The Associated Press – Environmentalists and others question why the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans a formal study of a Colorado entrepreneur’s plan to build a 400-mile water pipeline from Wyoming to Colorado’s bustling Front Range without knowing who would use the water or where it will go. [read more…]

ABC News – Today President Obama, Vice President Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will appear at the Department of Transportation today to celebrate the 2,000th transportation project funded by the stimulus package: a $68 million project in hard-hit Michigan to widen an interchange from four lanes to six.

The project will create an estimated 900 jobs over three years, though most of the construction work will take place next year through 2011.

The $787 billion stimulus bill contains $48.1 billion for transportation infrastructure projects. [read more…]

NJBIZ (New Jersey) – New Jersey transportation leaders say construction of an $8.7 billion rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan will begin this spring, whether or not the project has secured full federal funding.

“We have the funding to start,” said Stephen Dilts, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation. “We are ready to use those funds [and] get shovels in the ground this spring.”

The state has already secured a part of the $3 billion in funding it expects from the federal government for the Hudson River rail tunnel. The government has set aside a combined $178 million in stimulus and general appropriations for the project, said Richard R. Sarles, executive director of NJ Transit. The rest of the money is expected to come from the Federal Transit Administration. [read more…]

CNN – The American Society of Civil Engineers recently said over 1,800 dams nationwide are deficient, and their failure could result in loss of life. That’s almost a five-fold increase from 2001. [read more…]

The Los Angeles Times – The drillers have gnawed through a mile of rock in Decatur, Ill., almost down to a 600-million-year-old layer of sandstone where they hope to bury about 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide — equal to the annual emissions of 220,000 automobiles.

The $84-million project, of which $66.7 million comes from the Energy Department, will help determine whether storing greenhouse gases underground, so-called sequestration, is a viable solution for global warming. [read more…]

The New York Times – Once the world’s tallest building, the Empire State Building is striving for another milestone: It is going green.

Owners of the New York City landmark announced on Monday that they will be beginning a renovation this summer expected to reduce the skyscraper’s energy use by 38 percent a year by 2013, at an annual savings of $4.4 million. The retrofit project will add $20 million to the $500 million building makeover already under way that aims to attract larger corporate occupants at higher rents. [read more…]

Associated Construction Publications/Constructioneer – W.J. Castle, P.E. & Associates and Hydro-Marine Construction Company converted an abandoned steel railroad bridge in New Jersey into a roadway bridge to carry earthmoving equipment. [read more…]

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, Ore.) – Amid this clamor to build green, Portland’s often forgotten historic structures are being threatened. [read more…]

New York Construction News – Governor Corzine’s office finally revealed the details of the transportation allocations of New Jersey’s stimulus package, and it involves a flush of $894 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds for critical highway and transit projects statewide.

As we previously reported, the state will distribute a total $425 million for transit and about $652 million for highway and bridge work. [read more…]