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Release Date: 02/22/2016
New targets to reduce toxic and nuisance algae blooms affecting Lake Erie
WASHINGTON.- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna today announced that Canada and the U.S. have adopted targets to reduce phosphorus entering affected areas of Lake Erie by 40 percent. The targets announced today will minimize the extent of low oxygen “dead zones” in the central basin of Lake Erie; maintain algae growth at a level consistent with healthy aquatic ecosystems; and maintain algae biomass at levels that do not produce toxins that pose a threat to human or ecosystem health.
Through the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, Canada and the United States committed in 2012 to combat the growing threat of toxic and nuisance algae development in Lake Erie, and agreed to develop updated binational phosphorus reduction targets for Lake Erie by February 2016. The 40 percent reduction targets are based on 2008 loading levels. Canada and the United States have committed to develop domestic action plans, by no later than February 2018, to help meet the new targets.
“To protect public health, we must restore the Great Lakes for all those who depend on them,” said Gina McCarthy, Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency. “The first step in our urgent work together to protect Lake Erie from toxic algae, harmful algal blooms, and other effects of nutrient runoff, is to establish these important phosphorus limits. But, establishing these targets is not the end of our work together. We are already taking action to meet them.”
The Honourable Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change said, “Canada recognizes the urgency and magnitude of the threat to Lake Erie water quality and ecosystem health posed by toxic and nuisance algal blooms. By establishing these targets, we strengthen our resolve to work with our American neighbours, and Canadian and U.S. stakeholders who share these waters, to protect the tremendous natural resource that is Lake Erie.”
Algae occur naturally in freshwater systems. They are essential to the aquatic food web and healthy ecosystems. However, too much algae, linked to high amounts of phosphorus, can lead to conditions that can harm human health and the environment. Since the 1990s, Lake Erie has seen an increase in algal growth that has compromised water quality and threatens the Lake Erie region’s recreation-intensive economy. The targets were developed after extensive public input from a diversity of sectors.
Quick Facts
• The 2015 harmful algal bloom in Lake Erie was recorded as the largest bloom this century.
• Modeling experts from the United States and Canada used nine different computer simulation models to correlate changes in phosphorus levels with levels of algal growth in order to determine phosphorus load reduction targets.
• A binational public consultation process was held between June 30 and August 31, 2015. Final targets were established following widespread support for the draft targets and the target setting process.
• More than 40 Canadian and American experts formed a binational team under the leadership of Environment and Climate Change Canada and the United States Environmental Protection Agency to develop the targets.
• In Canada, more than 50 individuals, groups and agencies representing Agricultural and other non-government organizations, Conservation Authorities, municipal governments, Ontario government agencies, First Nations, and Universities commented on the draft targets through an on-line tool and face-to-face discussions.
source- EPA.gov
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There was another story in the news recently highlighting the danger of unsafe excavation 
and the much needed changes with how to locate and dig around gas and utility lines. In Fresno County, CA, county workers were using a front end loader when a gas line was struck by the equipment, killing one man and injuring a dozen workers. It’s no question that if the line was properly located and a vacuum excavator was used to dig around the line then a life could have been spared. States and cities should require a vacuum excavator on all underground projects.
Vacuum excavation is defined as the process of using air or high pressure water to break apart soil and then debris is sucked up into the tanks. This method of excavation is commonly referred to as soft excavation technology and accepted as being much safer than traditional digging around underground facilities.
Vac-Tron Equipment has been the industry leader for vacuum excavation for over 20 years, innovating new ways of safer digging for companies globally. It is much less invasive in nature when compared to other traditional methods of excavating, has higher precision, and is leading to decreases in the amount of disposal of materials and accordingly much less surface restoration.
Vac-Tron’s equipment is made in the USA and distributed by over 40 nationwide dealers and 110 dealer outlets with new dealers being added internationally.
Vac-Tron recently announced 12 new innovations for vacuum excavation at the ICUEE show this year in Louisville, KY that will continue to keep the industry pushing ahead for safer digging. Here are a few highlights of new vacuum excavation innovations that were announced.
Vac-Tron HTV 573 PTO Truck: A NEW series of PTO truck driven systems available on Ford or Freightliner chassis. The full line of the HTV (Hydro Truck Vac) series has debris tanks ranging from 300 gallon to 1500 gallon in size. The Power Take Off of the truck drives positive displacement vacuum blowers that produce 1,000 to 3,000 CFM. These units are standard with a high pressure water system, full hydraulic rear door, reverse pressure, and the patented “Big Red” filter housing that cleans the air down to 0.5 microns (best in the industry) before it passes back through the vacuum pump. Air compressors and Hydraulic booms are also available on most of the HTV series units. Patent Pending.
