Pipeline Construction

Key Eastern New Mexico Water Plan Set to be Released

CLOVIS, N.M. (AP) — A key task force in eastern New Mexico is set to unveil its plan to conserve water from a massive groundwater supply that underlies parts of New Mexico, Texas and several other states. The Eastern New Mexico News reports (https://goo.gl/y7LmqU) the Water Policy Advisory Committe..

New Orleans Floods Raise Questions About City Pumping System

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Heavy weekend rainfall in New Orleans overwhelmed the municipal pump stations, leaving parts of the community flooded, and some officials say they’re not satisfied with the city’s response. “Are our city pumps working as they should?” Councilman Jason Williams said, according to ..

Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank finances Drinking Water Projects

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank says it has financed $19.2 million in drinking water projects for the town of Cumberland and the Providence Water Supply Board. The infrastructure bank has financed more than $400 million in drinking water projects across Rhode Island to ..

School Blast Investigators Probing Gas Meter Work

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Workers may have been moving a gas meter when an explosion tore through a Minneapolis school building this week, killing two people and injuring at least nine others, according to federal investigators. A team from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived in Minneapolis T..

Senate Approves FERC Nominees, Restores Voting Quorum

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has approved two Republicans nominated by President Donald Trump to serve on the federal commission that oversees the nation’s power grid and natural gas pipelines. Senators’ unanimous votes Thursday approving Senate aide Neil Chatterjee and Pennsylvania utility regulat..

Black Water Near Niagara Falls Leads to Call for Resignations

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Several lawmakers want the board that runs Niagara Falls’ wastewater treatment plant to resign after a foul-smelling discharge darkened the water near the base of the falls during a busy tourist weekend. Members of the Niagara County Legislature’s Republican majority said Thurs..

West Texas Water Pipeline to Oilfield Gets Approval

VAN HORN, Texas (AP) — A 60-mile (96.56-million kilometer) pipeline intended to carry 5.4 million gallons (20.44 million liters) of water daily from a West Texas desert aquifer to the Permian Basin oilfield has won approval despite objections of ranchers, farmers and environmentalists. The Culberso..

NTSB Investigates Explosion that Killed 2 at Minnesota School

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were sent to a Minneapolis school Thursday to look into an apparent natural gas explosion and partial building collapse that killed two people and injured at least nine, including one critically. The explosion at Minneha..

Small New Mexico Communities Struggle to Deliver Clean Water

SANTA CRUZ, N.M. (AP) — Eloy Jacquez lives in the house his parents built on Los Lujans Road in 1948. There was no water in Santa Cruz then. The family waited several more years before the first well was drilled just up the street, next to land used as an informal waste dump. Old cars were left to..

Niagara Falls Board, State Regulators Discuss Black Water

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — Operators of a wastewater treatment plant that discharged a plume of stinky, black water near the base of Niagara Falls say they’re cooperating with investigators. The Niagara Falls Water Board has said little publicly about the discharge that turned the water near the fa..

Group Drops Fight over Letting City Use Lake Michigan Water

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — A group representing mayors and cities in the Great Lakes region has dropped its fight against letting Waukesha, Wisconsin, draw water from Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative says it has reached a settlement with a council representing the regi..

Keystone XL Survived Politics but Economics Could Kill It

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The proposed Keystone XL pipeline survived nine years of protests, lawsuits and political wrangling that saw the Obama administration reject it and President Donald Trump revive it, but now the project faces the possibility of death by economics. Low oil prices and the high cos..

Fracking-Related Water Issues Draw Attention in West Texas

VAN HORN, Texas (AP) — A West Texas land baron and oilman is on the verge of pumping 5.4 million gallons of water a day from far under the desert mountains here and piping it 60 miles to the nation’s most bountiful oil field, the Permian Basin, where hydraulic fracturing has fueled a renaissance of ..

North Dakota Regulators Investigating Minnesota Contractor

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – A Minnesota contractor that damaged a natural gas pipeline in North Dakota last week has a history of striking pipelines. The damage caused the release of 126,000 gallons of natural gas liquids and shut down a gas processing plant for three days. State regulators who recently..

Florida Town Completes Sewer Main Repair, Replacement Project

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection recently joined the city of Cocoa Beach, the Florida Department of Transportation, the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program, St. Johns River Water Management District and local officials in celebrating the completion of the Minutemen stormwa..

