The rebuilding of Taum Sauk Upper Reservoir is a project of many superlatives. The upper bowl of the 440-MW pumped-storage system sits on top of Missouri’s highest peak, 1,590-ft Proffit Mountain. It is believed to be North America’s largest roller-compacted concrete dam. When the original earth-and-rockfill dike was over- topped and failed in December 2005, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt (R) called the damage done by the 4,365 acre-ft of water it released “the worst man-made disaster in the history of Missouri.” And the $10-million civil penalty imposed on St. Louis-based utility AmerenUE by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the

The Missouri Dept. of Transportation’s request for proposals was challenging: The agency wanted 11.5 miles of Interstate 64 through St. Louis redesigned, upgraded and modernized, with 30 bridges and overpasses rebuilt; it wanted the project completed in four years, and it wanted it all for $420 million.

Consulting engineers and construction contractors alike are looking forward to participating in the single-largest investment ever for modernizing the U.S. electric grid. The $3.4 billion of grant awards announced late last month by President Obama will be matched by utilities in 49 states for a total of $8.2 billion to install “Smart Grid” technologies. The Energy Dept. hopes that investment will put the country on a path to obtain 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and shave more than 1,400 MW off peak power demand. On the long-heralded Smart Grid, customers and electricity providers will be linked

Nearly nine years after passage of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a $53-million construction contract for the Picayune Strand Restoration Project. The award, drawing on nearly $40 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, represents the first federal construction funds for what was supposed to be an equal partnership between the U.S. government and the state of Florida. To date, the state has invested about $2.5 billion, mostly for land acquisition, while the federal government has spent some $600 million on documentation, project implementation plans, regulation-writing and similar preparatory work. Harry

Geothermal energy experts are playing down worries about the threat of induced seismicity connected with enhanced or engineered geothermal systems (EGS) following news reports about an earthquake apparently caused by an EGS project in Germany. The project in the western German city of Landau in der Pfalz is continuing operation while a panel of experts evaluates data from the mid-August magnitude-2.7 temblor. Officials of Geox GmbH, the plant’s owner, deny the temblor was caused by their plant. +Image Photo: AltaRock Energy Inc. Enhanced Geothermal System Globally, about 9,000 MW of geothermal projects are operating today. Most of them tap water

The governing board of the South Florida Water Management District on Sept. 17 is scheduled to vote on a $12-million claim settlement for canceling the construction of the 25-sq-mile Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir A-1. The district canceled the project late last year, anticipating the state’s planned purchase of U.S. Sugar Corp.’s property in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee would result in substantial revisions of the plans for Everglades restoration. The district suspended construction on the reservoir in May 2008, citing uncertainty over its ability to continue constructing it because of a lawsuit by environmental groups against the

Nobody loved Interstate 64 where it cut through the heart of St. Louis. It was a transportation bottleneck, with outmoded interchanges and crumbling bridges. Built largely between the 1930s and 1960s as U.S. Highway 40, it was rechristened I-64 by federal fiat in 1988 despite its failure to comply with Interstate standards. But when the Missouri Dept. of Transportation proposed in 2000 to rebuild it, worriers came out of the woodwork. And when MoDOT announced in 2006 that it would completely demolish and rebuild 10 miles of the central artery, public opinion went ballistic. Photo: Gateway Constructors Inc. More than

Design deficiencies draw the most fire in the government engineer’s report on the December 2007 fatal collapse of a parking garage under construction in Jacksonville, Fla. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration released a redacted version of the May 2008 report in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Florida Times-Union newspaper. Photo: Jacksonville Fire & Rescue Dept. Worker’s body was recovered after two days, but collapse’s cause remains unclear. One construction worker was killed and 23 others were injured on Dec. 6, 2007, when the six-level, 39,000-sq-ft, post-tensioned parking garage for the Berkman Plaza II

Years ago, dam-builders came to develop the vast hydroelectric potential of the remote James Bay region of northern Québec. They called the region barren because it had no agriculture and was sparsely settled by indigenous people who lived off the land. When those people, the Crees, found the dam-builders changing their land without permission, they fought back. They won some court battles but were overwhelmed by the political and economic forces that were driving the big project. Still, the Crees succeeded in getting the governments and companies behind it to agree to meet some of their needs for social and

An Aug. 13 agreement between state and Federal authorities resolves long-standing issues and promises to remove bureaucratic obstacles to the restoration of the Everglades in South Florida under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). The "master agreement" establishes uniform terms and conditions for the project partnership agreements under which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District will cooperate and share costs for the CERP projects. “The master agreement allows us to move forward on construction on any CERP project,” says Kenneth Ammon, the South Florida Water Management District’s deputy executive director for Everglades restoration.