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Maximum Efficiency, Minimum Expense: On Fanwall Technology Page 38 Laser Scanning Comes to Mount Vernon Page 21 Space Launch System a Record Build for Michoud Page 27

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March

2015 T 9

ransCanada to seek US approval for $600M Upland Pipeline

VOLUME 80 • Number 3

Even as the controversy rages over its Keystone XL Pipeline, TransCanada Corp. has pitched a northbound Upland pipeline for U.S. approval.

Official Magazine of

Founded 1915 Dedicated To The Precept "That Anything Being Done - Can Be Done Better" Business and Editorial Office: 4701 Midlothian Turnpike, Ste. 4 Crestwood, IL 60445 Phone: 708-293-1720 | Fax: 708-293-1432 E-mail: info@chiefengineer.org www.chiefengineer.org Chief Engineer Magazine (ISSN 1553-5797) is published 12 times per year for Chief Engineers Association of Chicagoland by Fanning Communications 4701 Midlothian Turnpike, Ste 4 Crestwood, IL 60445 www.fanningcommunications.com Publisher

Staff Writer

john@chiefengineer.org

marys@chiefengineer.org

John J. Fanning Editor In Chief

Karl J. Paloucek

karlp@chiefengineer.org

Editor/Graphic Designer

Mariah M. Beavers

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Editor/Graphic Designer

De'Anna Clark

deannac@chiefengineer.org

Mary Stroka

Marketing/Public Relations

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alexb@chiefengineer.org

Applications Programmer

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Subscription rate is $36.00 per year in the United States and Canada; $110.00 per year in all other foreign countries. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 4701 Midlothian Tpk, Ste. 4, Crestwood, IL 60445.

All statements, including product claims, are those of the person or organization making the statement or claim. The publisher does not adopt any such statements as its own, and any such statement or claim does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publisher. Copyright Fanning Communications, 2014.

21 MS

ount Vernon Uses Lasers to can Mansion Down to the Nail

Architects and preservationists at Mount Vernon, the estate of George Washington, are employing 21st-century technology to scan every inch of the nearly 300-year-old site.

38

The Multi-faceted Advatanges of a Fan Wall Install

When the folks at Career Education had to consider repairing or replacing their 125-horsepower HVAC fans, the advantages of installing a new Fanwall system were plentiful and obvious.

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president's message intel briefing letters to the chiefs techline new products events ashrae update american street guide boiler room annex advertisers list V olume 80 ¡ N umber 3

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President's

message

Greetings,

Board of Directors OFFICERS

Jim Cacciottolo President 312-307-4333 Dennis Nolan Vice President 312-375-6260 Daniel Carey Vice President 312-744-2672 Thomas Phillips Recording Secretary 312-617-7563 William Rowan Treasurer 312-322-6382 John Hickey Financial Secretary 312-327-2357 Kenneth Botta Corresponding Secretary 312-446-3979 Doug Kruczek Sergeant-At-Arms 312-266-7710

DIRECTORS

March has finally arrived and milder weather is just around the corner.

This time of the year is very challenging for chief engineers. We still have cold temps, snow and ice, but we also need to prepare for the upcoming cooling season.

Luckily, we have the support of our Associate members who assist us and make these transitions much easier. The recently updated Quick Shopper is a great resource for locating them to assist with your maintenance needs. Keep the print copy handy or check out the website (www.chiefengineer.org) for a complete list of vendors.

The CEAC Board members met in early February for our annual retreat to discuss the organization’s plans for the reminder of the year. The committees made their presentations regarding this year’s educational dinner meetings, new members, scholarships, meeting sponsorships, the golf outing and financials. Events for the year were finalized and we're excited for the year ahead.

That being said, we’re always looking for event sponsors to help us offset the costs presented to us every month. These events can be quite costly when hosting more than 300 members. If any Associate member is interested in co-sponsoring future events, please contact Ms. Alex Boerner at alexb@chiefengineer.org. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Also in February was our annual Skatefest. Thanks to our co-sponsors ABM Onsite Services, H-O-H Water Technology, NIULPE and Sunbelt Rentals for supporting us in this event. A special thanks to chairman Tom Phillips and his committee for all of their hard work to make this event a huge success.

Spring also brings our annual St. Patrick's Day meeting on Wednesday, March 18, at the Irish American Heritage Center. Please make your plans to attend. This is usually the most attended dinner event of the year. I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Joseph Weber Jr. Past President 312-492-6994

Kevin Kenzinger Warden 312-296-5603

Angelo Saccameno Trustee 708-579-5993

Brian Staunton Warden 312-768-6451

Lawrence McMahon Curator 312-814-4813

Ralph White Warden 708-579-0259

And finally, let’s not forget the men and women serving our nation for our freedom and protection. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Brendan Winters Doorkeeper 773-457-6403

Brian Keaty Warden 312-806-4919

Sincerely,

Barbara Hickey Doorkeeper 312-567-8996

Bryan McLaughlin Warden 773-255-0096

Our Vendor Fair is scheduled for Wednesday, April 15, at Gaelic Park.

Committee chairman John Hickey and his committee have been working hard making a few minor changes to last year’s fair to ensure another fantastic turnout. Please make your reservations early to guarantee your participation in this year’s wonderful event.

Jim Cacciottolo

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intel briefing Energy Department says video points to single drum breach at WIPP. A U.S. Department of Energy official stated February 12 that an ongoing investigation determined that the February 2014 radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico appears to have been caused by a single drum of waste breach.

Workers are continuing the decontamination process and are targeting 2016 for some operations to resume. ...................................................................................

Oil spill results in $65,000 worth of fines and cleanup costs for Jackson Company.

Officials reported February 12 that Industrial Steel Treating Co., will pay roughly $60,000 in cleanup costs and $5,000 in fines to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality following a May 2014 cooler maintenance accident that caused 800 gallons of motor oil and hydraulic fluid to leak into the Grand River.

Officials had previously estimated that the cleanup costs would total $20,000. ...................................................................................

Water partially restored in Dixmoor after main break.

A water main break in south Dixmoor February 12 prompted the water department to shut off service to about 3,600 residents. An unspecified number of residents remained without water February 13 while crews worked to repair the line and fully restore service. ...................................................................................

Sioux Falls rescinds water boil order.

The City of Sioux Falls Public Works Department rescinded February 12 its precautionary boil order that was issued following a February 11 water main break. Water samples that were taken in the main break area tested negative for bacteria. ...................................................................................

