John Hennessy III,
P.E.
Transportation for America’s Director James Corless: “Our country’s association of civil engineers continues to do the yeoman’s work of sounding the alarm on our country’s infrastructure — the roads, rails and waterways that we depend on to move our goods from place to place and get us where we need to go each day. But […]
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AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
Once every four years, America’s civil engineers provide a comprehensive assessment of the nation’s major infrastructure categories in ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure (Report Card). Using a simple A to F school report card format, the Report Card provides a comprehensive assessment of current infrastructure conditions and needs, both assigning grades and making recommendations for how to raise the grades. An Advisory Council of ASCE members assigns the grades according to the following eight criteria: capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation and maintenance, public safety, resilience, and innovation. Since 1998, the grades have been near failing, averaging only Ds, due to delayed maintenance and underinvestment across most categories.
ENVIRONMENT MINNESOTA
Industrial facilities continue to dump millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s rivers, streams, lakes and ocean waters each year—threatening both the environment and human health. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pollution from industrial facilities is responsible for threatening or fouling water quality in more than 14,000 miles of rivers and streams, more than 220,000 acres of lakes, ponds and estuaries nationwide.
Scott Huler was born in 1959 in Cleveland and raised in that city’s eastern suburbs. He graduated from Washington University in 1981; he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa because of the breadth of his studies, and that breadth has been a signature of his writing work. He has written on everything from […]
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Costly repair bills for state sewers To see the highest EPA-estimated repair costs in your area use the form to search. View full map (LoHud.com): NYS Sewers in Disrepair
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BUREAU OF TRANSPORTATION STATISTICS (BTS)
RESEARCH AND INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY ADMINISTRATION (RITA), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
The Transportation Statistics Annual Report (TSAR) presents data and information compiled by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), a component of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT’s) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), to fulfill its legislative mandate. The RITA/BTS mandate covers all modes of transportation and calls for the collection and analysis of transportation data on topics relevant to USDOT’s strategic goals.
The Annual Highlights section focuses on recent USDOT efforts to collect, compile, analyze, and publish transportation data and analysis. Such efforts include the following:
* the Survey of State Funding for Public Transportation,
* Livable Communities and Environmental Sustainability highlights from the Omnibus Household Survey, and
* Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) data and analysis on Hazardous Materials (Hazmat) shipments.
“My Water’s On Fire Tonight” is a product of Studio 20 NYU (http://bit.ly/hzGRYP) in collaboration with ProPublica.org (http://bit.ly/5tJN). The song is based on ProPublica’s investigation on hydraulic fractured gas drilling (read the full investigation here: http://bit.ly/15sib6).
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U.S. PIRG
Nuclear power is among the most costly approaches to solving America’s energy problems. Per dollar of investment, clean energy solutions – such as energy efficiency and renewable resources – deliver far more energy than nuclear power. This fact has important implications for America’s energy policy. By directing resources toward the most cost-effective solutions, we can make greater progress toward a secure, reliable and safe supply of electricity to power America’s economy.
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
A survey of state health departments related to radiation readiness was undertaken in 2010 by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE). States with nuclear power plants were instructed to consider their responses exclusive of capabilities and resources related to the plants given that the emergency response plans for nuclear power plants are specific and unique….Overall results of this assessment indicate that in most measures of public health capacity and capability, states are poorly prepared to adequately respond to a major radiation emergency event. Specific recommendations are noted in the discussion.
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL, NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION, PIPELINE SAFETY TRUST, SIERRA CLUB
Tar sands crude oil pipeline companies may be putting America’s public safety at risk. Increasingly, pipelines transporting tar sands crude oil into the United States are carrying diluted bitumen or “DilBit”—a highly corrosive, acidic, and potentially unstable blend of thick raw bitumen and volatile natural gas liquid condensate—raising risks of spills and damage to communities along their paths.Currently, tar sands crude oil pipeline companies are using conventional pipeline technology to transport this DilBit. These pipelines, which require higher operating temperatures and pressures to move the thick material through a pipe, appear to pose new and significant risks of pipeline leaks or ruptures due to corrosion, as well as problems with leak detection and safety problems from the unstable mixture.
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