Vac-Tron MT Series (Mud Trucks): New Series with 6 debris tanks sizes of 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000, 3500 and 4000 gallons. Over 45 degree hydraulic tilt, full open hydraulic locking door, PTO powered rotary vane vacuum pump, 25 inches of mercury, and reverse pressure, your chassis or ours. Great for cleaning up drill mud slurry.
A Wobble Head PROTOTYPE which is an innovative digging tool. Use a 6” hose head to dig a 24” hold by swiveling the end of the hose. Patent Pending.
For more information about safer digging with vacuum excavation, contact Vac-Tron Equipment at 888-822-8766 or visit vactron.com.
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Submitted by
Project Scope
• Rehabilitation of 440LF of 12‐inch Asbestos Cement Pipe (ACP)
• Heavy traffic and utility corridor
• Pipe depth of up to 35 feet due to pedestrian tunnel above pipe
• Multiple bends up to 45‐degrees
• Impossible to open cut/ remove & replace
• Jack and bore was priced out – Primus Line reduced budget by 60%
Material Selection
• Primus Line – Polyethylene lined and coated Kevlar
– 3 design / pressure ratings
– 6‐inch to 20‐inch pipelines with at least 15psi
– Both potable and nonpotable systems
Construction Details
• Portals installed in turn lanes and center dividers
• Portals were 12’ x 8’ (2 total)
• Traffic was maintained through busy roundabout
Pipeline Preparation
• Sharp edges must be removed prior to liner installation
• ACP did not require any surface preparation
• Cast iron bends had severe tuberculation
– Vactor pressure nozzle used for initial preparation
– Soft pipe pigs pulled through
Liner Installation
• Liner is folded and taped at factory and shipped on cable reel
• 10k ton wench used to pull liner
• 30 minutes of pulling, only 2k ton of force needed
• 15psi of air pressure to break tape loose inside pipe
• No bonding to host pipe
Termination of Liner
• Epoxy coated carbon steel or stainless steel flanged fittings
• Connects to host pipe with flanged coupling adaptor
• Primus Line flanged fitting is a compression fitting on liner
• 3 hours to install fittings at each portal location
Startup and Testing
• 200psi pressure test for 2 hours
• Disinfected using slug chlorine method
• Both passed on initial tests
Project Summary
• Installation of 440lf of 12‐inch Primus Line
• Rehabilitation of potable water pressure pipe with 200psi rating and 5 bends in host pipe alignment
• Project completed for 60% less than dig and replace (w/ jack and bore)
• Installation by J. Wise Construction using JOC contract
Please call or e‐mail for additional
information, pricing, or ideas
Chris MacDonald
480‐206‐2309
chris@constructionproductmarketing.com
Mike Ambroziak
602‐228‐5040
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Campaign Exceeded Goal by More Than $5 Million
WASHINGTON, D.C.(Feb. 4, 2016) – The Land Trust Alliance, a national land conservation organization working to save the places people love by strengthening land conservation across America, today announced the completion of its first campaign, which raised $40.1 million in new funds. The total is more than $5 million above the campaign goal.
“It’s of course a wonderful thing to celebrate the fact that we overshot our goal by over $5 million,” said Frederic Rich, campaign co-chair and vice chair of the Alliance’s board of directors. “Forty million dollars is an impressive achievement for an organization of this size. But frankly, it’s not the money that matters. It’s what we were able to do with this money.”
Used to increase the pace, improve the quality and ensure the permanence of land conservation, campaign funds were reinvested as they were received across five years. The resulting initiatives – such as making permanent a federal tax incentive for land conservation and establishing the Terrafirma Risk Retention Group – have transformed the entire land trust community.
“The title of this campaign was Together: A Campaign for the Land,” Rich said. “The Alliance itself is all about having the nation’s 1,700 land trusts think of themselves as together in a single, national movement. Every land trust itself is all about a community coming together to save the places that define them. And those places that we save, those are places where people come together and where their differences seem trivial. So if you ask me how we succeeded in this campaign, the answer is absolutely the same: We succeeded because we did it together.”
Leaders of land trusts across the United States already appreciate the differences the campaign has made. Nicole Byrd, executive director of Solano Land Trust in California, said the Alliance “invests in all of us and they are genuinely invested in our success.” And Christine Johnson, president of the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast in Florida, described the Alliance as her “go-to place for making sure that I am doing all that I can to save the land we cherish so much.”
For more information about how the Alliance is helping land trusts save the places people need and love, visit www.landtrustalliance.org.
