Public Works articles from January 2000

Public Works archives from January 2000

Finding out what makes highways noisy.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Noise can be annoying whether it is coming from your neighbor's kids or from the nearby highway While science may not be able to do anything about the youngsters next door, it is working on reducing tire induced highway noise. Engineers at...

Cities successful at reducing their waste stream.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... A new report brings good news for communities aiming to reduce their dependence on disposal. Reuse and recycling (including composting) can cut their waste steam in half. Cutting the Waste Stream in Half: Community Record-Setters Show How,...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
January 1, 2000... In response to the information presented in "The flip side of road construction," an editorial in the November issue: Unlike the description of the information providers, Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), as a group that...

Congress passed a bill creating an independent office in the Transportation Department that is dedicated to improving truck and bus safety.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... President Bill Clinton was expected to sign the Motor Carrier Safety Act into law. The legislation more than doubles funding or federal and state truck and bus safety, oversight, and enforcement over three years from the current $354 million to...

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal challenging state and local governments' actions to discourage business with foreign nations.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Four states and 33 municipalities have imposed sanctions targeting alleged human rights abuses in foreign nations such as Northern Ireland, Cuba, and Nigeria. The case, Natsios vs. National Foreign Trade Council, challenges a 1996...

The EPA claims the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAAA) have prompted public health and environmental benefits.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The EPA claims the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAAA) have prompted public health and environmental benefits that exceed their costs by a margin of four to one. An EPA report projects that the CAAA and their associated programs prevent...

EPA says a rule to control stormwater runoff from small construction sites and small municipal storm sewer systems will have minimal economic effects.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The rule supplements an existing regulation controlling runoff from cities larger than 100,000 persons and industrial or construction sites larger than five acres. Officials of Texas counties objected to the latest rule during a Senate...

EXPLORING A NEW PROCESS: Expanded Asphalt Stabilization.
January 1, 2000... A new in-place road rehabilitation process, called expanded (or foamed) asphalt stabilization is catching hold around the world. Briefly, the process calls for full-depth pulverization of old asphalt pavements, or even gravel roads, and...

STORMWATER PLAN Shelters a Threatened Beach.
January 1, 2000... Situated on Geneva Lake and within easy driving distance of the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, the city of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin relies on tourism for much of its economic vitality. As concern grew about discharges from a storm sewer outfall at...

INNOVATIVE DETENTION SYSTEM TO HELP TAME.
January 1, 2000... Boneyard Creek Flooding Despite its ghoulish name, Boneyard Creek had a peaceful history for nearly two centuries until commercial and residential developments evolved nearby, turning it into a public nuisance. Named for the many skeletal...

CORROSION FORCES INTERCEPTOR Rehabilitation.
January 1, 2000... The city of Elyria, Ohio did not have much experience with trenchless sewer rehabilition methods when problems were discovered in its West Side Interceptor. However, city officials were aware that many communities are choosing trenchless...

PROPER PLANNING IS KEY TO EFFECTIVE PIPE BURSTING.
January 1, 2000... There is a growing trend toward using trenchless methods for sewer restoration. The costs of open cutting and the associated disruption it brings have convinced many municipalities to look at specifying pipe bursting with pneumatic tools for...

REAL-TIME GIS ASSISTS IN Managing Hurricane Floyd Evacuation.
January 1, 2000... Government officials are calling it the largest peacetime evacuation in U.S. history. With Hurricane Floyd bearing down on the southeastern coastline, officials prepared for the worst. In South Carolina alone, over 700,000 people along the...

INDIANAPOLIS PUSHES FORWARD WITH GIS-Based Permitting Application.
January 1, 2000... The joint city of Indianapolis/Marion County government is committed to making the public sector work effectively for the private sector. To that end, it has embarked on an ambitious effort to re-engineer and fully automate the processes by...

"...FRONT STOOPS SEPARTED FROM BUILDINGS and facades starded to buckle.".
January 1, 2000... When an eight-in. water main burst beneath Brooklyn's historic St. Felix Street during winter 1997, a century's worth of problems came rushing to the surface. Street conditions became hazardous and adjustment residences were put in danger as...