22 Marines exposed to fire retardant in California accident.

Twenty-two U.S. Marines were treated for exposure to halon, a fire retardant gas, February 12 during a training exercise after an extinguishing system accidentally went off in an assault vehicle at the U.S. Marine Corps Air GroundCombat Center in Twentynine Palms, California. Authorities reported that an equipment malfunction caused the fire suppression system to go off inside the amphibious assault vehicle.

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16 million mobile devices infected by malware.

Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Security Labs released a report and found that approximately 16 million mobile devices worldwide were infected by malware, with a 25 percent increase in infections in mobile devices in 2014. Researchers also found that command and control (C&C) protocols were more sophisticated and mobile spyware increased, among other findings. ...................................................................................

RIG exploit kit source code leaked online.

Trustwave researchers analyzed an alleged leak of a source code for an RIG exploit kit and determined that the code is legitimate after the individual published the code after attempting to sell it online.

The leaker also purported that the exploit kit included exploits for two Internet Explorer, two Adobe Flash Player, one Microsoft Silverlight, and two Java vulnerabilities. ...................................................................................

Congress OKs Keystone pipeline bill.

The U.S. Congress approved legislation February 11 to expedite the Keystone XL pipeline, an $8 billion project that would transport oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, through Nebraska and into the Gulf Coast. ...................................................................................

DEQ tightens rules on residential oil-gas drilling.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s Supervisor of Wells announced February 10 that oil and gas drilling in highly populated residential areas in the State will require additional protections for neighbors, including providing notice to local governments before projects commence, groundwater monitoring, containing drill cuttings and fluids in tanks, among other regulations. ...................................................................................

Google Play, browser flaws expose Android devices to remote code execution.

Researchers at Rapid7 reported that vulnerabilities in Google Play due to a lack of appropriate X-FrameOptions (XFO) headers combined with a universal cross-site scripting (UXSS) vulnerability in browsers shipped with Android versions prior to 4.4 (KitKat), or a cross-site scripting (XSS) bug in Google Play,

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could be leveraged by attackers to remotely install arbitrary Android application packages (APKs) on smartphones. Attacks can be prevented by logging out of the Google account prior to using the affected browsers, or by using Mozilla FireFox or Chrome instead.

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Simplocker ransomware for Android returns with new version.

Avast researchers reported that over 5,000 unique users were infected by a newly discovered Simplocker ransomware variant for Android that poses as an Adobe Flash Player update, employs unique encryption keys to make unlocking difficult, and displays a fake notification from the FBI about suspicious files and copyright infringement to fool victims into paying the $200 ransom. ...................................................................................

Phone, internet restored to 20,000+ in Kona, including 911.

Hawaiian Telecom landline telephone and Internet services were restored in the Kona area from Waikoloa to Pahala February 11 after a severed fiber optic cable affected approximately 20,000 phone and 5,500 Internet customers and downed 9-1-1 services for more than six hours. Technicians laid more than 500 feet of new cable as they worked to repair the severed line and restore service. ...................................................................................

Fire Department: Sprinklers kept store fire from spreading.

The Tucson Fire Department credits a store’s sprinkler system with keeping a fire in check until crews arrived to put it out. The department says firefighters responding to a water flow alarm at a BigLots store on South Harrison Road early morning Feb. 19 found smoke coming from the rear of the building. Firefighters found heavy smoke inside the store and a fire in the rear of the building, which was full of merchandise. Cause of the fire is under investigation and there's no estimate on cost of fire damage. ...................................................................................

Kings Mall in Ulster reopens after gas leak resolved.

About 200 people were evacuated from the Kings Mall in the Town of Ulster February 11 after ice fell from a roof at the mall and onto a gas truck manifold causing a natural gas leak that affected two commercial

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customers. Utility crews repaired the leak and the mall reopened about two hours later. ...................................................................................

Hattiesburg weighing next step in wastewater treatment.

An engineering firm is asking Hattiesburg, Miss., leaders to approve a site for a new wastewater treatment plant. The Hattiesburg American reports Neel-Schaffer engineer-manager Nathan Husman asked city council and Mayor Johnny DuPree to approve two sites as options for the plant. Husman, however, is focusing on a primary site located on cityowned land just north of the eastern-most lagoon cell.

The city council will study the proposal. The projected cost to prepare the site for eventual construction of the facility: $23.5 million. ...................................................................................

Cubs ask judge to deny request to stop Wrigley Field work.

The Chicago Cubs have asked a judge to deny a request from two rooftop bars looking to stop the team from putting up a video scoreboard and advertising signs at Wrigley Field. The rooftop owners last week asked for the restraining order, saying a lawsuit they filed against the team’s owners will take too long to go to trial before renovations at the historic baseball stadium are complete. The Chicago Tribune reports the Cubs said in court papers that the bars haven’t provided evidence they will “suffer any harm.”

The rooftops say the signs will block their Wrigley views. The Cubs also say there’s no immediate threat because the team’s first home game isn't until April 5.

Work at Wrigley would add two video scoreboards and four advertising signs. ...................................................................................

Hole shuts down highway, reopens Virginia City mining debate.

The closure of a state highway between Carson City and Virginia City has reopened a debate about the impacts of new digging for gold and silver around the historic mining town. Nevada Department of Transportation and Storey County officials said Feb. 18 that regardless of the cause of the damage, the repair of Highway 342 is a top priority. They’re hopeful traffic will be moving again within a month.

Critics insist mining in a nearby pit by Comstock Mining may be at least partially to blame. ..................................................................................

3/4/15 11:59 AM

Letters

to the

Chiefs

Dear Friends:

s s and their familie ry Service member lita Mi y the sit of ro lf ne ha On be u for your ge Guard, I thank yo their of the IL National ce Members and rvi Se r pting� ou once again for “ado families. ntinued support aze us with your co Each year, you am n and dedication for th your compassio of reaching out wi a joyous Christmas ha litary Families ve Mi r ou th t tha g rin ensu three years, and wi course of the last t or pp su to le season. Over the en ab this year, I have be th the gifts donated amilies/veterans wi s/f er mb me ce rvi se 0 e 40 se ly to ate re im he approx ky to be t cards. I am so luc gifts of toys and gif their faces when on ss ine pp e and ha their families. the look of surpris nded the gifts for ha e ar s er mb me service tly at this time is grea nking about them r. nte Ce ce tan sis Your kindness of thi As by the Family d an m a the by ing er ed off appreciat g out and le like you reachin op pe ers of mb e me us ca ce be rvi It is t the se we are able to assis . ea ar helping hand that s in thi and the veterans and their families, tion like further informa estions, or would ate sit he t no do e If you have any qu Center, pleas ce tan sis As ly mi Fa about our y time. to contact me at an Once again, thank

you.

