Oil/Gas Pipelines Rehabilitation
Sanitary Sewer Line Spills After Bayou Embankment Collapses
HOUSTON (AP) — Houston water and sewer officials are urging residents with private water wells in part of the city’s western outskirts to boil their drinking and bathing water for at least one minute. That’s after a 42-inch sanitary sewer pipe spilled more than 300,000 gallons of domestic wastewate..
Repairs Completed on Broken Water Main in New York
NEW YORK (AP) — Public works crews have repaired a broken water main that caused a geyser to erupt from the ground in front of a New York City home. The owner of the home in Staten Island’s Todt Hill section told the Staten Island Advance that a powerful stream of water began pounding the front of ..
Washington Neighborhood Evacuated after Mudslide Hits Gas Pipeline
EDMONDS, Wash. (AP) — A neighborhood in a Seattle suburb was evacuated after a mudslide breached a natural gas line. KOMO-TV reports that emergency officials responded to the scene at about 5:40 a.m. Thursday in the Snohomish County city of Edmonds after receiving reports of a gas leak. About 30 h..
Judge Approves $1.6 Billion Plan to Repair Baltimore Sewers
BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge has approved a $1.6 billion plan to repair Baltimore’s aged sewer system and stop wastewater from leaking into the Inner Harbor. The consent agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency comes after years of negotiations between the city and regulators wh..
Nevada Regulators Fine Southwest Gas $300000 for 2 Gas Leaks in Las Vegas
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — State regulators have fined Southwest Gas Corp. $300,000 for a pair of natural gas leaks it was responsible for in Las Vegas last year. Nevada Public Utilities Commission Chairman Joe Reynolds told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the fine approved Wednesday for violation ..
Oklahoma Crude Oil Line Ruptured by Construction Crew
CUSHING, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma regulators say environmental crews are cleaning up a crude oil spill near one of the world’s largest oil storage sites. Oklahoma Corporation Commission spokesman Matt Skinner said Wednesday that oil spilled into a dry creek bed in Lincoln County, south of the massive ..
Sewer Overflow Blamed for Killing Fish in Indiana Creek
KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) — Officials say an overflow of sewage was the cause of a fish kill in a central Indiana creek. Residents noticed an undetermined number of dead fish in Kokomo’s Wildcat Creek over the weekend. Indiana Department of Environmental Management spokesman Barry Sneed tells the Kokomo Tr..
Vortex Companies, Deep Trekker Form Strategic Sewer Repair Partnership
The Vortex Companies announced today that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Deep Trekker, a developer and manufacturer of commercial-grade pipe inspection crawlers and other remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). Based in Canada, Deep Trekker and Vortex will aggressively attack the trench..
North Carolina Town Dealing with Repeated Sewer Spills
LELAND, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina town is struggling to deal with repeated sewage spills in the last two years. The StarNews of Wilmington reported the latest spill in Leland occurred Sept. 12 when more than 33,000 gallons (124,915 liters) of untreated wastewater bubbled up through a manhole. T..
Gas Line Explosion Destroys Equipment in California Desert
BARSTOW, Calif. (AP) — Southern California authorities say nobody was hurt when a natural gas line caught fire and exploded, destroying heavy construction equipment in the western Mojave Desert between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The San Bernardino Sun reports (http://bit.ly/2yjriLr ) the blas..
Boise State University Sinkhole Causes Flooding, Traps Fire Truck
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Boise State University officials say a water main break caused massive flooding to stream through a main artery on the campus and trapped a fire engine inside a sinkhole. According to the university, a water main broke Monday evening near the Student Union Building. A fire engin..
Harvey Knocked out Dozens of Texas Water, Sewer Systems
DALLAS (AP) — State and federal environmental agencies report Harvey knocked out five drinking-water systems and seven sewage systems in the 58 Texas counties covered by Gov. Greg Abbott’s disaster declaration. In a joint statement issued Monday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Tex..
Brine Spill Heightens Tribe Concern About Pipeline Material
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A North Dakota American Indian tribe no longer wants fiberglass-based pipelines on its reservation after recent spills. Last month, a pipeline spilled more than 33,000 gallons of brine in a pasture on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The spill occurred on a segment of pip..
Jumpsuit Flushed Down Jail Toilet Causes Raw Sewage Flood
TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey justice complex has sustained significant damage after an inmate flushed a jumpsuit down a toilet, causing the main sewer line to burst and flood the building. The incident occurred Sunday night at the Ocean County Justice Complex in Toms River. The Asbury..
'Fatberg' Found in Baltimore Sewer System After Overflow
BALTIMORE (AP) — A massive “fatberg” made up of congealed fat, wet wipes and other waste has been named as the culprit in a sewer overflow in Baltimore. The overflow discharged about 1.2 million gallons of sewage into the Jones Fall stream last week. The Baltimore Sun reported Monday that the fatb..
