The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has offered an emergency permit to the state of Louisiana to build 45 miles of coastal barrier berms, out of 128 miles of berms the state originally sought permission to build in its effort to block the migration of oil to wetlands from the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Col. Al Lee, New Orleans District Commander, offered the permit on May 27, but noted the state still is responsible for obtaining other required permits and for coordinating the work with other federal agencies whose approval also may be
While natural disasters may be inevitable, disastrous consequences are not, if policy-makers, designers and builders plan successfully. This theme was explored on May 12 at a one-day workshop in Washington, D.C., convened by the National Building Museum, which is laying the groundwork for a major exhibition in fall 2011 to examine how communities can improve planning to resist the consequences of natural disasters. Event planners looked for guidance from the museum’s Industry Council for the Built Environment, comprising about 60 owners and association representatives. BLUMENAUR “Disasters don’t have to be unmitigated disasters,” said U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenaur (D- Ore.), vice
Engineering News-Record’s Senior Editor Tom Sawyer, and Jenna McKnight, deputy news director for McGraw-Hill Construction, spent a week in Haiti in mid-April staying with a local family and traveling throughout the Port-au-Prince area to meet with Haitian refugees and others already engaged in the start of reconstruction, as well as with representatives of foreign aid organizations and U.S. officials. One long-sought document that came to hand during the visit is the Haitian government’s Action Plan for National Recovery and Development, described below. Navy Capt. Jim Wink said, “Right now they have the attention of the world.” Wink, chief engineer for
Traditional evaluation of structural soundness relies on measurements, calculations, observations and assumptions, but now engineers have a new tool that brings a far greater level of precision to the processes. Photo: STRAAM A utility had to cut cladding on a cooling tower and worried how far it safely could go. Analysis showed it danced in the wind but was safe. Formed in 2008, Easton, Md.-based STRAAM LLC—which stands for “structural risk assessment and management”—offers a service that records movement in any kind of structure, from buildings and bridges to cooling towers and wind turbines. Its instruments report the least tilt,
An industry consortium founded 10 years ago in Texas had a straightforward goal: to connect capital facilities owners and builders with the most promising emerging technologies for the improved delivery of their work.FIATECH begins its second decade with a sense that its mission is succeeding. Photo: Tom Sawyer A lot has been happening—fast, say FIATECH leaders, as innovation flows. Related Links: Construction Tech Group Milestone: FIATECH ReachesTenth Year Fully Integrated and Automated? Measuring Tens Years of Progress Technology's Home Team: FIATECH Pushes The Good Stuff The name, coined in 2000, stands for Fully Integrated and Automated Technology for Construction. The
One growing pain many construction companies endure comes from a need to shift business and project management processes to a system that integrates data across all processes. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems do just that, and there is an upsurge of interest in them. But vendors and companies aren’t consistent when they use the term, and excessive claims are made. Slide Show Photo: Dave Jarosz PROJECT: Robert Diemer Water Treatment Plant PLACE: Yorba Linda, Calif. BENEFITS: ERP pays off for Shimmick on a $190-million project, tracking 600,000 hours of time and labor. As an idea, ERP, when used to unify
The United Nations now estimates that 3 million Haitians—a third of the population—were “badly affected” by the magnitude-7 earthquake that ravaged the island nation on Jan. 12. Providing shelter, sanitation and preventing cholera in Port-au-Prince are critical challenges, but so are food shortages in rural areas. An estimated 500,000 former residents of the badly damaged capital have migrated to the countryside. Photo: Odebrecht Construction At Work Odebrecht retrained 30 local airport service employees in basic construction skills and hired them to work on refurbishing airport-terminal passenger and cargo facilities in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, for American Airlines, which assisted with procurement and
The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but the battle in the court of public opinion was joined in full force on Feb. 18, 10 days after a U.S. District Court unsealed a three-year-old whistleblower claim against a major manufacturer of PVC pipe for utilities. Related Links: PVC Pipe Firm�s False-Claims Suit Unsealed by District Court The claim alleges the company sold to municipal water districts substandard pipe that did not meet industry certifications stamped upon it, from 1997 to 2005, and that the pipe may be prone to breakage and premature failure. Attorneys for JM Eagle, Los Angeles, the
A three-year-old “whistle-blower” suit unsealed in a federal district court on Feb. 8 claims that a leading manufacturer of polyvinyl chloride pipe widely used for utility collection and transmission lines falsely claimed its products met the performance specifications of industry regulators. It asserts that up to 50% of the pipe produced between 1997 and late 2005 is susceptible to breakage and premature failure at pressure loads below the labeled rating. Photo: Nevada State Public Works Board Nevada water-main job suffered 10 breaks in one year. State officials had sections tested and reported deficiencies in tensile strength. The manufacturer blamed installation
Two companies with industrial- strength software for handling data for infrastructure operations and management have been bought by a vendor known for design and engineering software. The firm has its eye on delivering cradle-to-grave facilities-information management solutions. Bentley Systems Inc., Exton, Pa., announced on Feb. 9 the acquisition of San Diego-based Enterprise Informatics Inc. and U.K.-based Exor Corp. Bentley says it plans to develop an asset data management platform to help operations and maintenance staff members “take full advantage of information modeling.” Enterprise Informatics’ eB Insight software is used in the energy, nuclear, rail and government sectors to provide enterprise-level
