(submitted by Mark Ralston,State College,PA Office)

Sierra Leone(setting of the movie “Blood Diamond”) sank right to the bottom of the UN’s list of least-developed countries during its civil war in the 1990′s.  Since then, the country has been recovering but, like many sub-Saharan countries, they still have a long way to go to graduate from the bottom of the least-developed countries list.

The Penn State Chapter of Engineers Without Borders spent time in Sierra Leone from the end of December 2011 through the first week of January 2012 working to develop a latrine for the Covenant Preparatory School and to improve water supplies for the village of Baoma (population ~600).  The population of Baoma grew significantly during the Civil War in Sierra Leone as people were displaced from the interior provinces.

The PSU faculty advisor to the PSU EWB chapter invited me to be a Professional Geologist mentor to PSU EWB for water resources issues.  We spent about a week in Baoma assessing water resource issues, and will be spending the next few months working on water supply improvement alternatives back here in the US.

I came back to the US with some clear impressions:

*  the median per-capita income in the village of Baoma is probably at or below the Sierra Leone figure of $800 to $900 (US) per year (formerly as low as $200/year).  Many of the villagers live from hand-to-mouth.  There is no social safety net in Baoma.

*  the children of the village of Baoma are extraordinarily fortunate to have Pastor Martin Simbo as leader of the Covenant Preparatory school.

*  the village has done a lot to improve their water supply, but they can use some help to meet additional needs.

More information, including details on the water project, photos, and opportunities to donate to support the work, is posted at this website: Baoma, Sierra Leone  or email Mark Ralston  814-234-3223.

The SR-91 is the main east-west corridor between job-rich Orange County and the commuter communities in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in Southern California.  Rush hour is most definitely NOT a rush, as the 91 turns into a long, skinny parking lot for several hours in the morning going westbound, and eastbound in the afternoon.

The Corridor Improvement program is an approximately $1.4 Billion Design-Build project that will effectively extend the 91 Express toll lanes currently owned and operated by the Orange County Transportation District about 8 miles through the city of Corona and part of the city of Riverside. 

The program also includes the addition of general purpose lanes in each direction, improvements to the SR 91/71 and SR 91/I-15 Interchanges, as well as other, peripheral, work.

The Federal Department of Transportation awarded 12 State Departments of Transportation nearly $150 Million in TIGER funds. See the report here.

About 48% of TIGER III funding will go to road and bridge projects, 29% will support transit projects, 12% will help build port projects, and 10% will go to freight rail. The remaining 1% went to tribal governments to create jobs and address critical transportation needs on Indian reservations.

The 2011 Great California ShakeOut is the largest earthquake drill event in U.S. history. The ShakeOut Drill is scheduled for 10:20AM on October 20, 2011. This means that wherever you are at the moment – at home, at work, at school, anywhere – you should DROP, COVER and HOLD ON! as if it were a major earthquake occurring at the very moment. Most people will practice how they will DROP, COVER and HOLD ON! during a large earthquake, which only takes about one minute. The best way to instinctively and immediately do the right thing when the shaking begins is to practice. When each second counts, immediate quake-safe actions will save lives and minimize injuries. Some organizations conduct more extensive drills, which may take an hour or even the whole day.

The Great California ShakeOut has become an important annual statewide event. Close to ten million people at homes, schools, government agencies, businesses and organizations will use this opportunity to DROP, COVER and HOLD ON! – and to review their earthquake preparedness plans. The Great California ShakeOut, in its 4th year, continues to grow. The California ShakeOut is held on the Third Thursday of October, a date that was chosen by school representatives as an ideal time for school earthquake drills. It offers an opportunity for individuals, families, schools, businesses, governments and emergency responders to prepare now so they can survive and recover the following the next damaging earthquake.

Register for free at www.ShakeOut.org and promise to participate. The ShakeOut.org web site has many resources and links to help plan for the next big earthquake. The ShakeOut.org includes guidelines for what to do before, during and immediately after an earthquake, as well as downloadable emergency supply checklists (food, water, first aid supplies, clothing and bedding, tools and emergency supplies and special items for medical conditions), tips for food and water storage, and other planning resources.

Are you prepared for the next big earthquake in California? What will you do to save your life and protect your family?

For more information on the Great California ShakeOut or Converse Emergency Response services contact Mark Schluter at 626-930-1200.

“The Rio Mesa project will create thousands of jobs, and contribute hundreds of millions in economic benefits for Riverside County and the State of California,” said Stephen Wiley, BrightSource’s senior vice president of U.S. Project Development.

Converse Consultants is actively involved in solar projects, as well as other alternative energy sources.  For more information contact Denise Gordon at 702-269-8336.