London Studying Ways to Reduce New Fatberg Under Chinatown
LONDON (AP) — British engineers are studying ways to dispose of yet another oversize “fatberg” threatening London’s aged sewers. Stuart White of Thames Water says the latest fat blob is located in a busy area beneath Chinatown near London’s famed Leicester Square. He said Monday it’s not causing..
Sewer Spills Add to Misery in Hurricane-Battered Florida
(AP) — As if loss of air conditioning and refrigeration weren’t bad enough, widespread power outages in hurricane-battered Florida are teaming with structural failures to cause another headache: sewage overflows. Local governments have submitted well over 100 “notices of pollution” to the state Dep..
Grand Canyon Water Pipeline Breaks Again
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) – Several locations within Grand Canyon National Park will be without water or on stored water until at least Monday while crews repair another pipeline break. Phantom Ranch will be on stored water with standard water restrictions while Cottonwood Campground a..
Goldfield to Assist with Irma Restoration Efforts in Florida
The Goldfield Corporation has mobilized all of its power line construction personnel and related equipment from its Florida and Texas operations are committed to storm restoration work in Florida as a result of Hurricane Irma. Although the company is providing restoration services to most of the ma..
Massive, Slimy ‘Fatberg’ Clogging a London Sewer Weighs 143 Tons
LONDON (AP) — British engineers say they have launched a “sewer war” against a giant fat blob clogging London’s sewers, which may soon be destined for a museum. Utility company Thames Water is trying to dislodge the smelly blob, which is 820 feet long, by breaking it up with high-powered ho..
Audit Finds $58 Million in Overpayments on Mexico Highway
MEXICO CITY (AP) — An audit has found about $58 million in improper payments and contract irregularities in a highway expansion project that collapsed in central Mexico in July, killing two people. The federal comptroller’s office said contracts were improperly awarded, supervised and carried out. ..
Engineers 20 Years Ago Warned of Houston Flooding Risk
DALLAS (AP) — A report released two decades ago on the Harris County reservoir system predicted with alarming accuracy the catastrophic flooding that would besiege the Houston area if changes weren’t made in the face of rapid development. The report released in 1996 by engineers with the Harris Cou..
Texas Town Struggles to Restore Water Service in Harvey Aftermath
HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas city that lost its drinking water system to Harvey struggled Saturday to restore service, and firefighters kept monitoring a crippled chemical plant that has twice been the scene of explosions and fires since the storm roared ashore and stalled over Texas more than a week ago...
Man Plunges Into Sinkhole on Brooklyn Street
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City firefighters were called to rescue a man whose leg became trapped in a sinkhole that formed in a crosswalk. The incident happened in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn Tuesday morning. Stephen Suarez says he was returning to work after finishing a delivery when..
Ditch Witch, Utilicor Join Forces to Simplify Utility Repairs
Ditch Witch®, a Charles Machine Works Company, has partnered with Utilicor Technologies, Inc. to bring the benefits of advanced keyhole technology and reinstatement to contractors, municipalities and utilities globally. Due to the partnership, utility contractors will now be able to operate a nimbl..
Board Blames Niagara Falls Sewer Spill on Heavy Rain, Aging Infrastructure
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A public agency under scrutiny for a discharge that turned water below Niagara Falls black says heavy rain and outdated infrastructure is to blame for another spill that prompted a violation notice from the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The board said Friday th..
Board Cited for Another Sewage Discharge at Niagara Falls
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A public water board under scrutiny for a discharge that turned the water below Niagara Falls black and smelly violated quality standards for another discharge 17 days later, state officials said Friday. The Department of Environmental Conservation said it cited the Niagara Fall..
Niagara Falls Board Ordered to Halt Black Water Discharges
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — State officials have told a western New York public agency that it must cease the type of wastewater discharges that caused a stretch of the Niagara River below Niagara Falls to turn black and smelly. Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the Department of Environmental Conservation has..
Sewage Enters Trench Used to Repair Detroit-Area Sinkhole
FRASER, Mich. (AP) — Officials say about 1.5 million gallons of sewage flowed into a trench used to repair a sewer line that collapsed and created a sinkhole north of Detroit. The Macomb County Public Works Office says no one was in the trench at the time of the incident overnight Monday. There wer..
NTSB: Worker Urged Evacuation Before Minnesota School Blast
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A maintenance worker at a Minneapolis school that partially collapsed after an explosion earlier this month had smelled natural gas and used a radio to tell others to evacuate less than a minute before the blast, according to preliminary report released Monday by the National Tran..
- OSHA cites Florida contractors for trench safety violations at sewer and excavation sites
- Cadiz to reuse steel from terminated Keystone XL pipeline for California groundwater project
- Lynchburg, Va., breaks ground on largest-ever Blackwater CSO tunnel project
- Biden-Harris administration invests $849 million in aging water infrastructure, drought resilience
- The EPA announces $6.2 billion in funding for Iowa and Kansas water infrastructure