Thanks in part to design-build and a lane rental arrangement, a bridge over Interstate 75 near Detroit reopened to traffic on Dec. 11, less than five months after collapsing in flames. Photo: Bergmann Associates Michigan transportation officials and their contractor team credit a lane rental agreement process and design-build for speeding the rebuilding of an Interstate overpass, competed in under five months. The steel beams of the two-span Nine Mile Bridge in Hazel Park, Mich., melted on July 15 after a car hit a tanker truck on six-lane I-75, causing 14,000 gallons of fuel to erupt in flames. “The northbound

The Missouri Dept. of Transportation is building its second “diverging diamond” interchange design that requires motorists at an interchange to temporarily drive on the left side of the road. It was devised by an engineer in graduate school who wasn’t aware the concept already existed in Europe. The Federal Highway Administration has tested and presented the design, and a dozen states are considering using it Photo: MODOT Springfield, Mo., diverging diamond design moves left-turning traffic more easily. The design calls for the approach road on either side of the interchange to curve to the left, so the driver can easily

Geothermal energy “appeared to be on a launch trajectory” in 2009, says the Geothermal Energy Association in its year-end report. With more than 3,150 MW of geothermal capacity on line in the U.S. in August and 144 new geothermal plants under development, the Washington, D.C.-based industry association says the accelerating growth could add 7,000 MW of new plants. The U.S. already leads the world in geothermal installed capacity and could have 10,000 MW in a few years, officials say. GEA credits state and federal policies—including state renewables portfolio standards, the Dept. of Energy’s extension of a loan program for innovative

Wind energy from north-central Oregon will power homes in Southern California when an 845-MW wind farm is completed in 2012. Turbine supplier GE and developer Caithness Energy LLC say the $2-billion project, with 338 wind turbines sprawling across 30 sq miles near the town of Arlington, Ore., will be the world’s largest operating wind farm. Photo: GE Wind turbines to be installed in Oregon will be GE’s largest in the U.S, but similar machines have been successfully operating for several years in Europe and Asia. Under a $1.4-billion contract, Fairfield, Conn.-based GE will furnish and deliver its newest 2.5-MW wind

Two weeks after an 18-in. three-phase common pipeline ruptured on Alaska’s North Slope, spewing more than 1,000 barrels of crude oil, produced water and natural gas from a 24-in. gash, cleanup workers are “trimming” the tundra by hand and with machinery in subzero temperatures to remove oil and produced water. At ENR press time, they had removed the bulk of the spilled material from the surface of the 8,400-sq-ft affected area, says Steve Rinehart, spokesman for producer BP Exploration Alaska Inc. Photo: B. Fultz, Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation Spilled material melts for collection with a vacuum rig. Small Bobcat-type

The National Science Foundation confirmed on Dec. 15 that it will delay until next summer award of a long-term contract, worth at least $2 billion, to manage support logistics for the federal governments’s huge polar research program in Antarctica. Raytheon Co., site contractor since 1999, will continue under its existing contract but is not proposing this round. The new contract, originally set for award this fall and about 12.5 years in duration, has generated proposals from seven teams, including those led by AECOM Technology Corp., CH2M Hill Cos., KBR Inc. and Fluor Corp. Parsons Corp. and EG&G Inc., a unit

One year after dikes failed at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired powerplant near Knoxville, Tenn., and sent coal ash spilling over 300 nearby acres and into the Emory River, contractors have removed two-thirds of the river waste and are halfway through the $1-billion cleanup. But the agency and regulatory officials are struggling with how to prevent a repeat of the Dec. 22, 2008, catastrophe. Photo: Sevenson Environmental Services Ash waste that spilled into the Emory River is most critical portion of TVA remediation project. Tom Kilgore, TVA’s CEO, told a congressional subcommittee this month that he expects cleanup and

Even some of the harshest critics of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are pleased by the swift rise of the $1.3-billion Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Storm Surge Barrier. The 1.8-mile-long, 26-ft-high concrete and steel wall-and-gate structure going up at the confluence of the IHNC, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) in New Orleans is designed to keep storm surge on Lake Borgne and the Gulf of Mexico away from the city’s eastern flank. Related Links: VIDEO: Heavy Lift Ballet: Finesse Surges Barrier Toward Finish Storm-Barrier Equipment Fleet Uneasy About Evacuation Plan Construction

Photo: Hoto By CDI Inc. Related Links: Tower Drops: Troubled Texas Condo Ends With A Crash The troubled existence of the listing, unfinished, 31-story Ocean Tower condominium structure and attached parking garage in South Padre Island, Texas, came to an end on Dec. 13 with an implosion by Controlled Demolition Inc., Phoenix, Md. Mark Loizeaux, president, says internal cameras confirmed that the process worked as planned. CDI used the tension of tendons in the structure to tilt the tower to compensate for the list, then undermined it to create an eccentric load, rotated it slightlyand dropped it into a pile

A new pilot program launched by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) will provide both design and operational ratings for all building types, except residential buildings; the ratings will be posted on the buildings themselves. The “Building EQ” program is designed to give building owners, designers and potential buyers a more realistic sense of how buildings are actually performing in terms of energy use, ASHRAE officials said at the launch of the program in Washington, D.C., at the Dec. 7-11 Ecobuild conference, sponsored by the National Institute of Building Sciences. Initially, volunteer ASHRAE members will