While environmental groups are cheering a May 4 Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate fly ash, utilities are concerned that potential designation of the material as a hazardous waste could prove costly. Photo: AP/Wideworld Liners would be required in coal-ash ponds to avert accidents like the disaster in 2008. The draft proposal would regulate for the first time coal ash under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Under the proposal, coal plants would be required to retrofit existing impoundments, which typically store the ash in liquid form, with composite liners. Enforcing the Regulation The more than 500-page proposal outlines
Crews at the U.S. Energy Dept.’s Hanford nuclear-waste site in Washington state have placed the first of six massive, 50-ton shield doors at the site’s high-level waste treatment facility with a fit no wider than a human hair, say officials of San Francisco-based Bechtel National Inc., design-contractor for the $12.2-billion project on the 560-sq-mile site. Photo: Bechtel National Inc. Crews supervise installation of the first of six 50-ton radiation shield doors at Hanford site. Photo: Bechtel National Inc. The shield door is in a key area of the 65-acre plant complex, which, when completed, will vitrify high-level nuclear waste now
There was no middle ground about Floyd Dominy, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s longest-serving commissioner. He died April 20 in Boyce, Va., four months into his second century of life. Photo: courtesy of State of Utah Dominy oversaw completion of Glen Canyon Dam in the 1960s. DOMINY Dominy was either the conquering hero of the west, pushing completion of huge dam projects on the Colorado River and elsewhere that brought water and power to growth-obsessed western states and work and wealth to their construction industry builders. Or he was the reviled enemy of environmentalists, a power-grabber whose projects were simply
HANSON Walter E. Hanson, a foundations expert and founder of the firm that became Hanson Professional Services Inc., a Springfield, Ill., engineer that ranks 174th on ENR’s list of The Top 500 Design Firms, died on April 4 in that city. He was 93. Hanson, who was the firm’s president for more than 30 years since its founding in 1954, specialized in foundation engineering and soil mechanics. A former engineering faculty member of the University of Illnois, Urbana-Champaign, he co-authored with noted experts Ralph Peck and Tom Thornburn “Foundation Engineering,” a textbook in those fields still widely used by students
Christine McEntee, executive vice president and CEO since 2006 of the American Institute of Architects, will leave her post July 23, the professional and lobbying group for 83,000 international architects, said April 19. No successor was named for McEntee, who is set to become executive director of the American Geophysical Union, a non-profit organization of 50,000 international geophysicists. MCENTEE AIA said that McEntee and the group’s “staff of seasoned professionals” will continue to run the group during the transition, and that a national search for a successor is under way. McEntee, the 153-year-old group’s first woman CEO, formerly served in
Demolition of one 102,000-sq-ft facility amid many others on the 586-sq-mile Hanford nuclear waste site may seem minuscule, but not when the facility contains some of the world’s highest radiation levels. Photo: Washington Closure Hanford Work to demolish large and highly radioactive research cells is soon to start. Washington Closure Hanford, a joint-venture cleanup contractor at the U.S. Energy Dept.’s former weapons-making site in eastern Washington, and a subcontracting team will soon remove five massive steel-reinforced concrete “hot cells.” While no longer in use, they previously allowed site employees to work with nuclear materials without radiation exposure. Removal of the
WILTON James L. Wilton, former chairman and president of San Francisco engineering firm Jacobs Associates and an expert in excavation design of deep cut-and-cover structures, died on March 16 in Woodside, Calif., of lung cancer. He was 83. Wilton, who joined the firm in 1957, was named president in 1974 and chairman in 1985. He served in those posts until his 1992 retirement. Wilton worked on numerous large global projects, including rapid transit systems in San Francisco, New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C., Venezuela’s Yacambu irrigation tunnel, the Arenal power tunnel in Costa Rica and the Victoria Arts Center
Prevailing wage rules required by the federal stimulus program may drive up costs and cause some projects to miss their goals, according to a new study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The study, ordered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and released on March 25, contends that 40 federal programs with construction funding authorized under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are now subject to the wage rules under the federal Davis-Bacon Act. Seven programs are brand-new, and 33 were not previously covered by the law. They account for $102 billion of the $309 billion appropriated for
GRAHAM Bruce J. Graham, a nearly 30-year partner of Chicago architecture giant Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and a driver of high-rise designs that now define the Windy City’s skyline, died on March 6 in Hobe Sound, Fla., at age 84. The cause was complication of Alzheimer’s disease, say published reports. Graham, degreed in both architecture and civil engineering, led design of Chicago’s first two buildings to reach or exceed 100 stories: the John Hancock Center in 1970 and the Sears Tower in 1974. Graham, who joined SOM in 1951 and was partner from 1960 until he left in 1989, pushed
To five-year-olds and many parents, learning math and science or studying engineering isn’t a very kid-friendly option. But a colorful new storybook for children by a couple of Texas engineers wants to change that. The authors say the book, which they have self-published and promoted, is the first written by licensed engineers to relate the engineering field to the world as kids see it. Photo: Alane Rivera Engineers Raymundo and Alane Rivera + Image Photo: Phillip Sada Engineers Raymundo and Alane Rivera are now preparing to go nationwide with their self-published book about engineering careers aimed at young children. “Rocks,
