"A USA Today investigation reveals that seven decades after scientists came to the US during World War II to create plutonium for the first atomic bomb, a new generation is struggling with an even more daunting task: cleaning up the radioactive mess.

Several senior engineers cited design problems that could bring the treatment plant's operations to a halt before much of the waste is treated."

"If the Keystone XL oil pipeline were approved today, residents in the six states along its route would not receive equal treatment from TransCanada, the company that wants to build the project."

"In Kansas, for example, lawmakers gave TransCanada a 10-year tax exemption, which means the state won't receive any property tax revenue from the pipeline. Meanwhile, each of the other five states—Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas—would earn between $14 million and $63 million a year, according to U.S. State Department estimates."

"The World Trade Center Transportation Hub is behind schedule and hundreds of millions over budget.

The dual pressure of time and cost-overruns might help explain why the Port Authority has decided to eliminate the fireproofing of the huge above-ground steel structure that 200,000 people will pass under every day." The Transit Hub contract reads that the structure "should exclude the cost of fireproofing or intumescent coating from the structural steel."

However, the head of the Port Authority told ABC 7 Eyewitness News "Of course!" after being asked, "So, it's going to be fireproofed?"

"A Sacramento Bee investigation has found that the California Department of Transportation technician who conducted key testing on the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has been discipilined for fabricating test results on other projects.

The technician, Duane Wiles, also failed to verify that his testing gauge was operating properly, as required by Caltrans to ensure the gauge's accuracy, before he examined parts of the Bay Bridge tower foundation."

Over the past year, severe weather in the Washington D.C. area has led to frequent power outages, and called attention to the service of utility provider Pepco.  "One of Pepco's standard explanations for the frequency and duration of its outages -- dense tree cover -- does not hold up under scrutiny, a three-month Washington Post analysis has found. By far, Pepco equipment failures, not trees, caused the most sustained power interruptions last year, records show."

A two-part series by the Detroit Free Press found that "despite hundreds of oil and natural-gas pipeline accidents in the last decade, there are no federal regulations governing how far major pipelines should be from homes, or schools or businesses."   An interactive graphic show where oil and gas pipelines run through the state of Michigan, and where leaks have occurred.

An investigation by David Andreatta of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.) found hundreds of vacant, boarded-up homes in Rochester are accruing huge water bills because the city Water Bureau does not turn off the water at many homes, and continues to bill the homes based on estimated water use when it does turn off the water. Some vacant houses are running up water bills in excess of $10,000 annually in a city where the average occupied house pays $317 a year for water.

When it comes to using water, in Milwaukee the largest users do not have the largest homes or properties, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis by Ben Poston revealed. It’s the opposite: The biggest users are in the poorest census tracts in the city and are disproportionately minorities. Why? Those homes are more likely to have leaky pipes and poor quality fixtures in the home. The analysis was prompted by a push by the city to increase water rates by 25%.

Michelle Breidenbach of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) mined state financial documents to show the abuse of New York State's Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund. It's not "dedicated" at all. Years of raiding and borrowing have left just 22 percent of the fund to fix the state roads.

Patricia Decker and Robert Porterfield have found the construction project on the east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will be the most expensive project ever done in the state of California. While overall costs have been presented to the public, Decker and Porterfield report that the interest on the money borrowed to pay for construction will double the price of the bridge, making the final price tag about $12 billion. In several stories, Decker and Porterfield outline the history and costs of the span, as well as investigations into who profits most from the construction. The investigation, conducted ... Read more ...