Sincerely, Janice Laging Center Specialist Family Assistance

8

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News

TransCanada to seek US approval for $600M Upland Pipeline

By Blake Nicholson and Jame MacPherson

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The Canadian company behind the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline will seek U.S. government approval for another pipeline — this one going north.

providing sufficient pipeline capacity to improve supply security for eastern Canadian and U.S. refiners, and reduce the need for foreign imports,” TransCanada said in a statement.

Industry officials in North Dakota say the proposed Upland Pipeline could reduce reliance on the railroads to ship crude following recent concerns about safety.

The company last year sought commitments from shippers and said in its quarterly earnings report last Friday that the effort was successful. TransCanada hopes to have the Upland Pipeline operating in 2018, pending approval from the U.S. State Department, North Dakota’s Public Service Commission and Canada’s National Energy Board. The company plans to submit an application to the State Department in the second quarter of this year.

TransCanada Corp.’s proposed $600 million Upland Pipeline would begin near the northwestern North Dakota oil hub of Williston and go north into Canada about 200 miles. At peak operation it would transport up to 300,000 barrels of oil daily, connecting with other pipelines including the Energy East pipeline across Canada.

“We expect Upland and Energy East to play a key role in

TransCanada has been trying for years to get U.S. approval for the 1,179-mile Keystone XL, which would connect Canada’s tar sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast but has sparked (continued on Page 10)

TransCanada, the company behind the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, is seeking U.S. approval for its northbound Upland pipeline. (AP Photo/ Sue Ogrocki, File)

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environmental objections. Congress last week approved construction but President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the measure.

about 1 million barrels of oil could be moved by pipelines from North Dakota to markets across the U.S., Ness and Kringstad said.

TransCanada spokesman Davis Sheremata on Thursday said the company can’t speculate on whether it might run into similar problems with Upland. Company President and CEO Russ Girling last week told analysts and reporters that he hopes the drawn-out Keystone XL process is “an anomaly.”

That would help displace rail shipments of North Dakota oil.

Trains hauling crude from the state’s rich oil fields have been involved in major accidents in Virginia, West Virginia, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Alabama, as well as in Canada, where 47 people were killed by an explosive derailment in 2013 in LacMegantic, Quebec.

“Obviously, the market isn’t waiting for the regulators to catch up with their decisions — they’re moving the oil now,” he said.

North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness on Thursday called the Upland proposal a needed project that would move the state’s crude to “great markets” in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. North Dakota, the nation’s No. 2 oil state behind Texas, is producing about 1.2 million barrels of crude daily. Several pipeline projects are proposed to move the oil, 80 percent of which now is being hauled by rail, according to North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad.

The Keystone XL would move 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada south, as well as about 100,000 barrels of domestic oil daily from North Dakota’s Bakken region. With Upland, a total of

“Producers want to put oil on pipelines to get it to these key markets,” said Ness, whose group represents more than 500 companies working in western North Dakota. “We’ve just got to get them permitted.”

DID YOU KNOW? You can view, download and print photos from Chief Engineers Association of Chicagoland meetings online. Just visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/37163962@ N02/sets/ or visit chiefengineer.org and click on the images at the bottom of the page.

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News

Pekin’s ‘Sugar House’ Now Large Ethanol Producer

By Steve Targer

PEKIN, Ill. (AP) — The old Sugar House has been through a lot of changes over the years.

That’s the name “old timers” like Larry Whitehouse still use to describe the ethanol plant operated by Aventine Renewable Energy in Pekin, the site of a sugar processing plant that first went into operation in 1899.

When sugar beets didn’t work out in central Illinois, the plant converted to corn. “The corn milling plant was started in 1904. Its name was changed to Corn Products Co. in 1960 after merging with Best Foods,” said Whitehouse, 75, who worked at the plant from 1957 until he retired in 1999.

In 1981, the plant went from producing cornstarch and other corn products to ethanol, said Aventine CEO Mark Beemer.

Aventine, which took over the facility in 2003, was the third ethanol producer at the site, following Pekin Energy and Williams Bio-Energy.

Changes continue. Sacramento-based Pacific Energy recently purchased Aventine to become the fifth largest ethanol producer in the country.

While Beemer isn’t sure of his future once the transaction is completed later this year, he’s confident that corn-based ethanol will continue to find a place in the marketplace.

“Ethanol remains the cheapest energy molecule out there. It’s the most economical source of octane available,” said Beemer, referring to ethanol’s place as an additive in most unleaded

gasoline sold in this country.

Ethanol prices have declined along with gasoline in recent months. “Ethanol is now around $1.40 a gallon — the lowest it’s been since 2005. We’ve seen significant margin erosion,” he said.

As a result, Aventine is reducing the grind rate at its plant in Aurora, Nebraska by 30 percent, said Beemer, who adds that there's a bright side to the drop in prices at the pump. “We’re looking at a three- or four-percent increase in gasoline use [by motorists]. As more gas is burned, we’ll blend more ethanol,” he said.

Ethanol also remains a robust export for the United States with nearly 1 billion gallons expected to be sold overseas this year, said Beemer, noting that distillers grains, a byproduct of processing corn into ethanol, is prized as feed for livestock — and as an export.

“With China’s recent decision to buy distillers grains from the United States, the value of that product has gone up by 25 percent,” he said.

The future of ethanol may be best reflected in the capital expenditures made at the Pekin plant where $30 million in upgrades have been made over the past two years.

“We just put in two natural gas boilers, retiring 70-year-old coal boilers at a cost of $13.2 million. That will save 13,000 tons of sulfur dioxide from going into the air each year. That’s a big improvement in air quality for the Pekin area,” he said.

Mark Beemer, the CEO of Aventine Renewable Energy in Pekin, Ill., says the plant is investing millions across the facility to upgrade, most notably converting the coal-fired boilers to natural gas system. The old Sugar House, as named by old timers, was originally the site of a sugar processing plant that first went into operation in 1899. (AP Photo/Journal Star, Fred Zwicky)

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US, Canada Reach Key Funding Deal for Detroit-Windsor Bridge

By David N. Goodman

DETROIT (AP) — The Obama administration and Canada have agreed on financing a key piece of a planned $2.1 billion bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, the two governments announced Wednesday.

The agreement involves a funding mechanism for a toll plaza on the U.S. side of the international crossing, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. It says a “publicprivate partnership” will pay for the plaza’s construction, with reimbursement from bridge tolls.

Both governments have said the new bridge will create thousands of jobs and further stimulate the $658 billion annual trade between the nations.

“This agreement clears one of the final hurdles to building this hugely important bridge. Both Michigan and the entire nation will benefit,” U.S. Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Mich., said in a statement.

