Articles by Tom Sawyer

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, which would get $400 million for watershed infrastructure, partners with local sponsors on 14,000 watershed structures throughout the nation, including many aging dams. It has a potential backlog of more than $1 billion worth of flood prevention work to do, says Douglas McKalip, legislative director. But it is up to the local partners to initiate flood prevention projects. The federal share of new construction is 100%, but if fish habitat restoration or recreation improvements or dam rehabilitation are involved the locals have to pick up a 35% share. Many such potential

According to the House Democrat’s Stimulus Bill report, the Coast Guard alters, repairs, or removes bridges that it deems a hazard to marine navigation, and it says there are 12 eligible bridges that fit that category right now. The bill provides $150 million to “fund authorized bridges that have 90 percent of their design completed and could begin construction during fiscal year 2009.” Although a “subject matter expert” conversant with the Coast Guard’s bridge replacement initiative was not available at press time due to the federal holidays, the service supplied a list of twelve bridges it has declared unreasonably obstructive

If the House stimulus bill passes, water resource and navigation would get $5.4 billion distributed by four federal agencies: the Army Corps of Engineers, the International Boundary and Water Commission, the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the Dept. of Agriculture and the Coast Guard. Photo: USIBWC Lower Rio Grande River levee upgrade program would get major infusion Related Links: Proposal in House Fires Up Debate Does Massive Spending Help or Hurt in Long Run? Modest Program Favors Jump-Start Fix-up Effort Highway Aid Has Some Strings Attached Advocates Hope To Fly, Sail or Roll To Reform Funds Will Energize Long-Delayed Projects

Steven Chu, Nobel laureate and head of the Lawrence Berkeley national laboratory, appears headed for fast Senate approval as energy secretary. At a Jan. 13 hearing, Senate energy committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said he backs Chu. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) expects Chu to be approved. Chu said he’s committed to defense-site cleanup and that it “makes good sense” to have cleanup aid in a stimulus bill.

Donald T. Resio, senior technologist in the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Miss., had an “ah-ha!” moment when he was trying to figure out how to plug a roaring levee breach: Use a big fabric tube floating in the flood, partially filled with water.

Sub and specialty contractors are at the workplace every day, so many practical benefits that proponents of BIM claim will arise from its use should translate directly into cost and time savings for them, and they do, but not always, and not to the same degree as advertised. One concrete subcontractor who has spent four years and “invested millions” in developing his own system for producing construction BIM for process planning, and then purchased display technology for taking BIM to the jobsite to prep his crews, has decided the exercise hasn’t been worth it. Related Links: Building Team Views Technological

A proposal to build a 42-mile long, 400-ft-wide water conveyance canal soundly rejected by California voters in 1982 is rising from the mists of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta again. It is driven this time, in large part, by a heightened appreciation for risk and the physical fragility of the state�s water supply. Consider it a legacy of Hurricane Katrina. California Dept., of Water Resources Delta�s maze of tributaries and sloughs is major source of water Tom Sawyer / ENR When levees breach in the delta, islands disappear. A bypass canal would ensure a stable water supply. �Not long ago, risk

I-Room. Construction information workspace links programs in synchronized display. (Photo by Tom Sawyer for ENR) Making fast decisions is easy. Any fool can do that. Making good decisions fast is what’s hard. Now, more and more firms are turning to visualization tools to help make that possible. A look at how some are doing it suggests that a revolution in construction communications is under way. People up and down the chain of construction are churning out graphics created with blends of digital photographs and three-dimensional design data. They are manipulating images as models or animated construction sequences, or snapping off