A dam on the Green River in western Washington state remains one of the nation’s most unsafe, despite $15 million of work that has been completed over the past year. But the Army Corps of Engineers told local officials on March 18 that an additional $44 million in upgrades is needed to lower the structure’s failure risk to acceptable levels.

“We can manage the risk at the dam, but doing so puts those downriver at risk. That’s what makes this dam unique,” says Mamie Brouwer, program manager for the Howard A. Hanson Dam.

The dam was opened in 1962 to ease flooding in the Green River valley. But it is one of a handful in the U.S. that are classified at the highest risk because of the potential loss of life combined with the economic consequences should the dam fail. The Hanson dam is one of 12 Corps dam projects the agency has classified “urgent and compelling and unsafe.”

In January 2009, after heavy rains and a high-water event in the reservoir, officials in the Corps’ Seattle District noticed seepage and depressions in an abutment of the earthen-engineered dam. The Corps immediately lowered the reservoir and initiated improvements to shore up the abutment, which is the result of a 10,000-year-old landslide.

With money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Corps granted a $13-million contract to Nicholson Construction, Cuddy, Pa., to install a 450-ft-long grout wall, consisting of two 10-ft-thick walls. An additional $1-million contract was awarded to Jensen Drilling, Eugene, Ore., to improve a drainage tunnel in the abutment.

The dam is critical to industry downstream on the Green River. Since the earthen dam was built, local residents have become accustomed to living and operating in the floodplain without risk, says Dana Hinman, a spokeswoman for the city of Auburn, Wash. The area, near Tacoma and southwest of Seattle, has grown into one of the nation’s largest warehouse and goods distribution centers, with an estimated $4-billion value.

Even with the fixes finished last month, the area faces the risk of flooding of up to 10 feet in a one-in-25-year storm event. The planned $44-million project would provide protection for up to a one-in-140-year storm event by extending the grout wall 650 ft to the east and deepening the entire 1,100-ft wall another 200 ft. It is now from 90 ft to 170 ft deep. A Corps official says the agency’s report and recommended solutions will be presented to Congress by June. If funding for the additional work is approved, the job will be let for competitive bid. A permanent fix, likely to include a concrete cutoff wall and possibly costing up to $500 million, is now being studied.

If another Hurricane Katrina-like disaster hits New Orleans, the city’s water and sewer board will now have a hazard-mitigation plan to ensure that local environmental infrastructure can get state and federal emergency repair funds.

“Probably a lot of other cities don’t have this because they haven’t had the disaster,” says Gordon Austin, chief of environmental affairs for the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board. “This is a formality to make sure you’re eligible for [Federal Emergency Management Agency] mitigation funds.”

The board still is trying to obtain FEMA funding to mitigate an estimated $98 million in damage from Katrina, which struck in 2005. According to Austin, San Francisco waited a decade after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake for FEMA reimbursement, and Florida waited at least 15 years for funds after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Because the New Orleans board did not have its own hazard-mitigation plan, one that classifies it as a single local jurisdiction, the infrastructure provider had to compete for funding with fire and police departments and other city agencies.

By developing a plan that complies with rules for receiving hazard-mitigation funding, the board’s jurisdiction is recognized, and it can apply directly for FEMA grant programs and reimbursements, says Tom Miller, a board staff member.

Austin adds that having FEMA pre-approve specific mitigations speeds up the process. “It makes sure you are aware of potential hazards and that you are actually identifying need,” he points out. Prior to Katrina, because the board had not failed to provide service in more than 100 years, it had underestimated risks of events such as Katrina, Austin concedes.

Lambert Engineers, New Orleans, which developed the board mitigation plan under a $43,200 contract, vetted it at hearings. The board anticipates state and FEMA approval by April 11. The final version will be at www.swbno.org. Federal rules require updates every five years.

Traffic moved across the Bridge of Lions on March 17 for the first time in four years following the lengthy restoration of the historic landmark in St. Augustine, Fla. A key part of the work required the rehab team to remove the bridge’s signature arched girders and, after sandblasting, return them as non-load-bearing elements.

