After contractual juggling and debates over the alleged dangers of steel rail ties, Austin’s Capital Metro opened its 32-mile MetroRail commuter line between the city of Leander, Texas, and Austin’s downtown Convention Center on March 22, a year later than originally planned. “The overall integration of the Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) system took longer to implement than anticipated,” Capital Metro spokesman Adam Shaivitz says. Last August, board-meeting minutes indicate, a system used for switching from freight to passenger rail had field-test problems. The opening comes more than five years after voters approved the “All Systems Go Plan” referendum. The agency

Crews have filled in about 80% of nine voids leftover from a 2-mile tunneling job through Seattle’s Beacon Hill. Japan’s Obayashi Corp. did not discover the voids while boring the parallel, 1-mile tunnels as part of its $280-million contract, which has since increased to $312 million. Owner Sound Transit contends the contractor is at fault. Photo: Sound Transit Crews pump low-density concrete into tunnel voids found by drilling. The new, $2.6-billion, 16-mile Link Light Rail from downtown Seattle south to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport required tunnels and a station 180 ft deep beneath Beacon Hill. Obayashi in 2004 won the contract

Hillman joined Swiss post-tensioning firm VSL in 1990 to work on a 385-m-long incrementally launched bridge in Utuado, Puerto Rico. Six months later, the project manager left the job. Hillman, then age 27, found himself in charge of completing a type of structure built only once before in the Western Hemisphere. And it was slowly collapsing. Photo: John Hillman It was an incrementally launched bridge being pushed across the piers by 1,000-ton rams supported on the abutments, says Elvin Wright, then VSL project superintendent. But the project was behind schedule and in trouble. Wright credits Hillman with saving the day.

Developers of an estimated $3-billion transmission system that will collect, store and distribute at least 3,000 MW of stranded renewable energy from wind-energy-rich western states and Canadian provinces to power-hungry regions elsewhere are seeking Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permission to move ahead. + Image Map: Grasslands Renewable Energy System would carry western wind power to surrounding markets. Bozeman, Mont.-based Grasslands Renewable Energy, an entity created by Rocky Mountain Power, Calgary, Alberta, and Absaroka Energy LLC, Bozeman, wants FERC to allow it to negotiate deals with wind generators for the project, called Wind Spirit. Supplies of wind power would be generated

Concrete groups are on tenterhooks, waiting for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to publish a proposed rule that aims to designate fly ash and other coal-combustion by-products as hazardous waste. The concrete sector is concerned even about the ramifications of a “hybrid” rule that would allow beneficial uses of CCBs to continue. Photo: Sue Pearsall/ENR Proposed federal rule would complicate production and disposal of concrete structures. Related Links: Coal-Ash Regulation Could Quash Plans To Build Plant Major among these beneficial uses is fly ash in concrete. The ingredient, a partial replacement for portland cement, is known to increase concrete’s constructibility,

Contractors on the centerpiece of San Francisco’s $4.6-billion upgrade of the Hetch Hetchy water system, a $215.3-million tunnel under San Francisco Bay that will replace the 1920s-era pipeline structure, were told to start work on April 1. Officials say the seismically enhanced structure and others planned will better protect the city water supply in an earthquake, such as the Southern California temblor on April 4. Photo: San Francisco Pulbic Utilities Commission Image shows underwater pipeline and tunnel, which will have new seismic protections. The five-mile-long tunnel will replace old structures with a 9-ft-dia welded steel pipeline bored as deep as

The Obama Administration’s decision to open up offshore oil and gas development in Southern and mid-Atlantic states, new areas of the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean is drawing praise from oil and gas industry officials. They say the development could provide thousands of new jobs for contractors. On March 31, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said land in those offshore regions could be leased for oil and gas development beginning in 2012. He set two conditions: There must be interest from industry, and environmental benchmarks must be met. California and Florida’s east coast remains off limits. The administration

Plans to build a new, $50-million facility to recycle fly ash in southern Maryland for Atlanta-based Mirant could fall through if the Environmental Protection Agency designates the coal combustion by-product as a hazardous waste, says Mirant’s Misty Allen , the utility’s director of external affairs. Photo: The Sefa Group The proposed recycling facility would use a new technology that burns 100% of carbon from coal ash. Allen says Mirant filed an application on March 26 with the Maryland Public Service Commission to build a facility in Morgantown, Md., that would recycle up to 400,000 tons of coal ash per year.

Stating Florida must comply with the original 1992 consent decree to address Everglades pollution, U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno granted on March 31 the Miccosukee tribe’s motion to compel completion of a key reservoir. Since 2008, the work has stopped on the $700-million project in Palm Beach County; instead, state funds have been plowed into buying private sugar-growing land near Lake Okeechobee for a new restoration plan. Parties now are weighing the potential impact. Landowner U.S. Sugar Corp. says the ruling “does not preclude” the state’s continuing land purchase to meet the consent decree’s terms. Tribal officials and those

Vancouver, B.C.’s planned $458-million renovation of BC Place, the province’s largest stadium, already has paid dividends. Las Vegas-based Paragon Gaming announced in March it would lease the property adjacent to build a $450-million entertainment complex, complete with a 24-hour casino, five restaurants and two hotels. Operations are set to start in 2013. Photo: Paragon Gaming An entertainment complex will abut BC Place by 2013, according to Paragon Gaming’s plan. The 76,000-sq-meter fabric cover at BC Place—the largest air-supported roof in the world—will soon become the world’s largest cable-supported retractable roof. Work starts this month with a winterization program. The 27-year-old