E N G I N E E R I N G    C H A N G E :
Climate Change Impact On Planning and Design


Habib Dagher, director of the University of Maine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center, explains the procedure at a bridge site in Pittsfield, Maine.“Instead of having problems in 20 years, you won't have problems until 40 years,” Dagher said.“This could be 100-plus years of performance.”

'Bridge in a backpack' is latest feat of engineering 
DAY
By Clarke Canfield    
Published on 4/12/2009

Pittsfield, Maine - The latest in bridge construction technology goes unnoticed by drivers zipping over a two-lane highway that carves through the countryside of central Maine.
The 35-foot-long Neal Bridge on Route 11 is the first in the nation to use a process developed at the University of Maine that's dubbed “bridge in a backpack” because the materials used to make the arches can be carried to the site in duffel bags.

Once at the site, a light, durable fabric that folds as easily as a pair of pants is filled with concrete to form arches that will support the span. They're installed in a matter of days or even hours, instead of weeks. The process is being touted as a way to cut costs and lengthen the life expectancy of bridges.

”Instead of having problems in 20 years, you won't have problems until 40 years,” said Habib Dagher, director of the university's Advanced Structures and Composites Center. “This could be 100-plus years of performance.”

Contributing to the interest in higher-performing bridges was the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge - a 40-year-old steel-supported structure in Minneapolis - which killed 13 people and injured dozens during rush hour on Aug. 1, 2007.

”Everybody is much more aware today of our decaying infrastructure and our need for involvement,” said Brit Svoboda, president of a Florida company that hopes to commercialize the concept.

There are thousands of highway bridges in the U.S., virtually all of which are made of concrete or steel. But when it came time to replace the 70-year-old Neal Bridge, the Maine Department of Transportation decided to try the new method.

University workers put together 23 fabric arches that were cut to a pattern, inflated and coated with resin to retain their shape, Dagher said. They were then taken to the site, put into place and filled with concrete - all in a day.

The fabric is made of composite materials, often a blend of carbon or glass fibers, which reduce construction time and costs, Dagher said.

After the arches were installed, a lightweight deck was bolted on top of them and covered with sand. Asphalt was then laid on top of the sand.

The department plans to build six more bridges in the next two years using the same technology. On future projects, the arches will be rolled up and carried in gym-style duffel bags in the backs of pickup trucks, then inflated at the construction sites.

Much of the on-site preparation work will be eliminated, and trucks won't be needed to haul heavy beams. Concrete trucks still would be needed, though, for filling the inflated arches.

The materials have been making inroads in both bridge construction and repair, said John Busel of the American Composites Manufacturers Association in Arlington, Va.


ENDANGERED LOW-LYING AREAS?  INCLUDING THE RAILROAD AND I-95?
Climated changed here?  Does that mean the beach access issue is moot?  At right, Greenwich Point Park main building under repair a few years ago.

Climate change poses challenges for the Connecticut coast 
DAY
By Judy Benson    
Published on 4/12/2009
 
Buffers or barricades?  Coastal development or coastal retreat?  Marsh loss or marsh replacement?

Tough choices like these confront Connecticut, especially its shoreline, as the planet inches toward what experts say is inevitable: swelling seas and intensifying storms as the effects of climate change are felt over the coming decades.

”It's a risk problem,” said Gary Yohe, economics professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown and a member of climate change adaptation panels in New York City and Connecticut. “You can't write a guarantee that it's not going to happen, but you can reduce your exposure and lessen your sensitivity.”

Yohe is also a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations-sponsored international scientists group that authored a series of authoritative reports on climate change evidence, effects and needed actions.

In thinking about adaptation actions, Yohe said, an analogy could be helpful: A patient with high cholesterol and a family history of heart disease commits to a lean diet, statin medications and regular exercise. These steps won't eliminate the man's risk of having a heart attack, but they will lessen it. And if he does have a heart attack, it would probably be less severe, and his chances of survival better. And as with conditions that lead to a heart attack, climate change effects accumulate so slowly as to be almost imperceptible, until a crisis occurs.

