Federal Highway Administrator visits Gold Star Bridge project
Kimberly Drelich
New London — Federal Highway Administrator Sean McMaster
visited the Gold Star Memorial Bridge on Wednesday and said he hopes other
states follow Connecticut's lead in rehabilitating and enhancing infrastructure
critical to the local and national economy.
During a news conference with views of the bridge, McMaster
said the
project has tremendous value, not just locally and regionally, but
nationally due to daily freight and car traffic on Interstate 95. He said he
"couldn’t be happier" about the progress that's been made so far.
McMaster said the project will support local commuters, as
the region sees growth from Electric Boat, as well as help with the flow of
traffic through the state.
The approximately $900
million project to rehabilitate the northbound span between New London and
Groton is the largest project in the state, said state Department of
Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto.
Slated for completion at the end of 2030, it includes
replacing the bridge deck, bearings, approach slabs, signs and lighting,
repairing and strengthening steel in the girder spans, repairing concrete and
upgrading barriers and fencing.
He highlighted that the span cannot carry overweight loads,
so the project — which will restore access for oversized vehicles so they don't
have to take a detour — is needed for the interstate highway system and
commerce. The project will extend the lifespan of the bridge for another 50 to
70 years.
McMaster said the federal government is funding 90% of the
project and pledged the government's support throughout the project to ensure
it gets delivered on time.
McMaster, who called the bridge construction "one of
the most significant projects in the country," said taking care of
critical infrastructure projects around the country is important.
He called the interstate and highway system "the
lifeblood of our economy," so the federal government wants to make sure
states are investing in "back to basics" projects that matter to the
greatest number of people around the country and in their communities.
McMaster said the Gold Star Bridge project is exactly the
type of project that President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of
Transportation Sean Duffy are looking for investment in.
"It's the type of project I would like replicated in
other areas around the country, because this matters to our people, to
Connecticut, and to the rest of the country," he said.
When asked about safety and the recent death of a state DOT
worker in Fairfield, Elvin Hernandez, McMaster said one of the most critical
areas of work for the Federal Highway Administration is the focus on making
sure workers are safe.
McMaster, who was visiting for a safety summit, said a lot
of workers' safety relies not just on infrastructure, but on the individuals
who decide to get behind the wheel and ensure they are slowing down, paying
attention, and moving over especially when near workers or work zones.
He said the Federal Highway Administration has been offering
additional trainings to states to make sure their workers are safe.
McMaster said that in 2024, 850 people died in work zones in
the United States, which he called "way too high." He said that
number is down from about 900 the year before and the administration is focused
on the issue.
He stressed the importance of doing better as a community to
make sure people "are able to go to work, take care of our roads and
bridges, and go home every single night."
Construction layoffs hit lowest level since 2000
Contractors laid off 99,000 workers in August, a nearly 46%
drop from a year ago and the lowest number since the Bureau of Labor Statistics
began reporting on job openings in December 2000, according to Anirban Basu,
chief economist for Associated Builders and Contractors.
Construction
counted 251,000 open jobs on the final day of August, according to the BLS
report released Tuesday. The number of open positions for which contractors
were actively hiring was down 48,000 month over month but up 38,000 year over
year.
Of all construction jobs, 2.9% went unfilled at the end of
August. The number of open
jobs was the highest since March, said Basu. The combination of openings
and layoffs paints a picture of employers desperate to cling to the workers
they have.
Dive Insight:
The BLS data indicates that both the demand for and supply
of construction workers has decreased, Basu said.
“These dynamics may seem contradictory but are consistent
with ongoing weakness in the residential segment coupled with booming data
center activity and the resulting scarcity of certain skilled trades workers,”
Basu said in an ABC analysis of the data.
Nonresidential builders said they would likely increase
their staffing levels in the next six months, according to ABC’s Contractor
Confidence Index. As a result, Basu predicted labor costs will continue to
surge, especially for in-demand occupations such as electricians and HVAC
workers.
