The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) has reached a settlement with the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency to carry out $1.5 billion in infrastructure improvements and resolve allegations of Clean Water Act violations.
New construction projects’ volume dipped 11% in August from the previous year’s level but results for 2015’s first eight months rose 15% year over year, Dodge Data & Analytics has reported.
Construction workplace deaths climbed last year to their highest level since 2008 but the industry’s fatality rate edged downward, the Labor Dept. has reported.
Puerto Rico’s major water and sewer agency will carry out $1.5 billion in infrastructure improvements under a new settlement with the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency.
With only a few scheduled working days left this month, Congress must hustle to act on legislation to fund the government past Sept. 30, when the 2015 fiscal year ends.
The Dept. of Veterans Affairs construction program has been hit with more criticism, this time from the Army Corps of Engineers, which says “a transformative change” is needed in how VA manages building major new hospitals.
Related Links: FHWA-AASHTO task force report Court Judgment, Tests Fail To Quell Guardrail Controversy (enr.com 6/15/2015) [subscription] A new study of accidents involving highway guardrails has found shortcomings in several different manufacturers’ W-beam end caps in certain types of crashes. The report, from a Federal Highway Administration and American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials task force, also calls for fully implementing AASHTO’s 2009 Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) guidelines for crash-testing new installations of guardrail terminals. But the report doesn’t recommend new crash tests for existing guardrail equipment under an older set of criteria, contained in National Cooperative
Construction’s August unemployment rate dropped to 6.1% from the year-earlier 7.7% but rose slightly from July’s level, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported.
A Parsons Corp. unit has agreed to pay the federal government $3.8 million to settle charges that it knowingly mischarged the Dept. of Energy for employees’ relocation costs for work on a project at DOE’s Savannah River site in South Carolina, the Dept. of Justice says.