Campaign leaders included: David H. Anderson, honorary chair; Michael P. Dowling, campaign co-chair; and Frederic C. Rich, campaign co-chair. The campaign cabinet included: Robert A. Ayres; Alan M. Bell; Lauren B. Dachs, campaign vice-chair; Peter O. Hausmann, chair of the National Council; Sherry F. Huber, campaign vice-chair of regional committees; Ted Ladd, campaign vice-chair; and William Mulligan.
Regional campaign committees included chair Ted Ladd, Lisa Cashdan, Scott Dickerson, Jameson S. French, Sherry F. Huber, Laura A. Johnson, Mary McFadden, J.D., Nicholas J. Moore, Julie Sharpe, Steve Small and Peter Stein for the New England region; co-chairs Peter O. Hausmann and Frederic C. Rich, Christopher E. Buck, Marjorie L. Hart, Alice E. Hausmann, Tony Kiser, Fernando Lloveras San Miguel, Caroline P. Niemczyk and Michael A. Polemis for the New York/Mid-Atlantic/Puerto Rico region; co-chairs Alan M. Bell and William Mulligan, David Hartwell, Kathy K. Leavenworth and Judith Stockdale for the Midwest region; chair Lauren B. Dachs, Maria Elena Campisteguy, Anne Kroeker, Glenn Lamb, Richard Leeds, Thomas S. Reeve and Darrell Wood for the Pacific region; and co-chairs David H. Anderson and Robert A. Ayres, Lise H. Aangeenbrug, Laurie Andrews, Michael P. Dowling, Lawrence R. Kueter, Penelope H. Lewis and George S. Olsen for the Rocky Mountain/Texas region.
About the Land Trust Alliance
Founded in 1982, the Land Trust Alliance is a national land conservation organization that works to save the places people love by strengthening land conservation across America. The Alliance represents more than 1,100 member land trusts supported by more than 100,000 volunteers and 5 million members nationwide. The Alliance is based in Washington, D.C. and operates several regional offices. More information about the Alliance is available at www.landtrustalliance.org.
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In-line ramming tool cradle maximizes energy transfer in pipe ramming extraction technique
January 28, 2016 – LAKE MILLS, Wisc.– Pipe ramming tools from HammerHead Trenchless Equipment can now be locked inside a wide range of ready-made extraction cradles manufactured by the company. The extraction cradles, sometimes referred to as “canoes,” enable horizontal direction drilling (HDD) contractors to orient a ramming tool 180 degrees to extract stuck pipe or tooling, assist in product pullback and remove washover casing at the end of the HDD job. Extraction cradles also give pipeline installers the most effective means to slick bore and install cathodic protection (CP) pipe.
Unlike fabricated offset mounts that lose a significant portion of ramming energy laterally, an extraction cradle is mounted directly in line with the pipe or tooling. This alignment transfers impact force from the ramming tool to the pipe or HDD tooling with maximum efficiency.
Compared to other mounting methods, using an extraction cradle means more work gets done, while eliminating time and labor – hours, sometimes days – of fabricating a mounting system.
Alan Goodman, a Global Sales Manager for HammerHead Trenchless Equipment, said the ready-made extraction cradles are reusable and highly versatile. A single cradle can also accommodate a range of both pipe and hammer sizes.
“For instance our 36-inch extraction cradle can mount to 36-inch casing on one end and a 30-inch casing on the other end,” Goodman said. “Then it can be modified further to address other casing sizes by using standard pipe reducers. This means the same cradles can be used with our 26-inch, 24- or 20-inch hammers.”
Slick boring pipeline
One of the most exciting uses of the extraction cradle is in a trenchless pipeline installation method called “slick boring,” an effective, safe method of installing pipeline products, which are routinely protected by a coating supplemented with cathodic protection (CP). A CP system protects a wide variety of metallic structures from corrosion in various environments unless it is compromised.
To install a coated-lined pipe with a pipe ramming tool, a slick bore contractor simply drives a sacrificial, standard casing as a “dummy” into the ground with conventional pipe ramming technique. The contractor removes the ramming tool to place it in the extraction cradle, which has been mounted at the other end of the pipe.
The contractor welds the new coated-lined pipe to the dummy casing that was initially rammed into place. As the hammer locked inside of the cradle extracts the dummy casing from the ground, the dummy casing pulls the coated-lined pipe into place. Slick-boring method limits stress or damage to the pipe or its coating, since they are never subjected to direct impacts from the hammer. The dummy casing, which takes the brunt of the impact force as the casing cuts and drives the casing forward, can often be reused for additional slick boring jobs.