Authorities have said the limited capacity of the 85-year-old Ambassador Bridge and the 85-year-old Detroit-Windsor Tunnel,

which is too tight for tractor-trailers, is an increasing impediment to trade.

Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow called Wednesday's deal “a critical step forward” for the project, long stymied by opposition from owners of the nearby Ambassador Bridge who seek to add a new span of their own across the Detroit River. That opposition has blocked the needed U.S. funding for the plaza. The bridge itself already was to be built without U.S. funds.

Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said the agreement ensures “that the new publicly owned bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, can proceed without further delay” and that the project “will ultimately be delivered through a public-private partnership.”

U.S. lawmakers said it remains crucial for the Obama administration and Congress to appropriate the funds that will be needed to operate the U.S. Customs plaza.

Officials have said they hope to open the bridge in 2020.

The Ambassador Bridge leading into Windsor, Ontario, as seen from Detroit. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says the Obama administration and Canada have agreed for financing a key piece of a planned $2.1 billion bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

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Canada: Oil Train Accident Shows New Safety Rules Inadequate

By Rob Gillies

TORONTO (AP) — A fiery oil train derailment in Ontario this month suggests new safety requirements for tank cars carrying flammable liquids are inadequate, Canada’s transport safety board announced Monday.

The accident was the latest in a spate of fiery derailments in Canada and the U.S., a trend which American safety officials say drives home the need for stronger tank cars, more effective braking systems and other safety improvements.

The Canadian Transportation Safety Board said the tank cars involved in the Feb. 14 train derailment met upgraded standards that started to be instituted in Canada last year for new tank cars carrying crude and other flammable liquids. But it said the Class 111, 1232 standard cars still “performed similarly” to those involved in the derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec that killed 47 people two years ago. That accident predated the changes.

“This was supposed to be a better quality car. So far we haven’t seen that better performance,” Rob Johnston, a senior Transportation Safety Board official, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The U.S. and Canada are trying to coordinate on even newer tank car standards. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx met with safety officials in Canada in December to discuss the issue but neither country has yet settled on a new tank car design, though the U.S. is getting closer. Transportation officials recently sent a proposal for new tank car standards to the White House budget office for review.

In both cases in Canada, the tank cars ruptured and released crude oil, which fed the flames. Much of downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec, was destroyed on July 6, 2013, by a raging fire caused when an unattended train derailed. Several train cars

exploded and 40 buildings were leveled.

The Canadian government has warned the Obama administration that if pipelines like the controversial Keystone XL pipeline are not built Canadian oil would instead continue to be shipped by rail cars.

The latest Canadian derailment, involving a Canadian National Railway Co. train, happened in a remote area 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Timmins, Ontario. There were no injuries or evacuations. It took almost a week in subzero temperatures for the fires to burn out.

Two days after the Ontario derailment, a train loaded with crude derailed in West Virginia, sparking a spectacular fire and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of families.

Both the West Virginia accident and the oil train derailment and fire in Ontario involved recently built tank cars that were supposed to be an improvement to a decades-old model in wide use that has proven susceptible to spills, fires and explosions.

But the Canadian safety board said at least 19 of the 25 cars in the Ontario derailment were breached or partially breached and estimated that more than 1 million liters (0.26 million gallons) of crude were released. The board said the train was traveling at a lower speed than the train in Lac Megantic.

The agency said this month’s incident “demonstrates the inadequacy” of the new standards and is urging Canada’s transport regulator to quickly introduce enhanced protection standards. The amount of crude traveling by train has soared in recent years.

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Workers fight a fire after a crude oil train derailment south of south of Timmins, Ontario. The train derailment last month suggests new safety requirements for tank cars carrying flammable liquids are inadequate, Canada’s transport safety board maintains. (AP Photo/Transportation Safety Board of Ctanada, File)

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News

Snake-Like Robot to Explore Melted Fukushima Reactors

By Miki Toda

HITACHI, Japan (AP) — A snake-like robot designed to examine the inside of one of three melted reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is ready to begin its expedition.

Assessing the damage inside the reactors is a crucial step in the decommissioning of the plant, which was badly damaged by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Use of a remote-controlled robot is essential because no humans can go close to the reactor chambers because of their fatally high radiation levels.

Using information gathered by the robot, the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., plans to repair the damaged chambers enough so they can be filled with water in preparation for the removal of melted radioactive debris, planned in about a decade.

The two-foot-long robot, developed by electronics giant Hitachi and its nuclear affiliate Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, was demonstrated this week at a Hitachi-GE facility northeast of Tokyo. It is expected to enter the Unit 1 reactor as early as April, officials said.

It has a lamp at the front and is designed to crawl like a snake through a four-inch-wide pipe into the containment vessel. From there it must dangle and descend onto a platform just below the reactor core’s bottom, an area known as the pedestal.

There, the robot is to transform into a U-shaped crawler and capture live images and temperature and radiation levels and transmit them to a control station outside the building.

Expectations for the robot probe are high after earlier efforts at assessment produced limited success.

“Depending on how much data we can collect from this area, I believe [the probe] will give us a clearer vision for future decommissioning,” Hitachi-GE engineer Yoshitomo Takahashi said.

This snake-like camera was designed and built to go where no human ought to: inside the reactor at Fukushima.

(AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

Computer simulations indicate that all of the fuel rods in the Unit 1 reactor probably melted and fell to the bottom of the containment chamber, but until now there has been no way of confirming that. A brief fiberscope observation was conducted in 2012 but the images were scratchy and limited.

In order to assess debris on the bottom and submerged underwater, an amphibious robot is being developed for deployment next year.

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News WELCOMES ITS NEW MEMBERS ACTIVE MEMBERS John Innis Michael Dennehy Tom Demke John Rochetto Billy LaMarche Juan Ceja Tom Coates Paul Thayer Joseph Wassong Dan Faddah Scott Hefner

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS Thomas Uckerman

Roatating Equipment Specialists

Kevin Rachubinski

Rotating Equipment Specialists

Kyle Gorlinski

Rotating Equipment Specialists

Joe Bara

United Radio Communications

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Franklin Energy Services

Bruce Tognetti

Franklin Energy Services

Ryan Curry

Franklin Energy Services

Jim Hauser

Franklin Energy Services

Greg Walthers

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Franklin Energy Services

Patten Power Systems

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Eastland Industries

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News

150-Year-Old Abbeville Church Raising Money for Renovations

By St. Claire Donaghy

ABBEVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Efforts are in progress to fund renovations to Abbeville’s historic Trinity Episcopal Church.

