http://www.mactec.com/news/press-room/default.aspx Channel For MACTEC Press Releases 4/12/1977 10 Mactec Engineering and Consulting Inc. was recently awarded a $5 million, five-year continuation of its contract to monitor air quality at Navy facilities in Gulf Coast states. Now the Jonesville office of Mactec will be seeking to renew a $24 million, five-year contract with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to continue monitoring the effects of acid rain at 80 remote stations across the U.S. The company has had the EPA contract continuously for 20 years, but will have to compete to renew it by August. http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080213/NEWS/802130320/-1/rssfeed&source=RSS As its name implies, PBC is an acquisition method that focuses on the purpose and desired outcome of a project rather than the process by which the work is performed. Serving as moderators for the various discussions were Erica Becvar, Dr. Javier Santillan, Dr. Mark Rodriguez and Ed Brown, all of the Technical Division’s Restoration Branch. Also available for participants were optional short courses, held back at Brooks, that focused on evaluating PBC proposals and an introduction to the newly developed AFCEE Performance-Based Contracting/ Statement of Objectives Developmental Tool Web Page (http://www.afcee.brooks.af.mil/products/pbc/ pbctool/) The “PBC tool,” for short, helps environmental managers decide if a restoration site is suitable for PBC; http://www.mactec.com/news/Mactec-in-the-news/docs/DLACentAssetMgmtHelpsUpgradeFacs.pdf More than four years after the advent of Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), awareness of stormwater management has significantly increased, notes Brian Roberts, director of the Water Resources Learning Center in Fairfax, VA. “Until recently, the focus was on some of the softer issues, such as public outreach and education and more erosion control,” Roberts says. “Now most of the permit programs are at the five-year point, and people are having to figure out what BMPs [best management practices] are appropriate for post-construction, how well they work, and how to pay for them, maintain them, and design them. “Now’s the point where the rubber hits the road and they have to start building permanent BMPs. This is a critical phase. It’s also a wake-up call as to how much these really cost and how much space they take up on the site,” Roberts says. http://erosioncontrol.com/july-august-2007/compliance--npdes-phase.aspx The new Sidney Lanier Bridge, spanning the Brunswick River for U. S. Highway 17 in Brunswick, GA, is now one of the largest cable-stayed suspension bridges in the world. It has an overall length of 7,780 ft, a main span length of 1,250 ft, and rises 185 ft above the water on 485-ft tall support towers. Originally opened to traffic in June 1956, the much shorter and lower original bridge deteriorated due to coastal weathering, normal wear, and weakening from ship collisions, prompting the U. S. Coast Guard to declare the structure a hazard to navigation. As a result, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) initiated design development for the replacement bridge in 1992. http://www.govengr.com/ArticlesMar07/sidney.pdf Ely, NV - The clean up of almost a century's worth of waste materials at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum has not only helped with preservation efforts, but will also aid in increasing attendance since more historical buildings on the site will soon be open to the public. The non-profit Nevada Northern Railway Museum, located in Ely, NV in the northeastern part of the state (Ely, pop. 5,000, is equidistant to Salt Lake City or Las Vegas) is not your ordinary museum. It encompasses a 56-acre outdoor National Historic Site containing 66 buildings and structures, steam locomotives, electric locomotives, and over 50 freight cars. In addition to the yard and shops, the museum owns 30 miles of track used by the Nevada Northern Railway, an operating historic railroad more than a century old. More than 30,000 people are believed to visit the museum each year and ride the six daily trains – one branch goes to the nearby copper mining community of Ruth, a second branch climbs 800 feet above the Steptoe Valley to the now-closed 98-year-old smelter at McGill. http://www.publicworks.com/article.mvc/Railway-Museum-On-Track-To-Increase-Visitors-0001 The clean up efforts of almost a century's worth of waste materials at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum has not only helped with preservation efforts, but will also aid in increasing attendance since more historical buildings on the site will soon be open to the public, according to the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection. The non-profit Nevada Northern Railway Museum encompasses a 56-acre outdoor National Historic Site containing 66 buildings and structures, steam locomotives, electric locomotives, and over 50 freight cars. http://www.elynews.com/articles/2006/10/27/news/news11.txt Biologists dumped a dozen boatloads of oyster shells into the shallow waters off Point San Quentin over the weekend, hoping the castoffs will seed the comeback of native oysters that once flourished in San Francisco Bay. Twenty volunteers did much of the heavy lifting near the wooden pier of the Marin Rod and Gun Club, which provided a convenient jumping-off point for what sponsors say is the largest native-oyster restoration effort in California. Oysters that once blanketed the bay largely disappeared after the Gold Rush and urban settlement brought overharvesting, pollution and habitat loss. Now that bay restoration has helped restore water quality, ecologists want to expand the few oyster populations that managed to hold on. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/14/BAGBCKHTNI1.DTL http://www.mactec.com/News/Mactec-in-the-news/Florida-Hurricane-Emergency-Response-Effort.aspx http://www.mactec.com/News/Mactec-in-the-news/conserve-and-protect.aspx http://www.mactec.com/News/Mactec-in-the-news/MACTEC-Engineering-Consulting-business-profile.aspx http://www.mactec.com/News/Mactec-in-the-news/ACEC-2004-Engineering-Excellence-Honor-Award-Winners.aspx http://www.mactec.com/News/Mactec-in-the-news/Orthometric-Elevations-among-Alligators.aspx http://www.mactec.com/News/Mactec-in-the-news/Market-your-maintenance-program.aspx http://www.mactec.com/News/Mactec-in-the-news/Syntectonic-Fluid-Migration-Across-Hinterland-Foreland-Transition-Canadian-Cordillera.aspx http://www.mactec.com/News/Mactec-in-the-news/Environmental-Audits-Assessing-Environmental-Liability.aspx