As you may be aware, the State Allocation Board (SAB) approved new Seismic Mitigation Program (SMP) regulations to improve access to SMP grant funds at the June 22, 2011 SAB meeting.  The OPSC, utilizing limited grant funds from the California Seismic Safety Commission (CSSC), will now provide “no-cost” seismic eligibility evaluations to school districts on a “first come, first served” basis until all grant funds are exhausted.  School districts may submit requests to the OPSC to participate in this program to help identify and assess seismic risk potential of selected school buildings.

As a result of the new SMP regulations, the Division of the State Architect (DSA) revised DSA Procedure 08-03: Seismic Evaluation Report Review along with the standardized seismic eligibility evaluation report template (template).  To view the procedure and template visit the DSA website.  The template represents the first step in the SMP funding process.  The template will be utilized by engineering firms hired by OPSC to perform the seismic evaluations of school buildings.  The template is designed to identify structural systems and deficiencies, not to identify all life-safety issues or to provide a full structural engineer’s report.  If it appears that a building will qualify for SMP funding based on site conditions such as liquefaction, land slide, or faulting, it does not qualify for a “No-Cost” evaluation.  The template is not designed to provide SMP eligibility documentation of a building’s collapse potential due to these site conditions.

Districts opting to participate in the “no-cost” seismic eligibility evaluations must submit a request letter to the OPSC at the following address:

Office of Public School Construction

707 3^rd Street

West Sacramento, CA.  95605

Subject:  Seismic Eligibility Evaluation Request

Attn:  Alan Shoemaker

The request letter, signed by the District Representative, must include the following:

Specifics on each building in the seismic eligibility evaluation request including: 1) Site; 2) DSA number; 3) Building Identifier (i.e., bldg A); 4) square footage; 5) current use (i.e., classroom, gymnasium, kitchen); 6) original use (if applicable); 7) which building type classifies the building as “Most Vulnerable Category 2 Building” as identified in School Facility Program (SFP) Regulation Section 1859.82.

• Statement of how the District identified each Category 2 building and preliminarily identified each building’s collapse potential deficiency(s).
•  Statement that each identified Category 2 building is designed for occupancy by students and/or staff.
•  Statement of the District’s intentions and ability to participate in the SMP funding program.
•  Name and contact information of District point-of-contact to coordinate seismic inspection details and inspector visit.

For a guide to assist Districts through the facility hardship process and provide direction on what is typically required in a complete facility hardship submittal, please access the facility hardship worksheet at www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/opsc/Forms/Worksheets/FacHS_WS.pdf.

For seismic evaluation program information contact Alan Shoemaker at 916-376-5359.  For facility hardship program information please contact Jennifer Maestretti at 916-376-5338.

For information regarding Converse Consultants seismic, geologic, geotechnical, environmental and DSA Inspection services please contact Beth George at 951-264-1684.

Aug. 28–For two years, the California High-Speed Rail Authority said it could build 520 miles of high-speed train tracks between San Francisco and Los Angeles for about $43 billion.

But that figure — long derided as unrealistic by critics — went off the rails this month when the authority released detailed environmental reports for its proposed Merced-Fresno and Fresno-Bakersfield sections, the first two segments the agency wants to start building next year.

The authority’s most optimistic estimates for the San Joaquin Valley sections alone total about $10 billion; route choices could run the price to $13.9 billion.

That’s a far cry from the 2009 estimate of $8.1 billion.

If projected costs can rise by as much as 71% in the Valley — a relatively flat, straightforward stretch — what will happen when tracks must be built through mountains and across cities in the Bay Area or Southern California?

If costs escalate statewide as much as in the Valley, the price to build the system from San Francisco to Anaheim could leap from the 2009 estimate of $43 billion to as much as $67.3 billion, even before buying any trains.

Some critics are saying, “I told you so,” and others worry about even more cost increases in the Valley and statewide before a decade of construction begins in late 2012, as planned.

“It is about time that more realistic numbers are being used,” said Elizabeth Alexis, co-founder of Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design, a group that has long doubted the authority’s estimates.

Roelof van Ark, the rail authority’s CEO, acknowledged last week that the earlier estimates, set forth in a 2009 business plan to the Legislature, were “a little bit optimistic.”

Construction plans have changed in the Valley between 2009 and now, van Ark said.

He said that an updated plan due to the Legislature in October will reflect the higher costs for the Valley — and statewide.

“What you’re seeing in the Central Valley, you are going to see in the other parts of the state as well,” van Ark said. “Quite a few of the components [that add to the cost in the Valley] will definitely carry into other parts of the state. However, some of them could be even larger.”

