Thanks to bipartisan support, London’s $24-billion government-sponsored Crossrail project seems to have a secure future even as public spending cuts loom. Having already signed up all the design teams, Transport for London’s project company, Crossrail Ltd., is now procuring the last tunneling contract. Photo: Crossrail Ltd. Wide-scale demolition at Tottenham Court Road for one of Crossrail’s largest underground hubs. Related Links: Brazil Plans High-Speed Rail for Olympics China-Hong Kong Rail Line Costs Deepen The project includes 21 kilometers of twin tunnels under central London. Crossrail Ltd. set a March 24 deadline for firms to lodge prequalification bids for a contract

The Louisville, Ky., district of the Army Corps of Engineers allowed resumption of Ohio River traffic through the 1,200-ft Markland Lock chamber on March 1 after an expedited 155-day, $6-million emergency repair operation. Corps crews worked two 12-hour shifts each day through “wretched weather conditions to get this lock back in operation,” says Col. Keith Landry, district commander. A malfunctioning control-valve solenoid is blamed for allowing excessive water flow that wrenched one of the chamber’s 450-ton leaves from its mountings and damaging its partner during a locking operation on Sept. 27. Corps employees Sean Bennett (front) and Charles Smith endured

Federal highway and transit programs are back in business, but only through March 28, thanks to enactment late on March 2 of a delayed stopgap funding measure. But state and industry officials noted that the respite is brief. They are hoping that Congress soon will pass a further highway-transit extension, through Dec. 31. The newly enacted stopgap bill, which also extends unemployment insurance and COBRA health benefits for several weeks, gained final congressional approval with Senate passage on a strong 78-19 vote. President Obama signed the bill later on March 2. The action marks an end to a two-day shutdown

Brazilian-backed proposal to build a 2,000-megawatt hydroelectric plant in the Peruvian Amazon has gained momentum in recent weeks as the government of the Andean nation has thrown its weight behind the effort. Photo: C.J. Schexnayder Inambari River project would supply 2,000 MW of power, but displace 3,300 people. + Image Image: C.J. Schexnayder. The Brazilian consortium behind the $4-billion project, Empresa de Generación Eléctrica Amazonas Sur S.A.C. (EGASUR), is expected to present feasibility studies for constructing the hydroelectric plant on the Inambari River to Peru’s Ministry of Mines and Energy early this month. EGASUR is composed of Brazilian construction firm

In mid-February, Glendale Water & Power awarded a $4.2-million contract to Greenville, S.C.-based Utility Partners of America Inc., as the Southern California city joined a nationwide move to so-called smart water and electric networks. The advanced metering infrastructure will act as a two-way communication network to connect the meter to the utility and to the customer. Utility Partners is the same company that won a $7.5-million contract for similar work in Sacramento, Calif., in November. It has installed an estimated 6 million meters across the country. The 33,400 new water and 84,500 electric meters UPA will install in Glendale will

Developers of a major offshore wind farm in Massachusetts Bay failed to reach agreement by March 1 with local Native American tribes who say the $1-billion Cape Wind project would destroy ancestral burial sites. The continuing impasse over the 135-turbine project means U.S. Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar will make a final ruling on its fate by the end of April. Salazar had acted as arbiter between the tribes and project developer Cape Wind Associates, with a self-imposed March 1 deadline. The lengthy permitting process now goes to a Dept. of the Interior agency, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, for

In a strongly worded response that was not a surprise to the U.S. military, a San Francisco-based official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has raised concerns about the potentially major environmental and infrastructure damage from the planned relocation of thousands of Marines and others to the tiny Pacific island of Guam. EPA is concerned the movement of thousand of U.S. Marines, construction workers and others to Guam will harm its sensitive ecology and overstress infrastructure. In a Feb. 17 letter to Roger Natsuhara, acting assistant U.S. Navy secretary for installations and environment, EPA regional administrator Jared Blumenfeld says the

De-authorizing navigation on the Missouri River would do wonders to ensure a robust water supply for irrigation and recreation in the Midwest—although at a cost to certain interest groups, many of them downstream. Photo: Harry Weddington, Omaha District, USACE Some call for de-authorizing navigation to relieve restrictions on water for crops. Photo: Harry Weddington, Omaha District, USACE Spillway is at Gavins Point Dam, near Yankton, S.D. Every option is on the table as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launches a study to challenge whether the “eight purposes” enshrined in a 66-year-old federal act that governs water management policy on

A joint U.S.-European group has presented the low bid to analyze the options for a vehicular crossing at the Atlantic entrance of the Panama Canal, officials said on Monday. Photo: C.J. Schexnayder The Third Lane Expansion project will be built roughly at the site of a previous excavation by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, visible to the left of the Gatun Locks. San Francisco-based URS Corp. and the Danish firm COWI A/S submitted a bid of $895,000—the lowest of five tendered—to examine the possibilities of a permanent crossing at the historic waterway’s Atlantic entrance that will allow uninterrupted traffic

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared on March 2 that the Gowanus Canal will be added to the list of federal Superfund cleanup sites. The heavily polluted canal runs through an old industrial sector in the New York City borough of Brooklyn and empties into New York harbor. EPA’s decision will set in motion a $500-million, decade-long effort to clean up the former industrial canal, which EPA says is contaminated with PCBs, coal-tar waste, heavy metals and volatile organics. Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) had opposed the EPA designation, fearing it would endanger real estate developement plans for the area. EPA