Ann Hutchinson Waigand of Herndon, Va., whose mother, May Hutchinson, is the church’s long-time historian, said the church and its cemetery are on the National Register of Historic Places, but the church also is significant for its stained glass.

The parish was organized in 1842, but the current structure was built in 1859 and consecrated in 1860.

“It’s very unusual for a church to have original mid-19th century stained glass,” Waigand said. “There’s only one window that’s been replaced in Trinity — one that was given in 1941. The stained glass in this church is like a library of 19th-century American stained glass.”

Some of the windows, Waigand said, may even actually be from the earliest Trinity Episcopal church in Abbeville, dating to 1843, on the site of the present building.

Abbeville, S.C.’s Trinity Episcopal Church impressively retains nearly all of its original mid-19th century stained glass. The 150-year-old structure is in need of restoration.

However, Waigand said there’s also a very good chance that the church’s chancel window and one other window at the front of the church, with a banner saying, ‘Suffer Little Children To Come Unto Me,’ likely are the work of William Gibson. Gibson began the earliest known glass business in America in the New York (continued on Page 20)

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City. Additionally, Waigand said it is believed medallions with Christian symbols at the top of each window were made by the same artist.

“William Gibson is regarded as the ‘father of stained glass painting in America,’” Waigand said. “The fact that Trinity may very well have two of his windows is extraordinarily significant because there are few remaining examples of William Gibson’s windows in this country.” Gibson was the eldest of three brothers, the younger of whom located to Philadelphia and designed stained glass in the United States Capitol, Waigand said.

Waigand said she has found evidence of a letter from Gibson to George Walker, a Columbia architect who was chosen to design the 1859 building in the French Gothic Revival style.

The letter, at the South Caroliniana Library in Columbia, references an order in 1856 that Walker placed for stained glass, for a home in Charlotte, North Carolina, Waigand said, and the letter was written by Gibson.

“A Gibson scholar/biographer has confirmed to me that architects tended to patronize the same stained glass makers and denominations tended to patronize the same stained glass makers,” Waigand said. “One of the only other known pieces of William Gibson stained glass is in Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans.

“This Gibson scholar has confirmed to me findings are sufficient

to attribute the chancel window and the other window at the front of the church to William Gibson, but, it’s not definitive unless we have an actual piece of paper.”

Trinity Episcopal of Abbeville’s church history states the large chancel window was a gift from a “Greenville church” and was ordered from England to be placed at the time of consecration.

“Lore has it the window did not arrive in the church until 1863, after having run the blockade in Charleston Harbor,” Waigand said. “But, there are descriptions of the very window from accounts of the church’s consecration in 1860. I found a letter in an old church safe, written by then-rector Benjamin Johnson in 1862, to then-church treasurer Armistead Burt, saying to issue payment to a man for repairs to the chancel window, because it had been leaking.”

Waigand said she believes it’s the original chancel window and that it was not initially intended for a different church in the North.

“If you put all the dates together, it makes sense that this would be the original chancel window,” Waigand said. “It may be that someone who was a blockade runner gave money toward the church window and that’s how the legend started about it coming through the blockade.

“There are records of people who gave kneeling cushions for the church and for who gave the bell, but there are not records for all the stained glass windows,” Waigand said. “My great-grandfather owned a mercantile store in Abbeville and we know he and his business partner gave one of the windows and that it was there in 1860.

“If people know the significance of these windows, maybe more people will visit the church and those interested may donate toward church restoration,” Waigand added. “Restoration will likely cost several million dollars. Work done on the outside of the church will protect the stained glass. There’s going to be a phased master plan, the biggest parts of which will be work done on the steeple and removal of the Portland cement from the exterior.”

Donations may be mailed care of Friends of Trinity Abbeville, P.O. Box 911, Abbeville, SC 29620. Friends of Trinity Abbeville is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preservation and restoration of the church.

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Mount Vernon Uses Lasers to Scan Mansion Down to the Nail

By Matthew Barakat

MOUNT VERNON, Va. (AP) — It’s one of the first questions that occurs to a visitor at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate: How much of the mansion really dates back to Washington’s time, and how much has been replaced?

The estate is in the midst of a project that will help answer that question, down to every nail in the floorboards.

Architects and preservationists are at the estate building a computerized database of every piece of the mansion. Laser scans are recording three-dimensional images to the tiniest detail, and workers are crawling on their hands and knees to photograph and document key components.

Combined with the already meticulous records that Washington himself kept of his work on the mansion, as well as those over the last 150 years since the estate has been in the hands of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, the model will provide a comprehensive database that the estate will use to guide future restoration efforts.

It's difficult to quantify exactly how much of the mansion material dates to Washington’s time, and the project, once completed, will provide a better picture. Generally, though, Reinhart said the estate was forward thinking in its preservation tactics, back to the days that the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association assumed control of the estate back in the Civil War era.

Even back in the 19th century, Reinhart said, restoration work was done with a nod toward preservation — plaster repairs, for instance, were done with an effort to keep as much of the original in place, and replace only what was absolutely necessary.

Reinhart said he hopes the project will shed additional light on the history of the mansion before Washington himself owned it.

Washington’s father built the home in 1735, and it subsequently underwent a series of expansions.

About 1 million visitors a year visit the estate.

For example, Mount Vernon will soon have to put in a new fire suppression system that by necessity requires installation of new sprinkler heads to guard against the catastrophic. The database will guide that installation process to ensure that the installations occur with a minimum impact on the oldest parts of the house, said Thomas Reinhart, the estate's deputy director for architecture.

“Every screw, every nail driven into this home — we want to know the impact on the long-term preservation of the structure,” Reinhart said.

The project has already yielded some new information about the home as well. For decades, preservationists have waffled on whether the floorboards in the estate’s signature New Room were the same that Washington himself installed and walked on.

Reinhart says now that the boards clearly are the originals — a conclusion they reached in part through careful examination of the 2,556 nails in those boards.

A close look at the nails and the nail holes reveals when they were made — on a very basic level, the old nails leave square holes and newer nails leave round holes. Construction techniques were different in various eras, as well.

After reviewing the nails, the documentary evidence, and the other details assembled in putting together the database, Reinhart was able to conclude that the boards — high-quality southern yellow pine that “is hard as a rock” as it dries over the decades — are indeed the originals, but they had been rearranged and reinstalled at some point in the 19th century.

