The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is banking on a fabric coating, better fill and changes in scour aprons and anchor tubes to make a 5.7-mile-long installation of berm with a sand-filled, geotextile-tube core the most resilient and long-lived geotube beach-hardening project it has built to date. + Image Image: US Army Corps of Engineers Hardcore sand dune Photo: Angelle Bergeron/ENR Gulf-side anchor tube and apron will drop like a protective curtain if land is cut away. Related Links: Tubin' on the Isle Weeks Marine Inc., Cranford, N.J., is 20% complete on a $25.7-million contract to restore the beach of

The likely cause of the Dec. 22, 2008, collapse of a coal-ash pond at a Knoxville, Tenn., powerplant that contaminated a stretch of river differs from what the plant’s owner and hired engineer disclosed last month, according to independent engineering analyses and reviews. The new studies point to other factors, including mismanagement and water pressure, as more likely catalysts than the reason cited by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Photo: TVA Failure of Tennesee coal-ash impoundment may cost $1 billion to clean up. In a July 28 report, Marshall Miller & Associates, a Raleigh, N.C. engineering firm, says the “root-cause” analysis

After defeating GOP budget-cutting proposals, the House has approved a fiscal 2010 transportation and housing spending measure that includes $75.8 billion for the Dept. of Transportation, a 13% gain over 2009. The measure, approved on July 23, by a 256-168 vote, would provide modest increases for highway, transit and airport grant programs, plus $4 billion for high-speed rail. Only 16 Republicans voted for the bill, and only 10 Democrats voted against it. For the largest DOT construction program, federal-aid highways, the bill contains a $41.8-billion obligation ceiling, up 1% from 2009. But appropriators noted the unresolved problems facing the Highway

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) has recommended a $3-billion infusion for the struggling Highway Trust Fund, a sum that Oberstar says will be enough to carry the trust fund through Sept. 30. Oberstar, who made his proposal July 23 during a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing, said that the boost for the trust fund should come through a transfer from the general fund. The trust fund's highway account is projected to start running a shortfall in August. Oberstar's proposal for fixing that immediate problem is at odds with the plan now shaping up in the

As a Highway Trust Fund shortfall looms within weeks, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has proposed a remedy. Baucus introduced a bill on July 20 to inject $26.8 billion of new revenue into the trust fund. Of that total, $22 billion would go to the fund’s highway account and $4.8 billion to its transit account. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said the highway account needs a $20-billion infusion over the next 18 months, or DOT would have to slow reimbursements to states for highway-construction spending commitments they incur. LaHood has said the gap will start to

North Carolina Dept. of Transportation officials hope to resume erection work on the $36.6-million Oak Island Bridge project before the end of July, once concerns about cracks found in five concrete girders are alleviated. Work on the bridge halted in early July for the second time in eight months while prime contractor Barnhill Contracting Co., Tarboro, N.C., validates the quality of the suspect girders, four of which were placed. Photo: NCDOT Bulb-tee girders are concern. The bridge is part of a new 4.5-mile-long link connecting Oak Island to the mainland, south of Wilmington in Brunswick County. It consists of 160-ft-long

The Michigan Dept. of Transportation hopes to expedite rebuilding of a new overpass over Interstate 75 north of Detroit, to replace a five-lane steel-girder structure that collapsed on July 15 from a fire caused by a tanker truck that crashed into it. Posen Construction Inc., Detroit, removed debris in a $78,000 contract, says MDOT spokesman Robert Morosi. Locally based Cadillac Asphalt LLC removed the top 3 in. of asphalt on I-75 and put in 450 tons of new pavement under a $90,000 contract. The highway was reopened on July 20. MDOT will seek bids for a new overpass in September.

High-speed rail is red-hot. The U.S. Dept. of Transportation has been flooded with proposals seeking a piece of the $8 billion it received for high-speed rail grants in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, the potential plans far outstrip DOT’s ARRA rail bank account. DOT’s Federal Rail-road Administration reported on July 16 it had received 278 rail-grant “pre-applications” totaling $102.5 billion. Some applicants may not win grants, but more money may be on the way. A House committee has recommended an additional $4 billion for high-speed rail in regular 2010 appropriations. Photo: California high speed rail authority California’s $40-billion

A clean-coal project abandoned by the Dept. of Energy last year is coming back to life with DOE’s Record of Decision and a cooperative agreement signed with the FutureGen Alliance. The ROD and agreement will allow the alliance to proceed with preliminary design, refine the cost estimate and develop a funding plan. DOE launched FutureGen in 2003 as a public-private partnership to engineer, construct and operate a near-zero-emissions, 275-MW powerplant fueled by coal at an estimated cost of $1 billion.

The U.S. Energy Dept. will award $57 million in economic-stimulus funding to support local, university and private smart-grid projects. About $47 million will supplement eight existing smart-grid demonstration projects now planned across the U.S., according to DOE. The remainder is going to local governments to fund modification of emergency- preparedness plans that will consider smart-grid technologies and renewable resources in transmission infrastructure. The awards are part of billions of dollars available for smart-grid projects under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. DOE also announced on July 20 it has chosen Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, as the location of a smart-grid