Sewage Treatment

Like the slow moving, costly ‘Big Dig’ project in Boston throughout the better part of the 1990s, construction of King County’s Brightwater sewage-treatment plant in Washington State is digging itself deeper in delays as the project is another six months behind schedule – after already setting-back the completion by one year – and could cost another $70 million more than last year’s cost estimates.

What a waste of space! – The city of Cleveland wants to use dredgings, mounds of dried river muck, to create an industrial-park site in Cuyahoga River Valley. In a state reeling from high unemployment (at a rate already over 10 percent), the site could handle 500,000 square feet of manufacturing and create up to 300 jobs.

According to a study by Environment America, the country can cut CO2 emissions 34percent with improvements to building efficiency. Nearly half of America’s energy, according to the group, goes towards powering buildings – and much of that energy is wasted.

Car-free Broadway – Homesick European tourists traveling through New York City need no longer only turn towards some sort of fusion cuisine or H and M clothing store to feel at home, the Big Apple just closed parts of Broadway around Times Square and Herald Square over Memorial Day weekend as the City begins its efforts to convert sections of thoroughfare into pedestrian malls.

* * *

[click here] for more Blueprint America infrastructure headlines

__________________________________________________________________________________________________