New Catch Basins and Sewer Extensions to Improve Drainage in Southeast Queens

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has completed several construction projects that included the installation of new catch basins and sewer extensions throughout the southeast Queens neighborhoods of St. Albans, Jamaica, South Jamaica, Laurelton and Rosedale. The $2.5 million i..

Santa Cruz County: Sewage No Longer Spilling from Pipeline

NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — Santa Cruz County in southern Arizona says there is no longer any wastewater or raw sewage spilling from an international pipeline that broke last week. Repair work on the underground pipeline began after authorities found the breach on July 25 in a sparsely populated area n..

New York Gov. Orders Probe into Niagara Falls "Black Water"

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday cast doubt on a city agency’s claims surrounding a foul-smelling discharge that turned the water near the base of Niagara Falls black at the height of a busy tourist weekend. A day after directing state regulators to investigate, Cuomo, a Demo..

Report: Pipeline Review Underestimated Forest Fragmentation

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) – The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation along with several state agencies say an analysis by the Mountain Valley Pipeline on the project’s impact on intact forests underestimated the effects by more than 300 percent. The Roanoke Times reports that in a July 21 fil..

Feds Give Maine $300K to Help Ensure Pipeline Safety

SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s U.S. senators say the federal government is giving Maine more than $300,000 to keep its pipelines safe. Republican Sen. Susan Collins and independent Sen. Angus King say the federal Department of Transportation is giving the money to the Maine Public Utilities C..

FERC Issues New Natural Gas Project Guidelines

The staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Office of Energy Projects has finalized its revised Guidelines for Reporting on Cultural Resources Investigations for Natural Gas Projects, which were issued in draft form on January 25, 2017, for comment. The guidelines have been altere..

Sewer System Failures Plague Mexican Tourist Destinations

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Sewage breakdowns in Mexico City’s “floating gardens” of Xochimilco and in the country’s Yucatan peninsula resort of Isla Holbox have officials warning of threats to residents and tourism. Holbox’s sewage problem hit the pages of major Mexican newspapers this week just as a repor..

Crews Replace Aging Water Lines in Nearly 1,800 Flint Homes

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Nearly 1,800 additional homes in Flint have had service lines replaced in the latest phase of an effort to help fix the city’s lead-tainted water crisis. Mayor Karen Weaver’s office says about 2,700 homes have had aging water lines replaced since March 2016 under the FAST Start ..

Tucson Company to Do Emergency Repairs on Border Sewer Line

NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — A Tucson construction company is being paid $300,000 to do emergency repairs on an international sewage line that carries untreated sewage from Mexico into Arizona, authorities said Friday. The flow of untreated wastewater has been pouring into a southern Arizona wash from a p..

Las Vegas Water Pipeline Fight to Go Before Federal Judge

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A decades-long fight over a plan to pump water from arid and sparsely populated valleys along Nevada’s eastern edge and pipe it to thirsty Las Vegas is about to get its first hearing before a federal judge. Environmental groups and American Indian tribes are expected to tell U.S. D..

Corps of Engineers Plans Water Project

The Nashville District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), has released a presolicitation notice announcing it plans to issue an Invitation for Bid (IFB) solicitation for a firm fixed-price construction contract for a certified small business contractor to complete work at Melton Hill Lock, which ..

Layne Christensen Completes Water Pipeline Construction

Layne Christensen Company has completed construction of its high-capacity water pipeline and infrastructure system serving energy producers in the prolific Delaware Basin in West Texas. The company’s new water infrastructure system is anchored by nearly 1,000 acres of water-producing land near Peco..

Officials Work on Response Plan to Nogales Sewer Line Break

NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) – Officials are working on a plan to respond to the flow of untreated wastewater pouring into a southern Arizona wash from a partial break in an international sewage line north of Nogales. Santa Cruz County officials say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has personnel on scene to..

Contractor Hits Gas Line, Causes Leak in Massachusetts

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Thousands of people were evacuated from surrounding buildings and streets were closed in Cambridge as authorities responded to reports of a natural gas leak. The Cambridge Fire Department tweeted at 11 a.m. Friday that all buildings could be reoccupied. A spokesma..

Mountain Valley Pipeline Lawsuit Filed

ROANOKE, Va. (AP)  — A newly filed lawsuit is seeking to stop federal regulators from granting the developers of the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline the power of eminent domain. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in federal court in Roanoke, Virginia, on behalf of property owners in the pipeline’s pa..