Engineers and sustainability experts are testing some high-tech approaches to bring improved water and air quality to millions of people in remote parts of Africa and, eventually, elsewhere in the developing world.

Taking advantage of newly granted borrowing authority, the Western Area Power Administration has dusted off plans for a U.S.-Canada intertie and is close to an agreement with a private developer to take a stake in a $213-million project to wheel up to 300 MW between Montana and Alberta. Power is to be generated from wind farms, some still to be constructed, in and around Cut Bank, Mont. Great Falls, Mont. Related Links: Stimulus: A Snapshot of Top Shovel-, Wrench- and Pencil-Ready Projects WAPA moved quickly to find money and a developer by authority granted under Section 402 of the American

Contractors are not pinning their hopes on the Obama administration’s stimulus efforts to completely pull them from an economic riptide that threatens not only profitability, but solvency. But they do see the $787-billion stimulus package’s $130 billion of construction spending as a life preserver that will allow them to at least tread water over the next year or two. Photo: John J. Kosowatz / ENR Shear outlined NAVFAC efforts. “It is absolutely necessary for our industry...but this is not an infrastructure panacea,” said Stephen Sandherr, chief executive of the Associated General Contractors of America, to hundreds of attendees at AGC’s