Joe Nicoli, a scanning specialist with Direct Dimensions Inc. of Owings Mills, Maryland, stands on the second floor of George Washington's Mount Vernon estate as he explains the laser scanning technology that will be used to guide future restoration efforts. (AP Photo/Matt Barakat)

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Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Center to Open

By Ben Boettger

KENAI, Alaska (AP) — The new visitor center building that the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has been constructing since last year at its Ski Hill Road headquarters in Soldotna is expected to start operation on March 25, according to project manager Jason Hayes of the Fish and Wildlife Service Division of Engineering.

Refuge staff originally planned to open the building in February, but Hayes said that date has been delayed by a procedure to flush the building’s air. The flushing is necessary for the building to earn a certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards required for all federal buildings.

The procedure involves moving 14,000 cubic feet of air through the building over a period of 30 days in order to clear its atmosphere of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. “You know whenever you get into a new car or a new house and it’s got that new-house smell? That’s pretty much what you’re smelling — volatile organics,” said Hayes. “Those are emitted by almost all construction materials when you build a building. The idea with the flush-out period ... is you get those materials out of the building before you move in. It’s just improved air quality for the people working the building.”

according to the website of the U.S Green Building Council, the organization that maintains the standards. Buildings are scored on a 100-point scale based on their compliance with a list of criteria. Fifty points will earn a LEED silver certification, 60 points a gold, and 80 points platinum. Federal buildings are required to be certified silver.

Raelynn Meissner, an engineer with CTA Architecture, the Montana-based firm contracted to build and design the visitor center, is managing its LEED certification. She said that LEED ranks buildings during two phases of development — first in the design process, and secondly after construction — and that the visitor center’s currently expected LEED score is higher than originally planned.

During the design review, the Green Building Council awarded the building 54 points, giving it the silver ranking that federal regulations require and designers aimed for. Meissner is now preparing the building's construction data for examination by the Green Building Council for the construction-phase review. (continued on Page 24)

Hayes said that the level of VOCs in the building was higher than expected due to the fact that exhibits were moved into the new visitor’s center prior to testing.

“All the exhibits are made out of stuff that’s low VOC, but there's a lot of material that actually does contain VOCs, like your foams, your plastics, your paints,” said Hayes.

LEED standards are designed to create buildings that “save money and resources and have a positive impact on the health of occupants, while promoting renewable, clean energy,”

(AP Photo/Al Grillo)

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“If [the construction review] earns all its credits, it would be 62 points, which would put them in the range for gold,” Meissner said, adding that the flush-out of the building’s air contributes to the jump in points.

Meissner said that other additional construction points were earned by limiting excavation on the site, using materials with a certain percentage of recycled content, and by hiring an independent commissioner to monitor the construction process.

LEED points earned in the design phase fall into the five categories of site sustainability, energy efficiency, water efficiency, materials, and indoor environmental quality.

The visitor center earned site sustainability points by installing re-infiltration basins that Meissner said will allow rainwater to “get back into the aquifer, instead of running off down the hillside” in a way that would contribute to ground erosion. Water efficiency was earned with the installation of low-flow toilets and landscaping using irrigation-free native plants, and materials points were earned by reusing or recycling 64 percent of the construction waste, according to Meissner.

Meissner said the building did particularly well in the energy efficiency category, in which it earned all 20 possible points.

Some of these were awarded for a sod roof and recessed construction which provide efficient insulation, radiant heating floor panels, natural interior lighting, preferred parking for fuel-

efficient vehicles, and a 10-kilowatt photovoltaic array which Meissner said “will offset 16 percent of the building’s annual energy use.”

Indoor environmental quality points are earned with the ongoing flushing of the building and the use of low-VOC materials. When its evaluation is finished, Meissner said that the Green Building Council will post the building’s complete LEED scorecard on its website.

As for the refuge staff, Hayes is confident that they will be able to begin using the building on March 25.

“We’ll be able to move into the building that day, and be ready to open it up,” Hayes said. “There couldn’t conceivably be any delays, because the building’s done.” remain when the building is bulldozed in a few weeks.

And maybe that's as it should be. Williams’ great-grandmother, a wise and caring woman who was still voting at age 98, told him not long before she died that the church had served its purpose.

“It’s done,” she said. “The building is not why we went there all our lives. It was for God, and you don't need that building for that.”

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Seattle Tunnel Machine Bertha Moves Toward Access Pit

By Martha Bellisle

The concrete floor of a pit dug to repair the stalled tunnel-boring machine, known as Bertha, in Seattle. Bertha will have to drill about 20 feet through the pit’s concrete wall so its 2,000-ton front head can be lifted by a crane to the surface. (AP Photo/Washington State Department of Transportation)

SEATTLE (AP) — Bertha, Seattle’s troubled tunnel machine, is on the move after being stalled for more than a year.

The giant boring device that is trying to dig a new State Route 99 beneath the city started drilling late Tuesday and had moved six feet by Wednesday afternoon, Lynn Peterson, secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation, told a legislative committee.

Bertha must travel another 14 feet through unreinforced concrete to reach an access pit so workers can remove its front section for repairs.

Peterson said they’re monitoring the machine’s temperature “to make sure she does not overheat.” They’re also monitoring the viaduct, she said, and have seen no movement during the drilling process.

The machine started digging the tunnel — the key element in the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Project — in 2013, but only made it about 1,000 feet of its two-mile trip.

It overheated and stopped working in December 2013, and workers spent most of last year digging the 120-foot-deep access pit. That work was stalled in December, however, when ground sinking was detected in the area.

The project is two years behind schedule.

Seattle Tunnel Partners officials said they don't know how long it will take for Bertha to reach the pit. They anticipate the machine may overheat during the process, which would prompt them to shut it down to cool before resuming.

Workers prepared the inside of the pit by cutting away a Berthasized circle where the contraption will, hopefully, emerge.

“The machine must be partially disassembled before it can be lifted to the surface, a process that STP has said will likely take significant time and effort,” Laura Newborn, project spokeswoman, said in a statement.

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Michoud Builds the Space Launch System

By Jennifer Larino

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — When Kelley Easley first arrived at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in 1982 everything was big.

Bigger than anything he had ever seen.

It was easy to get lost in the 43-acre eastern New Orleans facility. Easley, then a Louisiana State University engineering graduate hired to work on mechanical design for the NASA Space Shuttle external tank, relied on numbered columns inside to tell where he was.

He saw giant tools in action every day, some the size of a small building. He was in awe the first time he saw a completed 35-ton tank roll out.

“It used to be the external tank was the largest structure we could ever imagine in here,” Easley said.

Not anymore.

Michoud Assembly Facility is taking on its largest NASA project yet, the Space Launch System. The rocket, NASA’s most powerful to date, is designed to send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit to again land on the moon, to investigate asteroids and, one day, to walk on Mars. It will top 322 feet once completed, slightly taller than the Statue of Liberty.

