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Rainwater harvesting as a means of water conservation will continue to become increasingly important in the United States as many areas of the country have now reached their limitations and will find it difficult to sustain future population growth. This is particularly evident in arid states and drought-prone regions that have suffered shortages in recent years. Even under normal water conditions, water managers in thirty-six states anticipate water shortages within the next five years. In addition, climate change, significant infrastructure decay, and pollution of existing sources will stretch the current supply and quality of water with the subsequent effects on human health, economic activity and the environment.

When Reinhart, the third largest food service distributor in the United States, received a contract with a national restaurant chain, the company needed additional storage space at its Reinhart FoodService’s NATCO facility (New Bedford, MA) by the beginning of January 2010. It was decided that a 27,600-square-foot addition to Reinhart’s frozen and non-frozen foods warehouse should be built.

Improving the level of flood protection for San Joaquin County communities has taken another step forward with participation by future community areas in the flood planning process. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is currently scoping a levee improvement feasibility study for the lower San Joaquin River. Completion of the study requires funding participation by local flood control agencies. In response to the USACE’s local funding requirement, twelve urban San Joaquin County flood control districts entered into an agreement to cooperatively fund the local share. In addition to the urban districts, Reclamation District 2062, a district that currently has less than 10,000 residences but is considered urbanizing, recently joined the ranks of participating agencies in the local cost sharing agreement. By including both urban and urbanizing areas in the process, the communities along the lower San Joaquin River have taken another step beyond other Central Valley areas in bettering the level of flood protection they provide their citizens.

In 2002, the Florida Department of Transportation began a multi-year construction program designed to modernize Interstates 10 and 110 in Escambia County. The program came to close at the end of 2009 and represented more than $400 million in construction work to improve mobility and enhance safety on the local interstate highways.

A bill, S. 3481, making its way through the senate contains legislation designed to clarify the federal government’s responsibility to pay reasonable fees for stormwater services provided by local utilities.

CULTEC Inc. has released its new Bed Design Aides that show how to draw Contactor® and Recharger® storm-water management systems in CAD for the customers who wish to do it manually. The Bed Design Aides are available for the following models: Contactor 100 and Recharger 150, 280, 330XL and V8. They offer engineers a visual starting point to help lay out a typical underground chamber system. They detail installed chamber lengths, typical center-to-center spacing and a list of materials.

As I write this, it’s been exactly two months since the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, claiming eleven lives and kicking off the worst environmental disaster in United States history.