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Most of Chernobyl’s workforce and staff live in apartments and bungalows at Slavutich, a 40-minute train ride eastward across the exclusion zone, through a piece of Belarus and over the Dnieper River back into Ukraine. Photo: Eric Schmieman Soviet-era artwork in Slavutich, Ukraine, near a memorial to workers who died at Chernobyl. Photo: Peter Reina Visitors are advised not to walk on vegetation in Pripyat. Related Links: Radiation Threat Still Permeates Chernobyl's Entombment The town of nearly 30,000 people was built in the wake of the accident to house families evacuated from the blighted terrain near the plant. Designed on
Member organizations of the U.S. Green Building Council on Nov. 14 approved its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) 2009, the update to the internationally recognized greenbuilding rating system. The update, to be rolled out in stages next year, includes reweighing of credits and more emphasis on climate change and energy efficiency. LEED 2009 also incorporates regional credits, extra points that have been identified as priorities within a project’s given environmental zone. During the public comment period that ended on Sept. 2, the nonprofit USGBC received nearly 7,000 comments from among its 18,000 members.
As workers struggle to remove remnants of Hanford’s old industrial mission, construction of a $12.3-billion state-of-the-art waste-treatment plant symbolizes its future. If construction officials master cost, schedule and technology challenges, the vitrification plant will restore production to the site and offer the region an economic boost. Bechtel Group Inc. Complex will turn waste into glass when operating by 2019. Bechtel Group Inc. Complex will turn waste into glass when operating by 2019. Related Links: Huge Cleanup at Bomb-Making Megasite Is The New Atomic Fallout The multibuilding, 65-acre vitrification complex will receive nuclear and chemical waste from aging underground tanks, remove
A change in presidential administrations brings new opportunity to garner support for infrastructure investment, including waterways and flood-control improvements, says Steven Stockton, civilian director of civil works for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. Infrastructure investment is the economic stimulus the nation needs, he says. Engineers and public-works officials must convey that message to the new administration, Stockton advised the National Waterways Conference’s annual meeting in New Orleans on Nov. 6. Stockton cited statements made by President-elect Barack Obama during the campaign as demonstrating Obama’s recognition and support for infrastructure improvement. “I think, from the Corps of Engineers’ perspective, Obama
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