Macrina Wilkins, director of market insights for the
Associated General Contractors of America, has said for several months that the
data indicates firms are desperate to keep the workers they have, while still
monitoring the market for a potential shift in the availability of new workers.
“The combination of an all-time low layoff rate and an
increase in the job openings rate suggests contractors are still eager to
maintain or increase their current headcounts,” Wilkins told Construction Dive
via email. “Firms still have positions they need to fill but are having
difficulty matching those openings with qualified workers.”
A low hiring rate could indicate the problem Basu touched
on, meaning challenges finding those with in-demand skills.
“While a low hiring rate often suggests a lack of current
demand for workers, in this case it may also reflect the difficulty contractors
are having finding qualified employees at a time of heightened immigration
enforcement and a record-low unemployment rate for construction workers of 3.1%
in August,” Wilkins said.
Senate reaches bipartisan deal on permitting bill to speed approvals of new energy projects
MATTHEW DALY,Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators from both parties said Wednesday
they have reached a deal on legislation aimed at speeding up permitting reviews
for new energy and infrastructure projects that now face yearslong delays, as
lawmakers seek to meet growing demand for electricity and other forms of
energy.
The bill, proponents argue, would cut down the arduous
timeline for getting big energy projects off the ground at a time when demand
is rising because of mushrooming data centers for artificial intelligence. The
bill would ensure AI data centers are forced to pay for the increased
electricity they use and would mark a significant change to a landmark
environmental law that critics say slows the process of building energy
projects.
Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, chair
of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the bill “a major step
toward making it faster and more efficient and easier to build infrastructure
projects” of all types while maintaining important environmental protections.
Vote on the bill won't happen until after the midterms
“The American people sent us here to do big things. This is
a big thing. It’s monumental and it’s legacy-setting,” Capito said at a news
conference at the Capitol where she was joined by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of
Utah and Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sheldon Whitehouse
of Rhode Island. The four senators lead the chamber's energy and environment
panels.
Heinrich said the bill “will mean more energy on the grid,
more good-paying jobs, and lower electricity costs for families and businesses.
And as data centers drive demand for more power, it will ensure they pay their
fair share of the grid upgrades they require — not leave that bill to American
families.”
A vote on the bill won’t happen until after the midterm
elections — reflecting the fraught political reality as elections loom that
could change partisan control of both chambers. But the bill represents a rare
instance of bipartisanship over the country’s energy policy as lawmakers from
both parties agree on the need to build new energy projects of all types.
Lee, who chairs the energy committee, said he is confident
the bill will be approved in a lame-duck session in November, noting its
bipartisan support and encouragement from business and environmental groups.
Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the environment panel, also
was hopeful but said Democrats were still seeking clarity on how the bill will
prevent President Donald Trump's administration from blocking wind and solar
projects.
He and Heinrich, the top energy Democrat, have decried what
they call Trump's “reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy” that
includes repeated actions to block large-scale wind projects under construction
off the East Coast. The administration suspended five offshore wind projects in
December, citing unspecified national security concerns.
The projects later moved forward after federal judges
intervened. A federal judge also struck down Trump’s executive order blocking
wind energy projects early in his second term.
Brad Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation,
an environmental advocacy group, panned the deal, saying it “appears to adopt a
fossil fuel industry wish-list.” He said the bill could roll back protections
for clean water and endangered species, limit judicial review and curtail the
power of the Environmental Protection Agency and states to consider impacts of
energy projects.
Drew Maloney, president and CEO of the Edison Electric
Institute, which represents for-profit utilities, said he was encouraged by
provisions to streamline environmental permitting and “create project
certainty.” The group is reviewing the transmission provisions to see how they
affect efforts to deliver electricity to its 250 million customers, he said.
In a statement, the White House said the bill would “deliver
transformative policies to lower Americans’ energy and housing costs, drive new
construction and investment in American infrastructure, and create American
jobs.”
Trump's wind opposition played a role in delaying a deal
Trump's opposition to wind power has been a consistent
stumbling block to a deal on permitting reform, which Democrats say can only go
forward if the administration agrees to allow previously approved projects to
move forward.