In 2004, the Florida Dept. of Transportation awarded a rehabilitation contract to Tidewater Skanska Inc., Virginia Beach, Va., for a $76.8-million project to restore the bridge built in 1927.

While the scope of the work included updating the bridge for future generations, the project also tried to maintain the integrity of the national landmark named after the lion statues flanking the western approach. It carries State Route A1A over the Matanzas River, linking downtown to Anastasia Island.

“The two elements that were really sort of sacred were to keep the bascule towers and the girders as original elements,” says Craig Teal, FDOT project manager. “They could be painted over and that type of thing, but they really couldn’t be altered in any way.”

The project called for a $9.4-million, 1,600-ft-long temporary concrete bridge to be built on 120 driven 24-in. piles, with an 80-ft vertical lift span to serve the navigation channel. Once traffic could move over the temporary bridge, the rehabilitation of the original 1,575-ft-long, two-lane bridge began, which included work on the 79-ft-long bascule span and the 24-ft-tall octagonal bascule towers with barrel-tile roofs.

Now the only remaining work other than aesthetic details is dismantling the temporary bridge.

“It was almost like four projects: build one, dismantle one, rebuild it and dismantle the other,” says Thomas J. Fulton, Tidewater project manager.

Both bridgeworks were designed by Reynolds, Smith and Hills Inc., Jacksonville. The navigation spans were designed by Lichtenstein Consulting Engineers, Paramus, N.J. The design called for new approach foundations. Because the bridge gained a couple of feet in width in the rehab, the new foundations were built outside the existing foundations.

Previously, the bridge had a 15-ton limit due to the deterioration and dated nature of the structure. The city’s largest fire truck weighs more than that, so moving traffic across the bridge had been a challenge.

The arched steel-plate fascia girders were deemed an integral element in preserving the bridge, but their condition could not be determined until after the bridge had been disassembled, which required the fabrication of special bargemounted steel frames to hold 17 pairs of 100-ft-long riveted arched girders at their bearing points. Due to the traffic patterns in the area, the girders had to be shipped out late at night to Florida Structural Steel in Lakeland, Fla., where they were sandblasted.

Careful Inventory

Keeping track of the girders proved to be a challenge. “The plans we had from 1927 were not very detailed, obviously, so we had to essentially do an inventory of those girders, what the actual section was, and evaluate where we needed to strengthen them,” says Jack Haynes, Reynolds, Smith’s project manager.

Designers created a new steel framework to carry the bridge deck, which had been completely supported by the girders. “They took the load off those girders and turned them into ornamental girders and put in an entirely new structural-steel skeleton inside them to carry the load of the bridge deck,” Fulton said.

The city of St. Augustine seems more complete now that the work is done. “That bridge defines St. Augustine,” Haynes says. “I grew up in Jacksonville, and the debate on whether to replace it or rehabilitate it has been going on my entire life. And I think they did the right thing in rehabilitating it. I think when those lions return and the construction you see out there today goes away, it’s a historic project at a historic location. That bridge is on every postcard you see of the city.”

A 70-story, folded, creased and curved stainless-steel curtain wall on an 867-ft-tall apartment building has been called “Gehry only on the outside,” as if the building is a fake Frank. It’s true that, when it opens next year, New York City’s tallest residential tower won’t be an internationally acclaimed cultural icon, as is the architect’s now-12-year-old Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain. The 76-story high-rise is not as colorful, whimsical and structurally innovative as the nearly decade-old Experience Music Project rock ‘n’ roll museum in Seattle. The new tower is not as description-defying inside and out as the six-year-old Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. But that building was torturous to build: There were 10,000-plus requests for information (RFIs), and it was $174 million over budget and the subject of a dispute that ended in a $17.8-million settlement.

Draping Lower Manhattan’s Beekman Tower, Frank Gehry’s creases may only be skin-deep, but the depth of the building team’s accomplishment–producing a budget-driven, speculative apartment tower with the signature of the “king of swoopy” all over it–is not superficial.