CARBON FIBER LINING REHABILITATES A Ruptured Water Main.
January 1, 2000... The situation repressented every public works director's worst nightmare: the catastrophic failure of a major water line. On Sunday, November 17, 1996 at 11:45 a.m., a five-mile-long, 102-in. concrete cylinder aqueduct ruptured, affecting...

NEW TRANSFER TECHNOLOGY ANSWERS A NEED for SPEED.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... To construct a state-of-the-art, 1,000-tpd waste transfer station, fairly large for a truck transfer operation, and completely retrofit another 300-tpd facility, Waste Management of Missouri, Inc. (St. Louis, Missouri) met the challenge of...

WITH TRAINING, CITY IS EQUIPPED for the FUTURE.
January 1, 2000... Those ubiquitous baby boomers at the city of Escondido public works are coming of age, retirement age, that is, and the high number of eligible potential retirees could significantly impact the organization. Fortunately, the former public works...

PW UPDATE: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.
January 1, 2000... Can it be the beginning of the year 2000 already? Hardly seems possible. And, oh yes, what an anti-climax. At least, that is what I predict, writing as I am in early December 1999. The good news is that those of us who are reading this...

New public-private part to save city millions.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The town of Plymouth Massachusetts has chosen USFilter Operating Services (Houston, Texas) to design, build, operate, and maintain a new three-mgd wastewater treatment plant for the community. The partnership is expected to save Plymouth...

Historic brick paving project honored.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The Michigan Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers has presented the village of Calumet, Michigan with a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark Award for its 1905 Fifth Street Brick Paving Project. In 1998 a project designed by U.P....

Contract awarded to protect new digester.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Mesa, Arizona-based Joseph Painting Company, Inc. (JPCI Services) has been awarded a $1-million-plus contract to apply Sewer Shield Coating to the new digester and trench areas of the 91st Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant in Tolleson, Arizona....

Municipal swimming pool rehabilitated.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Weston & Sampson Services (Peabody, Massachusetts) was among the proud team members who recently celebrated the dedication of the newly rehabilitated municipal swimming pool at the Forest River Park in Salem, Massachusetts. Weston &...

Consultant selected as program manager for major bridge project.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The Ohio Department of Transportation has chosen HNTB Corporation (Kansas City, Missouri) to oversee the design and construction of a new high-level bridge over the Maumee River. The consultant will serve as program manager for the $200-million...

Consultant to help manage road and bridge construction program.
January 1, 2000... The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) has chosen Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB), in association with the LPA Group, to help develop and implement a $721-million road and bridge construction program. PB will perform the work from...

Route 80 to undergo rehabilitation.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The New Jersey Department of Transportation has selected TAMS Consultants, Inc. (Bloomfield, New Jersey) to design a major rehabilitation and operational improvement project for I-80 in Bergen County, New Jersey. The project encompasses...

Consultant to design three bridges.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Horner & Shifrin, Inc. (St. Louis, Missouri) will provide engineering services for design of three bridges on Old US 36 and IL 106 in Scott and Morgan counties in Illinois for the Illinois Department of Transportation. Old US 36 spans over Fork...

People Making Public Works History: A Century of Progress 1894-1994.(Review)
January 1, 2000... Robert D. Bugher, ed., 665 pages. $50.00 ($35.00 for members of APWA), plus $7.00 postage and handling. ISBN: 0-91708475-6. American Public Works Association, Kansas City, Missouri. 816-472-6100. Robert Bugher is Executive Director Emeritus...

Basic Environmental Technology: Water Supply, Waste Management, and Pollution Control, Third Edition.(Review)
January 1, 2000... Jerry A. Nathanson. 522 pages. $73.33. ISBN: 013082626X. Prentice Hall, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458. 1-800-643-5506. This updated third edition of what is basically a college textbook contains an abundance of...

BULL'S EYE TARGETING.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Sewer line excavation in a tight space. Installing a water meter between buildings. Concrete repair in an urban intersection. You name e it the municipal job at hand often requires precision and maneuverability s much as horsepower. This is...

LEGAL ASPECTS OF PUBLIC WORKS.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Immunity from liability vs. immunity from suit. In the case of Texas Department of Transportation vs. Stephen Jones, on petition for review to the Supreme Court of Texas from the Court of Appeals for the Thirteenth District of Jones sued the...