specially modified equipment to speed up repair work. It designed a 150-cu-yd-per-hour slurry plant fed by twin 60-ton silos for three times the output of a typical facility. Geo-Solutions
Just when the nation’s airports thought their post-9/11 recovery challenges were behind them, upheaval in the nation’s airline industry has clouded the future of many facility and airside construction programs. Months of surging oil prices, volatile credit markets, and sagging U.S. economic fortunes culminated in a summertime string of drastic service cutbacks, steep fare hikes, and other measures aimed at staunching the flow of red ink from the airlines’ balance sheets. Clark County, Nev., Department of Aviation Scheduled for completion in 2012, the 1.87-million-sq-ft Terminal 3 will enable McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas to handle an additional five million
Ohio Dept. of Transportation officials and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson are locked in discussion over whether ODOT should close one of the city’s major bridges that is rapidly deteriorating. The 5,078-ft-long Inner Belt Bridge, a cantilevered steel-truss structure similar in design to Minneapolis’ Interstate 35W bridge, was scheduled for rehabilitation until recent inspections prompted the state to propose closing it and building a replacement over two years. Jackson says closing the bridge, which carries I-90 through downtown, would choke off a needed economic lifeline. It carries nearly 120,000 cars per day. Photo: Donald Bowen Corroded steel chords compromise Inner Belt
Earning a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification is a good start, but airport project designers and builders need to move beyond it, say industry officials. Simply relying on �checklists� of environmental items is �the tail wagging the dog,� said David Callan, director of sustainable design and high performance building technology for Syska Hennessy Group Inc., Chicago, at a roundtable held in New York City last month by McGraw Hill publications ENR and Aviation Week. The �tail wagging the dog� metaphor became a popular phrase for the four airport officials, three engineers, architect and contractor participating in the roundtable.�
After a 15-month probe, the National Transportation Safety Board has determined the probable cause of last year�s fatal I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a design error that caused the failure of gusset plates on the 41-year-old 1,907-ft-long steel-deck truss bridge. They could not carry loads that included deck upgrades, construction materials, equipment and rush-hour traffic when it fell, killing 13 people and in�juring 145. The eight-lane bridge was a non-redundant fracture-critical structure. Slide Show Photo: NTSB I-35W bridge had gusset plates that were too thin Along with the main finding, which the board approved on Nov. 14, NTSB also
On the road to transportation funding, state departments of transportation are gripping the wheel and holding on for a bumpy ride. Decreasing revenue, a hazy future for the federal highway trust fund and a shaky lending market have led many state authorities to delay projects, rework deals and make deep cuts. Slide Show Photo: ICC Maryland is reducing its construction program but its $2.4-billion Intercounty Connector projects escaped the budget axe. Related Links: The Complete Top Owners Sourcebook with Market Data and Analysis The sluggish economy has hit many states, including Virginia, hard. Reduced revenue from fuel taxes and vehicle
Thousands of workers daily take the train from their homes at Slavutich, across 55 kilometers of unpopulated woodland and marsh in northern Ukraine to their workplace. No ordinary commuters, they are workers at the Chernobyl powerplant, scene of the world�s worst-ever nuclear disaster. Nearly 4,000 people work at Chernobyl, safeguarding the destroyed reactor building No. 4 and tending to the three surviving shut-down units. Among the construction teams is Alexander Nikolayevich Plotnikov, project manager at contractor Utem Engineering, Bucha. Slide Show Photo: Eric Schmieman Background radiation levels determine type of protective gear and how long workers are allowed to toil
Cleaning up Cold War-era nuclearweapon sites remains the U.S. Energy Dept.’s single-largest financial liability, totaling an estimated $266 billion, says a Nov. 17 agency report. Related Links: Huge Cleanup at Bomb-Making Megasite Is The New Atomic Fallout The report, validated by accounting firm KPMG, classifies DOE’s environmental-management program as an “unfunded liability” because its budget is set through annual congressional appropriations, as opposed to a dedicated funding stream. The report claims that factors such as the delay in opening the planned Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada could drive the cost higher. “Estimating this liability requires making assumptions about future activities
After more than 30 years of national and international consulting, Bob Sternhell, principal of Solutient Inc., New Orleans, is well versed in the intricacies of working with government agencies. His services include handling all the documents and transactions needed to capture federal risk mitigation grants after disasters so local governments, construction crews and homeowners can get to work. photo: Angelle Bergeron Sternhell has made a specialty of helping localities navigate the bureaucracy of landing federal risk mitigation grants for homeowners. FEMA The federal government declares disasters frequently, with Texas, California, Florida, Oklahoma, New York and Louisiana the leaders. Related Links:
Neither Bob Sternhell nor Bill Petty were interested in residential construction until the slow pace of re�building after Hurricane Katrina found them joining forces to elevate more homes around New Orleans than all other contractors combined. Photo: Angelle Bergeron/ENR Raising homes saves more than it costs. Related Links: Hazard Mitigation: Turning Good Intentions into Good Work Petty, president of the local division of Walton Construction Co., Kansas City, Mo., earlier this year formed Walton Mit�igation Services, a wholly owned Wal�ton subsidiary. He then joined with with Sternhell, CEO of Solutient Inc., a local information-technology firm, to form a risk-mitigation program-management
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