NASA has spent $250 million over the past two years to ready the Michoud Assembly Facility.

Half of that paid for the Vertical Assembly Center — a welding machine more than 15 stories high and 78 feet across. It will put together the rocket’s main stage. The 200-foot building’s old foundation was torn out, piles driven 100 feet into ground and a new, reinforced foundation built to support 3 million pounds of machinery.

For all its size, it can control welds down to a thousandth of an inch. (continued on Page 28)

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News For NASA officials and Michoud workers like Easley, it marks a new era in spacecraft manufacturing, relying more on sophisticated robots than large crews.

and liquid hydrogen tanks lined one stretch of the facility.

Machinists huddled to inspect the weld on a massive metal dome. Others bicycled between workstations.

Michoud’s workforce is more technically skilled than ever before and ready for a new challenge, said Easley, now production support systems manager for the NASA Space Launch System.

Outside, crews repaved a road over a levee to Michoud’s docks after regarding to ensure the rocket’s 212-foot core stage doesn’t bottom out when it’s towed to a barge two years from now.

A Big Mission

In addition to such infrastructure improvements, NASA upgraded and restored equipment from the earlier programs, said Pat Whipps, the agency's resident program manager at Michoud.

Workers at Michoud helped build the rockets for the Apollo moon missions from 1961 to 1972. From 1980 until the space shuttle program ended in 2011, they built its external tanks.

In July, NASA and Boeing finalized a $2.8 billion contract to develop the avionics systems and core stage of the Space Launch System. The contract extends through 2021.

Don Pollitz, a 24-year Michoud veteran and a construction lead, said he and his co-workers cheered when they learned the new rocket matched the size specifications of spacecraft once built there.

During a tour earlier this year, prototypes of the 22-foot high, 9,000-pound barrels that will become the rocket’s liquid oxygen

“We’re using the best of yesteryear from Apollo and the shuttle program, with a whole lot of brand new technology that is state of the art,” Whipps said. “This is Disneyland for engineers. It’s tremendous.”

Michoud crews will build the Space Launch Systems core stage, including huge tanks for the super-cooled hydrogen and liquid oxygen that will propel the rocket.

Whipps said the rocket’s engines and key electrical systems will be installed at Michoud, which last saw such work during the Apollo missions.

Robots Everywhere While the jobs are getting bigger, Michoud will need 600 to 800 workers compared to more than 10,000 at the height of the Apollo program and 2,500 to 3,500 at the height of the space shuttle program.

More sophisticated tools let crews build spacecraft more quickly and precisely with fewer people, Whipps said.

“Robots are abundant everywhere here for all kinds of things,” he said. “That enables us to cross-pollinate the discipline experts, to move experts from one area to another instead of having dedicated groups at every single tool.”

Whipps said Michoud built up to five shuttle tanks a year. That kind of turnaround schedule required a lot of manpower, he said.

NASA will build one rocket a year for the Space Launch System

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program, he said.

Mining Moon Water

this is a renaissance,” Whipps said. “We’re really looking forward to not just an evolved, but a revolutionary improvement in the rockets we’re going to build.”

In addition to constructing the core stage of the Space Launch System, Michoud workers are building key parts of the Orion vehicle, which will carry up to six crewmembers.

NASA and contractor Lockheed Martin finished testing the first flight version of the Orion this spring. It launched on its first flight Dec. 4 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Michoud will complete the first flight version of the Space Launch System core stage in 2016. After engine tests at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, it will go to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for its first launch in 2017.

NASA also has plans to build a larger rocket, 384 feet tall and able to carry more cargo.

The agency is still working out the details of that project, but once it’s approved it will be headed for Michoud, Whipps said.

The goal is to get to Mars. NASA will need Michoud to get there, he said.

“Michoud has been here for many years and is here to stay, but

The welder at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans is the largest in the world, and is an integral part of the hardware required to complete the facility’s biggest NASA project yet — the Space Launch System. (AP Photo/ NOLA.com / The Times-Picayune, David Grunfeld)

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Congressional Leaders: DC’s Subway Needs Improvement WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional leaders said Friday that an electrical malfunction that filled a Metro tunnel with smoke last month, killing one person and injuring dozens, should be a wakeup call for the D.C.-area transportation system.

Members of a joint subcommittee said miscommunication and malfunctioning equipment were no excuse for passengers being trapped on a dark, smoky train car for 30 minutes.

“Think about the cause of this tragedy,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s nonvoting Congressional member.

“Think about the fact we’re dealing with what everybody would regard as the ABCs. Being able to communicate from the surface to the ground, making sure the smoke goes the right, rather than the wrong, way. I can think of nothing worse than being smoked to death, underground, in a subway. That’s what happened here.”

During the Jan. 12 electrical malfunction, a Virginia-bound train

By Meredith Somers

stalled in a tunnel near the busy L’Enfant Plaza station during early afternoon rush hour. But instead of pushing smoke out of the subway tunnel, ventilators actually pulled it toward the train, according to a federal investigation. Two of four ventilation fans that could have drawn smoke away from the train were broken or stopped working during the incident, investigators said. Also, the train operator did not immediately shut off the train's own ventilation system, which began pulling smoke into the cars.

Passengers were trapped for about 30 minutes while they waited for emergency responders to arrive.

Carol Glover, 61, of Alexandria, Va., was killed. It was the first fatality aboard Washington’s subway system since a 2009 crash that killed eight passengers and a train operator. Glover’s two sons have filed a $50 million lawsuit against Metro.

Initial reports from D.C. Fire and EMS show first responders arrived at the station within seven minutes of the first call for (continued on Page 32)

ANNUAL MEETING

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Irish American Heritage Center 4626 N. Knox Avenue Chicago, IL 60630 Festivities start at 5:30 pm

DON’T MISS ONE OF THE YEAR’S BIGGEST EVENTS!

Call 708.293.1720 and Renew Your CEAC Membership

TODAY!

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Burnt traction power cables are displayed in the Materials Laboratory at the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015, from the tunnel where the Jan. 12 electrical arcing and smoke event occurred in the Washington Metro subway where a woman died. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

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help. Once on scene, however, firefighters found that their radios had trouble working below ground.

Edward Mills III, an assistant fire chief with D.C. Fire and EMS, defended his first responders for their reaction time and their courage in entering a dark, smoke-filled tunnel without a complete report on the emergency.

“Let me make this clear,” Mills told the subcommittee Friday.

“Our members would not have been able to respond to that incident, overcome the many challenges they faced that day, a lack of information, inability to communicate, had they not received proper training in years past.”