The job, topped out and clad to the 51st floor, is under budget and on schedule, discounting a three-month work hiatus related to the Great Recession, says the local developer, Forest City Ratner Cos. FCRC says there are no claims to date and only 100-plus RFIs on the entire job, including the seven-faced, 319,000- sq-ft drape on all but the south face–hands down, the architect’s most ambitious facade ever.

This project is “Frank Gehry demystified,” says Joseph A. Rechichi, an FCRC senior vice president.

Bruce Ratner, FCRC’s chairman, had a Gehry “sculpitecture” in mind from day one. But he also wanted an economical and constructible Gehry, with minimal process pain. Initially, “we were concerned about [the curtain wall's] constructibility, and long-term use,” Rechichi says.

The facade’s success relied on several strategies. One was the development of a traditional unitized curtain-wall system for the wall’s air-and-water barrier, with an outer rain screen for the wild shapes. Unitized systems are unusual for residential towers, especially rental ones. “For the size and scale of the project,” however, it had to have a unitized system, says John Bowers, Gehry’s project manager.

Unlike a stick-built system with costly field labor, a unitized system is shop-fabricated. Workers can install finished units quickly, without expensive staging.

On Beekman Tower, a floor plate can be completely enclosed in four to five consecutive working days, says Bowers. “The greatest advantage of a unitized wall system is in the schedule,” he says.

“Our ability to divorce the wall from the balance of the building was huge,” adds FCRC’s Rechichi.

A key move on FCRC’s part was to engage the curtain-wall supplier early under a design-assist contract. Another key factor was the use of sophisticated digital tools, including building information modeling (BIM) and computer-numerically controlled (CNC) cutting tools. Automation has “enabled me to bring buildings of architectural quality to fruition,” says the Los Angeles-based Gehry.

FCRC also used veterans of Gehry’s past projects for the facade and the reinforced-concrete superstructure. Curtain- wall supplier Permasteelisa North America (PNA) worked on the Disney concert hall and Manhattan’s 10-story Interactive Corp. headquarters–Gehry’s only other unitized curtain wall. Concrete contractor Sorbara Construction Corp., Lynbrook, N.Y., built Interactive.

The 1.1-million-sq-ft Beekman is a mixed-use development with a sculptural tower–a fat “T” in plan–that will…

While President Obama signed the health-care reform legislation into law at a jubilant White House ceremony on March 23, grim-faced Republicans geared up for a battle in the Senate over a “reconciliation” package that amends the bill just signed into law. Riding with that reconciliation measure is the fate of a provision that has divided the construction industry.

That provision, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), was in the Senate-passed version of the bill and thus is now law. It requires construction companies with more than five full-time employees and a payroll of $250,000 or more to offer health-care coverage to their workers or pay a penalty of $750 per employee. The threshold for other industries is 50 full-time workers.

The reconciliation package pending in the Senate would delete the provision, and some construction groups have been blasting the Merkley language and want to see it go. These organizations say the provision singles out the industry that has been hit the hardest by unemployment. “It’s a slap in the face to construction employers,” says Eben Wyman, the National Utility Contractors Association’s vice president for government relations.

Organized labor lobbied hard for the provision and wants it to stay. Jacob Hay, a spokesman for the Laborers International Union of North America, says, “We believe that the health-care legislation has some positive reforms, but to fully impact and benefit construction workers, it needs to include Senator Merkley’s provision…because 65% of construction businesses employ less than five people.”

Republicans planned to raise “points of order” with the Senate Parliamentarian to remove portions of the revisions package that do not relate to budgetary issues. Stanley Kolbe, director of government affairs for the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association, says one item targeted by Republicans is the Merkley language.

If the Senate makes changes in the reconciliation measure, it would have to go to the House for another vote.

Republicans want to go even further. They are vowing to try to repeal the newly enacted health-care measure in its entirety. GOP lawmakers also are pledging vociferously to make health care a central issue in the November elections.

The landmark legislation will provide health coverage to an additional 32 million Americans and cut the deficit…