The higher estimates in the draft environmental impact reports for the Valley segments are the result of engineers refining the route options and gaining a better understanding of construction challenges, van Ark said.

“We know more now,” said van Ark, who was hired by the authority months after the 2009 plan was prepared. “When you start designing systems like this, you look at the alignment, the cities, the rural areas, and you make assumptions. … [But] you don’t have the detail to consider what real costs are going to come about.”

With that detail in hand, the authority has identified about $5.8 billion in new costs, including:

–About $3 billion more to build about 36 miles of elevated tracks over the cities of Madera, Chowchilla and Corcoran to avoid closing streets.

–About $844 million more for elevated structures, tunnels, bridges, overpasses and undercrossings to cross waterways, streets, highways and railroads along the route.

–About $685 million more for earthworks and retaining walls to raise the tracks above floodplains.

–About $430 million more to purchase right of way along the route and to relocate displaced homes and businesses.

–About $142 million more to realign a two-mile portion of Highway 99 in west-central Fresno to make room for the high-speed tracks.

Van Ark said that since the first estimate, prices also have gone up for materials, such as steel, needed to build the system.

Between Merced and Fresno, the cheapest route option — now estimated at about $3.8 billion — follows the Union Pacific freight railroad and Highway 99 between Merced and Chowchilla. It loops west around Chowchilla, then heads east to follow the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad around Madera to the east. The line then crosses the countryside to return to the UP tracks and Highway 99 by the time it reaches the San Joaquin River, and remains along the UP tracks through downtown Fresno.

The most expensive option is one that follows the UP tracks and Highway 99 all the way from downtown Merced through Chowchilla and Madera to downtown Fresno. At an estimated cost of $6.7 billion, it includes the stretch of elevated tracks from north of Chowchilla to south of Madera.

Between Fresno and Bakersfield, the route roughly follows the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks, except for a stretch that crosses the Kings County countryside east of Hanford.

The most expensive variation, at about $7.2 billion, would pass through the cities of Corcoran, Wasco and Shafter and the historic community of Allensworth, with elevated tracks through Corcoran.

The lowest estimated price, about $6.2 billion, is for a route with bypasses around those towns.

The new cost projections in the Valley are about in line with what Alexis’ CARRD group predicted, based on figures in the authority’s application for federal stimulus funds this year.

“We had already built in the escalation to our cost figures so our current estimate is consistent with newly released information,” Alexis said. “The budget numbers in the federal applications revealed the much higher price tag to those of us keeping close tabs on the project.”

“Hopefully,” she added, “all the cost surprises on this [Valley] segment going forward are good ones.”

Research shows that for decades, cost overruns are the rule rather than the exception for big transportation projects in general, and for big rail projects in particular. And California’s proposed high-speed train system is a biggie.

“Even in the best of times, large infrastructure investments have a dismal performance record in terms of cost overruns, delays, and benefit shortfalls,” Oxford University program-management professor Bent Flyvbjerg wrote in a 2009 research article in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy.

In 2009, the cost for San Francisco-to-Anaheim was estimated at $39.3 billion, or just under $43 billion by the time trains were purchased to run on the system.

Lynn Schenk, a former congresswoman from San Diego and a member of the rail authority’s board, said the 2009 plan was created in “an atmosphere of wishes, hopes and faith, and … was more of a sales and marketing piece” than a reliable prediction of costs.

Schenk said the October business plan will be “just about our last chance to rebuild confidence in this project, and us, that we can get this done” in the face of growing statewide concern over the rail project.

Van Ark also understands the implications of the new business plan, which will detail not only the costs for the statewide system, but also how the authority expects to pay for it.

And, he added, it will paint a much more realistic picture than the 2009 plan.

“We — I say we even though I wasn’t around — we were a little bit optimistic in those days,” van Ark said.

The authority’s new estimates are priced to include all types of route options, “and these have all been cross-checked by a second group of costing engineers,” he added. “I want to make sure I’m right when I go out and talk about these things.”

California has about $6.3 billion available to start construction, a combination of federal stimulus funds and money from Proposition 1A, a $9 billion bond measure approved by California voters in 2008. Planners decided the best place to use that first chunk of money is the Valley.

“We will build as many miles as we can out of that $6 billion,” van Ark said.

The lackluster Valley and national economies could actually favor the authority when contractors bid on the project next year.

“I’m hopeful that as the economy is down now, we will have some very competitive bidders when we go into the market next year,” van Ark said.

Still, the jump in expected costs for the Valley segments have prompted renewed criticism of the project, already battered by the Legislative Analyst, the state Inspector General and others.

Concerns range from the authority’s ability to manage the project, its reliance on an army of contractors and consultants, a rush to meet federal deadlines for $3.3 billion in stimulus money, and the choice to begin construction in the Valley instead of one of the state’s urban centers.