Trump recently offered to ease his administration’s holdup
on renewable energy projects, in part to entice Democrats to agree to a
permitting deal. But it was unclear how long the offer would last and whether
it would change after the election results are known.
Whitehouse called the administration's proposal reasonable
but said the overall issue remains “unresolved.”
Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources
Defense Council, said his group was studying the bill’s details, but said:
“Ensuring the agreement puts an end to the Trump administration’s war on clean
energy — the cheapest and fastest sources of energy — will be a necessary
element to any deal.”
Capito was confident such obstacles can be overcome.
Both parties recognize that for far too long, “America has
had a permitting system filled with delays, expenses, red tape, uncertainty,''
she said. “Too long, too expensive. And we’ve seen projects that should be
finished more quickly (take) decades” to complete.
The Senate bill would limit legal challenges under the
National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law that requires
federal agencies to consider a project’s possible environmental impacts before
it is approved. The law has increasingly been blamed for stalling projects of
all types.
Challenges under the National Historic Preservation Act also
would be restricted. The law protects Native American cultural treasures and
other important artifacts.
The bill would ease siting of interstate transmission lines
and strengthen the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to review
major projects at the same time as state reviews, helping needed projects move
through the overall permitting process more quickly.
The bill also would require data centers to pay for all
associated transmission costs, preventing costs from being passed on to
families or businesses.
The noise was so loud, ShawnaLee Kwashnak thought a jet
engine had landed in her driveway.
“I remember being woken up from a sound sleep that, in that
moment, I could only describe as a tornado or freight train smashing into my
house, except there was no storm,” Kwashnak said.
“Then the next thought is, ‘What the heck is a jet engine
doing in my driveway?’ It was that loud. It vibrated the house,” she said.
The sound started after midnight on July 12. It woke up
residents in Oxford, Middlebury and Naugatuck and lasted for approximately 45
minutes.
“By the time it stops, it's such a relief. But then you’re
lying there wondering, ‘What happened and is it going to happen again?’” she
said. “Nothing you could think of made any sense.”
Kwashnak lives in Middlebury, about two miles away from a
compressor station in Oxford. The facility increases the pressure of natural
gas, helping it move long distances along the Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline – a 1,131-mile system
that transports natural gas through New England, New York and New Jersey.
On the night of July 12, the Oxford compressor station had
two equipment failures, according to incident data collected by the U.S. Department of
Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The data shows malfunctions caused the release of more than
35 million cubic feet of natural gas in less than an hour. That's roughly the
same amount of natural gas used by 450 Connecticut homes in an entire year,
according to 2024 data from the U.S.
Energy Information Administration.
“That's a huge amount of a gas that we ought not to be
breathing in,” said Kirsten Ek, a hospitalist physician with Connecticut Health
Professionals for Climate Action.
The incident is the largest release of natural gas in
Connecticut reported to the federal government in the last 10 years and in the
top 10 percent of all nationwide releases reported since 2010.
Residents near the Oxford plant are raising concerns about a
lack of communication after the incident.
The Oxford release happened as another compressor station in
Connecticut, located in Brookfield and operated by Iroquois Pipeline Operating
Company, has been making headlines as local residents fight a
proposal to expand that facility.
Oxford station experienced two equipment failures on July 12
Both equipment failures involved the Oxford station’s
emergency shutdown system, according to the federal government's incident data.
The system is designed to respond to abnormalities like unintentional pressure
drops or natural gas leaks.
The first malfunction was a loose connection on a newly
installed emergency pull switch that triggered the station to go into emergency
shutdown mode at approximately 12:47am.
When an emergency shutdown system works properly, it
automatically stops the compressor units, isolates the station away from the
pipeline, and vents the remaining natural gas through the station’s discharge
pipes.
But a valve meant to seal the station off from the pipeline
failed to close completely, causing natural gas to flow from the pipeline,
through the station’s discharge pipes, and out into the atmosphere for
approximately 53 minutes.