”Even though sea level rise is happening at an incremental pace,” Yohe said, “people will notice the increasing vulnerability during storms. That will get their attention.”

Much of the talk about climate change thus far has focused on finding ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the most extreme projections of runaway warming. But adaptation - figuring out how to cope with the effects that can't be avoided - is also part of the discussion.

Climate scientists say that while reducing future emissions is a needed strategy, the effects of the heat-trapping gases already released by fossil fuel burning and other human actions over the last 150 years can't be reversed, and will intensify in the coming decades.

Connecticut is among at least eight states and six major U.S. cities that have established panels to begin tackling adaptation. Connecticut's panel, under the wing of the state Department of Environmental Protection, is charged with making recommendations for next steps by the end of this year.

Understanding and adapting to a warmer, more watery future is just part of the formidable task facing the panel, the state and individual communities. The entire process, said Yohe, promises to be one of perpetual adjustment to new information about greenhouse gas buildup and the associated changes in rainfall, temperatures, storms and rising seas. Issues affecting coastlines are expected to be among the most challenging and potentially disrupting.

Might have to move

A map presented last month to the state's adaptation panel showed the lower Thames River and the New London and Groton shorelines, with arrows pointing out some of the major infrastructure vulnerable to flooding from sea level rise and storm surges: the Electric Boat shipyard, the Northeast corridor rail lines, ferry terminals, State Pier and Fort Trumbull State Park.

”Connecticut has some large challenges,” DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy said, because of its coastal infrastructure, including 32,000 homes in the 100-year floodplain. Ultimately, the state may even have to consider buying up some particularly vulnerable neighborhoods to move residents out of harm's way, she said.

The 16-member adaptation panel, which had its first formal meeting a month ago, is divided into four subgroups: agriculture, public health, ecosystems and infrastructure.

Coinciding with the first meeting was the release of a DEP report, “Facing Our Future: Adapting to Connecticut's Changing Climate.” It looks at expected effects on biodiversity, fisheries, forestry, wildlife, outdoor recreation, infrastructure and natural coastal areas. The longest section is devoted to buildings and infrastructure on or near waterways, which are most vulnerable to flooding and storms.

”To prepare for climate change,” the report says, “Connecticut must take stock of its primary infrastructure,” from homes and schools to bridges, roads and railroads.

”Ports may need to be altered and roads, rails and other transportation corridors redesigned,” the report reads. “Now is the time to create resilient communities that can withstand the storms New England will face and an encroaching sea.”

Ultimately, the panel's recommendations could include, for example, that the state conduct inventories and assign rankings to the most vulnerable buildings, infrastructure and coastal wetlands. It could recommend open space purchases along the shoreline to absorb floodwaters and buffer storm effects.

Those purchases would have an added benefit: Properties adjacent to salt marshes would naturally convert to marsh as sea levels rise, replacing critical habitat. The panel could also examine the wisdom of building seawalls or other barricades, and suggest new restrictions on coastal building.

”To make our shoreline and its communities and habitats more resilient,” the report said, “existing conceptions of property rights and regulatory authorities must be reevaluated. … New development should not assume a stable shoreline; storms and sea level rise will erode and inundate natural buffers thus increasing the threat of property damage.

”The choice between retreating and shoreline armoring will inevitably need to strike a balance between the natural and built environment.”

Commissioner McCarthy said that, essentially, climate change adaptation should be seen as an economic issue, one of determining how resources and infrastructure will be impacted, and how the state's wealth and will should be applied in response.

”We need to look at what policies need to change” for everything from coastal land use to open space acquisition to dam maintenance to the types of trees that should be planted for the changing climate, McCarthy said. “There'll be a zillion outcomes of this. This exercise will help inform our decisions and open our eyes.”

Groton forms a task force

Each of Connecticut's towns and regions, especially on the coast, will be expected to take a hard look at how it should protect its most vulnerable areas. Some have begun.