“We really need to re-examine what we’re spending and what we’re going to get for it,” said state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach.

Lowenthal says he supports the concept of high-speed rail but has been fiercely critical of the rail authority, sponsoring legislation that would shift control of the project to the state’s transportation agency.

Another legislator wants to ask voters to repeal Prop. 1A. “This thing is well on its way to massive cost overruns,” said state Sen. Doug La Malfa, R-Willows. “The costs are starting to escalate and we need to take a timeout.”

The Legislature and other state officials must approve the October business plan and its funding components before Prop. 1A money can be used.

The rising price tag has not deterred Gov. Jerry Brown from expressing continued support for the project. Brown told The Fresno Bee’s editorial board this month that now is not the time to pull the plug on the high-speed electric trains.

High-speed rail “could reshape the Valley,” he said. “But it is expensive. … The numbers look big.” Brown said those costs, however, pale in comparison to the state’s economic productivity over the expected life of the trains. California, he said, needs to “look to the future instead of the past.”

“Important countries are investing in high-speed rail,” he said, citing examples in Europe and Asia. “I’m doing my best to keep this train running.”

Authority officials are aware of the stakes for the October business plan and its cost projections.

“I have growing confidence that this is the document we need, with all of the warts, with all of the risks,” Schenk said last week.

“It’s been truth-tested with some of our major critics … people who have legitimate concerns and questions, and we’re able to address those, or say that we can’t.”

Van Ark said the new cost projections have to be on the money and still account for inflation.

“I know some people are pointing fingers at us and saying, ‘Every year the cost of this is going to go up by leaps and bounds,’ ” he said last week.

“That’s not the intent of a good engineering estimate. An engineering estimate must be right. … We’ve got to stabilize these costs now.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Soaring nearly 900 feet above the Colorado River, the Hoover Dam Bypass features a 1,900-foot-long arched concrete bridge — the highest and largest of its type in the Western Hemisphere, and the world’s tallest pre-cast concrete columns. A triumph more than 40 years in the making, the bypass eliminates wearisome traffic congestion along the dam’s hairpin turns, while increasing security for the Dam — a vital Southwest source of power and water.

The project team utilized groundbreaking design to overcome challenges of high winds, extremely rugged terrain and severe heat to complete the project, which includes which includes 4.3-miles of new highway and seven additional bridges.

Two 2,500-foot-long cableways connected to 330-foot-high towers on each side of the Black Canyon transported crews and 50 tons of equipment and materials into place during bridge construction.

Because of triple digit temperatures, concrete was poured from midair at night and cooled with liquid nitrogen-filled tubes. The concrete arch — built in two segments that began 1,060-feet apart on each side of the canyon — was closed just three-eighths inch off perfect.

The Hoover Dam Bypass compliments the historic Hoover Dam with its own majestic presence, while effectively bridging engineering’s greatness of the past with today’s brilliance.

Converse Consultants provided services for the construction of the Colorado River Bridge, which is part of the overall Hoover Dam Bypass Project.  The bridge is the longest concrete arch in North America, which required over 243 million pounds of concrete and 16 million pounds of steel to build at an estimated cost of $120 million.

The Hoover Dam Bypass has been awarded Project of the Year in the Transportation Project over $75 Million category by the American Public Works Association (APWA).

United States Highway 93 (U.S. 93) has been designated a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) route. The increasing congestion caused by the switchbacks leading to the Hoover Dam site and the restrictions at the dam crossing led to the development of the Hoover Bypass Project.  The project is a 3.5-mile corridor beginning in Clark County, Nevada and crossing the Colorado River approximately 1,500 feet downstream of the Hoover Dam, then terminating in Mohave County, Arizona on U.S. 93.

The 1,900 foot-long Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge is the centerpiece of the project, which includes approaches on both sides of the river and six other bridges.  It is the highest and longest arched concrete bridge in the Western Hemisphere and features the world’s tallest precast concrete columns.  It is the first steel-concrete hybrid arch bridge in the United States.

Opening in October 2010, the Bypass was delivered on time and on budget by a team including Obayashi Corporation, PSM Construction USA, HDR Engineering, TY Lin International, Jacobs Engineering Group and Converse Consultants among others.

This large, complex team worked with a six agency consortium to meet the design, construction and safety challenges posed by such an iconic project.   Converse Consultants provided Q.A./Q.C. materials testing and inspection services for concrete and asphalt testing and inspection services beginning in February of 2005.

For more information on this project or Converse Consultants construction services in Nevada contact Vance Smith at 702-269-8336 or dvsmith@converseconsultants.com.