HDD completion insurance
Having an extraction cradle and hammer on hand during challenging HDD operations helps to assure the contractor of completion. “Stuck pipe or tooling is an urgent situation,” Goodman said. “Since there is little fabrication or welding needed, the contractor begins efforts to save the bore, pipe, or tool string as quickly as possible.”
Minutes make the difference in such cases, Goodman said. “There’s no 100 percent guarantee that ramming a stuck pipe or drill stem will save a job. While it’s definitely the best technique available for getting them moving again, the chances of saving the bore hole and freeing pipe or tooling go down with the length of time they remain in the ground. If the contractor doesn’t have a standby extraction cradle and hammer, HammerHead Trenchless Equipment will rush one of each to the site immediately upon getting the call for help. We can also have a technician there on site with them.”
Removing washover casing
HDD contractors drive washover casing to reach more favorable drilling conditions, isolate drilling operations from the formation, protect circulation, and ensure maximum recovery of fluids. Pipe ramming tools mounted in extraction cradles are an effective means of extracting the washover casings at the end of the job.
The HammerHead Trenchless Equipment extraction cradle comes in a variety of sizes and is available from HammerHead Trenchless Equipment or from authorized dealers, worldwide. Authorized dealers can be found on the web at www.hammerheadtrenchless.com or by calling 800.331.6653. (International: + [1] 920.648.4848).
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Pro-liner glass reinforced ultraviolet light cured trenchless pipe liners
February 2, 2016, San Diego, CA – The Monte Vista Group, LLC (MVG) today announced the implementation of the largest, most advanced facility in China for the manufacture of ultraviolet light cured-in-place pipe (UVCIPP) technology. The facility is owned and operated by Beijing Pro-liner Pipetech Co., Ltd., (Pro-liner), a wholly owned subsidiary of Beijing Longkexing Trenchless Engineering Co., Ltd., (http://www.longkexing.com). Pro-liner is the first Chinese-made ultraviolet light cured glass reinforced pipe liner for the trenchless rehabilitation of sewer and storm water pipes in China. The announcement coincides with the beginning of commercial production of liner for sale to the Chinese as well as to other international municipal contractor markets. “After several years of developing the market for UVCIPP in China, we investigated several different products worldwide to manufacture in China. We chose MVG due to their advanced technology, their experience in the industry, and their unique business strategy of building manufacturing facilities for companies like ours who want to make and brand their own technology,” said Mr. Fueshen Wu, President of Pro-liner. “A new facility has been under construction for the past 12 months and now we have begun the manufacturing of the most advanced technology in the world for producing one of the strongest and fasted curing UVCIPP liners anywhere,” said Mr. Yaugfhen Wang, Vice President of Engineering for Pro-liner.
“We are excited to bring our high quality, high strength product to China for the rehabilitation of their underground infrastructure. MVG has been committed to offering the most advanced technology to the trenchless market. We are taking the UVCIPP market to a new level of performance in the products that we license and how the information about those products is shared throughout the entire supply chain with our unique software platform,” said Richard Montemarano, Managing Director of the Monte Vista Group, LLC.
The new Pro-liner product is manufactured in sizes from 150MM to 1500MM in diameter and various thicknesses to meet the high standards required by the Chinese market. In addition, new test results reflect a 30 percent increase in strength over any of the current leading international competitors. “This new technology is the result of my 25 years of experience in developing UV cured glass liners,” said Rene Quitter, Director of Technology for the Monte Vista Group, LLC. “Our company is very excited to be working with the people at Pro-liner. Their focus on quality and on their customers was key for our mutual cooperation.”
The full production of liners began at the end of January and is already attracting the attention of the entire Pacific Rim trenchless community, as well as other international customers.
Beijing Pro-liner Pipetech Co., Ltd., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Beijing Longkexing Trenchless Engineering Co., Ltd. (http://www.longkexing.com). The company provides services within the trenchless industry, including pipeline monitoring, survey, diagnosis and evaluation, trenchless pipeline installation and rehabilitation, pipeline repair and maintenance, and all other services related to underground construction. The company has been a major installer of UVCIPP lining technology for the past five years, leading the Chinese trenchless market in installations and clients.
The Monte Vista Group, LLC (MVG) is a California LLC specializing in the building and licensing of UVCIPP technology for U.S. and international markets. The company employs a highly specialized team of engineers and trenchless experts who bring the MVG technology to large trenchless contractors and other industries whose objective is to build their own lining products for the UVCIPP markets. For more information contact The Monte Vista Group, LLC at 619-972-6277 or visit www.montevistagroup.com.
