While environmental groups are cheering a May 4 Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate fly ash, utilities are concerned that potential designation of the material as a hazardous waste could prove costly. Photo: AP/Wideworld Liners would be required in coal-ash ponds to avert accidents like the disaster in 2008. The draft proposal would regulate for the first time coal ash under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Under the proposal, coal plants would be required to retrofit existing impoundments, which typically store the ash in liquid form, with composite liners. Enforcing the Regulation The more than 500-page proposal outlines

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has selected four leading architectural firms—Adjaye Associates, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Foster + Partners and Snø-hetta—as finalists following a comprehensive international search for a firm to expand the museum’s facilities and design a new wing. The final selection of the architect will be announced in September, and the expansion is slated for completion in 2016. The expansion will triple the museum’s gallery and public spaces.

A long-standing, but unfunded desire to restore Louisiana’s barrier islands may be fulfilled if British Petroleum agrees to foot the bill for a proposal to dredge and build up long-eroded islands to stop oil from encroaching on sensitive marshlands. The Chandeleur Islands near the mouth of the Mississippi may be nourished with dredge spoil to shield wetlands from the oil spill spreading in the Gulf. “Right now, it’s just talk, in the infant stages,” says Chris Accardo, chief of operations division for the New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps would have to issue a permit for

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is exploring the potential of another water diversion to keep oil flow from coming ashore. By this weekend, the Corps anticipates the Bohemia Spillway, off the coast of Plaquemines Parish, La., will reach a flow of 800,000 cubic ft. per second. “Spillway is kind of a misnomer,” as the low area that runs from mile 25 from head of passes to mile 40 is not a manmade water control structure, says Chuck Shadie, chief of the Corps’ watershed division in Vicksburg, Miss.  “It is a low spot in the natural bank on the east

Lafitte resident Lanvin LeBlanc has been fishing his entire life. With more than three decades of shrimping under his belt, he single-handedly runs a 38-ft skiff to bring thousands of pounds of shrimp to market each year. Photo: Craig Guillot Nicky Alfonson in front of hundreds of his crab traps he recovered from Louisiana waters after the oil spill. When officials closed the waters to commercial and recreational fishing between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Pensacola Bay in Florida on May 2, LeBlanc was essentially put out of business. “Everything has just been up in the air. This

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is initiating emergency permitting procedures to expedite cleanup in anticipation of oil coming ashore from the April 20 explosion of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon rig about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. Corps districts in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisian indicate that they have cut the normally lengthy permitting process to 24-48 hours as authorized under Nationwide Permit 20, which covers those activities subject to the National Oil and Hazardous Pollution Contingency Plan and are performed in accordance with the Spill Control and Countermeasures Plan. Basically, any oil spill cleanup excavation, dredging or remediation in

With cracks as sharp as the frozen Arctic air, a 1,357-ft steel communications tower in Port Clarence, Alaska, tumbled to the ground on April 28, the first step in the U.S. Coast Guard�s decommissioning of its network of LORAN radio navigation facilities across the country. Photo: Controlled Demolition Inc. Tower demolition is start of Coast Guard decommissioning of aging navigation signal network. The 400-ton, 45-segment triangular steel tower is the largest man-made structure to be felled by explosives, according to Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI), Phoenix, Md., which performed the operation as a subcontractor to Jacobs Field Services North America. For

The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE), seeking commercial projects for its energy-efficient commercial buildings program, has extended a call for potential projects until noon Eastern on May 14. DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory had issued both a call for projects, aimed at commercial building owners and operators, and a request for proposals targeted at commercial building technical experts.The RFP deadline for the technical experts remains 3 pm Pacific on May 10. DOE’s national laboratories will use money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to select and fund technical

Unveiled on April 22, the final design for the $1.5-billion Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco will feature high-level seismic and environmental elements. The five-story glass-and-steel station, billed as the Grand Central Station of the West, will consolidate 12 transit operations, including anticipated high-speed rail. Photo: Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects The proposed transit hub would be a 1,400-ft-long structural tube with moment frames. The Transbay Joint Powers Authority hub, designed by New Haven, Conn.-based Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, includes a place-marker for an iconic 1,200-ft-tall tower. Part of a $4-billion mixed-used project, the tower is still the subject of financial

Florida lawmakers passed a $70-billion 2010 budget on the final day of the legislative session on April 30, but raided the state Transportation Trust Fund of $160 million to help fill a revenue gap. “It’s going to defer some more projects, no question about it,” says Bob Burleson, president of the Florida Transportation Builders’ Association in Tallahassee. Kevin Thibault, Florida Dept. of Transportation, says “it’s too early to tell” how the lost revenue will affect planned projects, but it will likely push out start dates. Burleson says the delays could add up to as much as $400 million in deferred