”The issues about the impacts of climate change and sea level rise are being factored into our way of thinking about coastal development and marsh preservation,” said George Kral, town planner for Guilford, a shoreline town considering a newly rewritten coastal management plan. “It's part of everyone's conversations. What do you do about it in terms of local land use?”

While climate change is happening on a global scale, “all of the impacts will be local, and decisions (about how to cope) will be local,” Yohe said.

Working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the DEP has hired an analyst to create town-by-town coastal hazards maps and data sets that will be made available on a Web site for municipalities to use in their planning and decision-making. Thus far the information is available in draft form, with Groton used as the pilot town for the first set of maps.

Groton is one of the towns that has established a task force to recommend actions in response to climate change. Formed last year, the group has spent most of its time on mitigation - determining the town's level of greenhouse emissions and ways to reduce them. But adaptation strategies are sure to be on future agendas, said E. Zell Steever, chairman of the task force. It's unavoidable, he said, “because we're surrounded by water here.”

“This is a much more difficult job (than mitigation), because it relies on sea level rise projections,” he said. “But there needs to be some thinking in advance. What will you do after the next major storm? Do you allow those neighborhoods to rebuild? What do you do with major streets (in flood-prone areas)? My sense is that the status quo is going to change.” 
Remember the selection process for engineering assisistance for Weston school expansion?  "No sewers" was the charge...
Select Committee Final Choice:

Angus McDonald of MacDonald-Sharpe

Decision made on choice of consultant September 14, 2000...after discussion and review, McDonald-Sharpe chosen. 
8/22 meeting had selected one...9/5 during contract review by Select Committee, that ad hoc body decided to ask for more information from two of the firms noted below;  materials received on Tuesday, September 12 at the end of the work day at Town Hall.
FINAL INTERVIEWS IN PUBLIC:
Consultants Present, Tuesday, August 15, 2000
Town Hall Meeting Room, 7pm - 10:30pm:  Select Committee may have held an executive session after recess at 10:30pm (we went home).Dymar (Monroe, CT)  chosen #1 in first "cut" by Select Committee...
Mark Lancour (sp.?) of Dymar described his firm's background in groundwater  and wastewater management over the last 14 years.  His firm has done jobs in realestate, Public Works, contact with CTDEP subsurface unit (same individuals we have met).

"No violations" in DYMAR record;  one system actually permitted and in use (Brunswick School, Greenwich, CT) similar to what we might need;  others in CT in various states of progress to construction and approval.  Recycling vital to Weston's potential project.  Feels that upfront planning is also vital to success--as well as access to good fill.  As RFP asked, DYMAR has figured out how long it would take them to conduct feasibility analysis: to take 8 weeks from the time contract is executed.

Woodard & Curran (has small CT office--in New England)
Jim Fitch, Steve Hollman and Alan Bako of Woodard and Curran presented Power Point-type presentation that actually worked and was brief:  presentation entitled  "Remove Wastewater As A Barrier To Weston's Master Plan."  W&C (appropriate initials!) reviewed Windsor, CT project, Maine and Massachusetts jobs.  Could respond in 60-90 days with results re: RFP (they have 370 people working for the whole company).  They are relatively new to CT, but have been recognized by CTDEP for assistance in abatement projects.

McDonald&Sharp (Old Saybrook, CT)
A small firm, McDonald&Sharp have 35 years experience in geologic related matters.  New Haven, New London, Woodbridge, Inn at Chester (spotted off site property that wanted to sell) and Choate School previous clients and/or locations where they have worked.  "Creative and innovative" is how they described themselves (aren't they from the NEMO-leader's hometown?).  They have designed systems up to 35,000 gal.per day.  Got to Weston early and walked School Road, Bisceglie.  Suggested that this project needs engineer who will do extensive on-site testing and use thorough, hands-on procedures (as opposed to "crunching numbers" on a computer in the office) in order to convince the CTDEP that septics can be refitted without having to meet all of the newest standards for design.  Need 12 weeks for this work.

NOTE:The descriptions above of interviews are impressions of "About Town" and not in any way the official version of the Select Committee's meeting (tape available of the entire proceedings--as are unapproved MINUTES).