The loud jet engine-like sound that woke up residents was
likely caused by the rapid release of natural gas moving from high to low
pressure as it left the pipeline and entered the atmosphere, according to Talor
Musil, field manager at the Environmental Health Project, a nonprofit
organization that helps residents whose health has been impacted by oil and gas
development.
The valve remained open until approximately 1:40am, when
personnel were able to manually close it.
Enbridge, the company that owns the natural gas pipeline,
told Connecticut Public in an email that the station “experienced an unplanned
outage” and that “at no time was there a threat to public safety.”
Residents and activists say they were never told how much natural gas was released or what steps have been taken to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
“It should be transparent and there should actually be an
apology,” Kwashnak said.
“You’re in your home, in your yard, and you’re supposed to
feel safe. Something like that goes on, it changes things,” she said.
How natural gas affects the environment and your body
Natural gas is a fossil fuel that’s mostly made up of
methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming by
trapping heat in the earth’s atmosphere.
It’s also highly combustible.
“It is known to cause violent explosions when it's in high
concentration and catches fire,” said hospitalist physician, Kirsten Ek.
When it comes to health impacts, methane is known to
displace oxygen in the body. Low or moderate concentrations of methane can
cause dizziness and nausea. High concentrations can worsen headaches, cause
confusion, loss of coordination, faster breathing, heart stress and eventually
a loss of consciousness, according to Ek.
“The people around that release may have experienced a lot
of those early symptoms, and if they were close enough into the high
concentration, they may have experienced more intense headaches, nausea,
confusion, things like that,” Ek said.
Methane can also cause reactions that create ground-level
ozone, another greenhouse gas that causes respiratory issues.
“When you breathe it in, [it's] toxic to the lungs. It’s
like getting a sunburn inside your lungs,” Ek said.
Connecticut already has some of the highest levels of ozone
pollution in the United States, with over half a million children breathing in
unhealthy air, according to a new report by the American Lung Association.
Middlebury resident Kwashnawk said her throat was burning
the day after the release, a possible symptom of being exposed to another
pollutant in natural gas – volatile organic compounds, also known as VOCs.
“Short-term effects that could occur include, eye, nose,
throat irritation, headaches or nausea, even loss of coordination or
dizziness,” said Musil at the Environmental Health Project.
“There absolutely is risk involved,” she said.
Who’s accountable and what happens next?
When natural gas is released from a compressor station
during an emergency shutdown, it’s referred to as a ‘blowdown’ rather than a
‘leak’ or ‘spill’.
That’s because the natural gas is intentionally released as
part of the emergency shutdown process.
Blowdowns are not directly regulated by Connecticut’s
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, according to an agency
spokesperson, who stated that blowdowns fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S.
Department of Transportation.
A federal agency under that department, PHMSA, is
responsible for setting and enforcing standards related to the safe
transportation of energy. It also collects data on unintentional gas releases
that exceed 3 million cubic feet.
But the agency declined to comment for this story, referring
Connecticut Public to the Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA).
PURA also declined to comment, stating the issue might come
before them for adjudication.
Although PURA is known for regulating utilities in
Connecticut, it’s also responsible for pipeline safety in the state.
It’s not immediately clear if the blowdown violated the
Clean Air Act, which regulates air emissions and allows the Environmental
Protection Agency to establish air quality standards.
Any deviation from the act is required to be reported to
DEEP within 24 hours or 10 days.
“At this time, the operator has not submitted a Clean Air
Act deviation report to DEEP in relation to this matter,” a DEEP spokesperson
said.
Environmental activists from the the Sierra Club's
Connecticut chapter say they’d like to see more transparency around blowdowns,
including publicly available information on how much methane gas is released
and notifying nearby residents.
“These events can be frightening to those who live nearby,”
said Samantha Dynowski, state director of Sierra Club Connecticut, in a
statement.
“They can also have dangerous impacts on those with
pre-existing conditions who are especially vulnerable to poor air quality,” she
said.