The push for alternative energy projects across North America is turning the electrical workers’ union “green” with desire for new federal funding to expand apprentice and journeyman worker training in installing everything from photovoltaic roofs and giant wind turbines to nuclear power reactors. Photo: IBEW Wind-turbine-installation training is set to grow. Photo: IBEW Apprentice electricians learn photovoltaic skills Such training is not new for the joint apprenticeship and training committee (JATC) of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), which jointly fund union training in the U.S. and Canada, but demand for graduates

It may seem as though the number of immigrants on the Gulf Coast has grown since Hurricane Katrina created a need for workers, but there is no hard evidence to determine the population of immigrants, documented or undocumented, says Temple Black, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Photo: Sam Barnes Some feel that the construction industry is exploiting Hispanic workers by paying insufficient wages. Photo: Sam Barnes Immigration officials say that there is no hard evidence to determine the population of immigrants, documented or undocumented, along the Gulf Coast. “If we knew where the illegals were, we would go

A vital storm surge barrier for New Orleans has entered a critical and busy phase. By mid-summer, more than 100 cranes and supply barges will be positioned to work on the more than $695-million, two-mile long, Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Surge Barrier project being constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans. Slide Show Photo: Angelle Bergeron The first of two 500-ton cranes on the job sets the 144-ft cylinder piles, which sink 65 to 70 ft into the bottom under their own 96-ton weight before driving starts. Related Links: New Surge Barrier Project Launched

In New Orleans, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is spending billions of dollars constructing, elevating and bolstering flood defenses, establishing hardy, fast-growing ground cover to protect levees from erosion and overwash damage is a critical part of the process. “The name of the game is getting grass established quickly,” says Jeff Beasley, turf-grass physiologist with the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge. On May 20, the center partnered with the Corps and Jesco Environmental & Geotechnical Services Inc., Jennings, La., to conduct the first, “possibly annual” course in levee re-vegetation and erosion-control techniques. Photo: Angelle Bergeron

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers� first project funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was awarded by the Ft. Worth District May 1 to Sundt Construction, Inc., Tempe, Ariz., for construction of the $30-million first phase of a $57-million Warriors in Transition complex to be built at Ft. Bliss, Texas. Rendering: Sundt Construction Co. Warriors in transition center will accommodate 232 soldiers. Designed to assist injured soldiers in their recovery and re-integration into the Army or civilian life, WT complexes “are a new breed of facilities within the military hierarchy of structures and facilities,” says Tom Mertz, vice

With 25 months left to bring New Orleans’ Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System to 100-year protection levels by a promised June 1, 2011, deadline, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded 180 contracts worth $2.5 billion of the roughly 350 contracts required for the $14.3-billion program. Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Thousands of feet are under construction, but contracts for 21 miles wait in the wings. The Corps says it is on track, but industry representatives fear the work window is closing fast and if remaining awards aren’t made soon, it will be impossible for contractors

Neither staff nor members of the American Society of Civil Engineers are guilty of ethics violations in the society’s assessment of New Orleans’ flood defense performance during Hurricane Katrina, nor in its peer review of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-funded task force that studied it, ASCE’s standing committee on Professional Conduct has concluded after a 13-month investigation. “No charges of ethical misconduct against any of the individuals named were filed by CPC as a result of the inquiry,” says CPC Chair Rich Hovey. A charge of lax ethics was leveled by Raymond Seed, a University of California-Berkeley civil engineering

An internal ASCE ethics probe absolved the organization and its members of charges of misconduct related to assessment of the New Orleans Hurricane Protection System following Hurricane Katrina. Photo: Michael Goodman/ENR Charges against ASCE involved flood protect and levees in New Orleans. The probe also found no misconduct in ASCE’s peer review of the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, which was a broad look at the causes of the disaster. Carried out by the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Committee on Professional Conduct, the probe was a response to  charges in a complaint by Raymond Seed, a civil engineering professor,

At conferences and on Websites, at research centers and out on windswept coasts around the world, increasing numbers of engineers, scientists, planners and policymakers are gathering to share ideas and lessons learned about a growing threat to one of the linchpins of civilization: the delta regions of the world. Those fragile landforms, built patiently over millennia by the sediment deposited at the mouths of the world’s mightiest rivers, are home to great ports and commercial centers of the global economy. They are, by definition, low and coastal; they also are on the front line to suffer hard consequences from climate

Reducing flood risk on the Mississippi River delta is big business. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working with a $14.3-billion appropriation to bring the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System to 100-year levels of protection by June 1, 2011. Photo: Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure Group Pile driving for $695 million IHNC barrier. Cost expected to climb. Related Links: Engineers Focus On Big Delta Threats Building With Nature by Weaving Defenses California Wants a Sea-Level-Rise Plan, But Money Is an Issue Connecting the Rocks Defining Protection To Know the Risk Climate-Proofing Rotterdam This will be