Gerry Connolly, a northern Virginia Democrat, said the blame lies with management. Connolly said he could not understand why more than a decade after Sept. 11, when the region vowed to maintain a uniform set of standards for communication, it was still an issue.

“Here we are, 14 years later, and Mr. Mills is testifying that none of the radios worked underground,” Connolly said. “They did work on the surface, but his men and women couldn’t be communicated with, so they could have no incident report that had accurate information like where’s the train, how many people are on the train, what’s the condition of people on the train ...”

Earlier this week, the safety board issued three urgent recommendations to Metro Authority concerning its tunnel ventilation system.

Metro is currently working its way through a list of 10 safety actions it said it would take following the incident. They include scheduling additional emergency drills and improving signs on the outside of rail cars so that first responders will know clearly which doors should be used in an emergency. Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said Friday that the signage has been designed and it is starting to be installed across the fleet.

Mortimer Downey, chairman of Metro’s board of directors, told the Congressional subcommittee that the transportation system has tested its ventilation system and is working with local jurisdictions to set up radio testing and reporting.

“I believe we’ve made real progress, but we cannot claim we are where we need to be,” Downey said. “In the face of this event, we need to do more and we will do more.”

AP reporter Jessica Gresko contributed to this story.

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New Column Capitals Being Installed on University of Virginia Rotunda

By Derek Quizon

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The University of Virginia has begun replacing the capitals on its historic Rotunda.

The university unveiled one of the new capitals — load-bearing structures at the top of each column — at a news conference last Monday. The current capitals, which are more than 100 years old, have been shrouded in black construction cloth since 2009 because they are crumbling.

Brian Hogg, the university's preservation planner, said the marble on the old capitals has eroded after years of exposure to the elements. Hogg demonstrated the problem by taking a piece of stone in his hand and rubbing it until it disintegrated, like a lump of sugar.

“There’s no good way to fix the stone after reaching that point,” Hogg said.

The current capitals were brought in after a fire in 1895

damaged the originals, which were designed by UVa founder Thomas Jefferson. One of the original capitals, now displayed in the Fralin Museum of Art, is mostly intact, while the rest are preserved in smaller pieces.

The replacements, installed in 1897, were carved out of a different type of marble that was less dense than the original material, which came from Carrara, Italy. The city is renowned for exporting high-quality marble, the same material used in the Pantheon in Rome.

The new Rotunda capitals are closer to Jefferson’s design. They were all fabricated in Carrara out of the same marble as the originals; the university studied Jefferson’s design and tried to have it replicated.

“This is the material Mr. Jefferson chose and he chose well,” said UVa President Teresa A. Sullivan. “This is as exact a copy as we (continued on Page 34)

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A crane lowers equipment to remove capitals from atop columns during renovations of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. (AP Photo/The Daily Progress, Ryan M. Kelly)

could make.”

The university used a combination of state and private money to contract Pedrini Sculptors in Italy to carve the 6,300-pound capitals. Craftsmen there used laser scanners to analyze pieces of the originals and create a computer model. The sculpting process was a combination of computer control and handcarving.

Work on the capitals on the south portico will stretch into March, while the capitals on the north portico will be replaced later this year, said UVa spokesman McGregor McCance.

No tuition money was used for the project, part of an overall effort by UVa to restore some of its historic

buildings. At the center of the initiative is the $50 million Rotunda restoration, which not only will provide some needed repairs and infrastructure upgrades but expand the amount of useable space in the building.

The restoration project is expected to last at least through April 2016. Until then, visitors will have to admire the centerpiece of Jefferson's “Academical Village” from behind a fence.

Sullivan said the project is necessary to keep the building in good condition for future generations.

“The Rotunda is the iconic building of the university,” she said.

“It’s important for us to take care of it.”

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The January meeting of the members of Chief Engineers Association of Chicagoland took place at 115 Bourbon Street in Merrionette Park. It may have been the dead of winter, but the good cheer, the great food and conversation kept things lively and warm for everyone in attendance.

Chief Engineers would like to thank the fine folks at 115 Bourbon Street for their hospitality, and to all of the members who make this organization what it is, and who make its events such a rousing success.

Event sponsors for the monthly meetings and other events are gratefully acknowledged. Any organizations interested in co-sponsorship of future CEAC events should feel free to contact Ms. Alex Boerner at AlexB@chiefengineer.com.

Remember to check out the website (chiefengineer.org) for additional pictures from the event!

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L to R: Henry Voges (Senior Vice President, JLL); Mike Yopchick and Tzvi Feifel (Lexington-Mkp Management); Nichole Olsen (Regional Facilities Manager, Career Education); Dave Zimmer (Director, Real Estate, Career Education); Phil Saccameno (Chief Engineer, Able Engineering Services) and Brian Staunton (Regional Manager, Able Engineering Services)

THE MULTI-FACETED ADVANTAGES OF A FANWALL INSTALL When it came time to replace four 125-horsepower and two 40-horsepower vaneaxial fans at Career Education’s building in Schaumburg, Ill., a decision had to be made: Refurbish the old technology or bring in the new? The choice was a no-brainer.

By Karl J. Paloucek

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One of the delightful upsides to long-reliable equipment finally wearing out or running its course is the opportunity to implement newer technology that has been developed in the interim. This was exactly the situation replace them with the same-horsepower fans that had served the building so well since their installation in 1979. But talk soon turned to a newer, much more innovative solution in line with the building’s LEED Silver certification that its renovation earned in 2010.

The solution had first presented itself about two years prior, according to Able Engineering Services Regional Manager Brian Staunton. “I was at a conference in Portland, Oregon, and went to the Huntair factory to understand a newer technology called Fanwall.

The system seemed to have many feaures such as redundancy, lower energy consumption and overall fewer maintenance requirements,” Staunton recalls. “Phil [Saccameno, Chief Engineer, Able Engineering Services] and I started talking. They originally wanted to replace their fans with the same type of fan. Because the fan was original to the building — 1979-vintage — parts are hard to get. So they suggested, ‘Why don’t we rebuild them or replace them completely?’ And I thought, ‘This might be a perfect application for the Fanwall technology.’

In considering the Fanwall option, Saccameno and SIn considering the Fanwall option, Saccameno and Staunton brought in Pete Hill and Joe Kurcz from Midwest Applied Solutions to survey the situation, run the numbers, design a Fanwall system that would work, and come up with a final scope of services for a project of this magnitude.

Joe Kurcz, sales engineer for Midwest Applied Solutions, explains the efficiencies that helped to steer the Fanwall decision. “With the big vaneaxial, it’s a variable-pitch,

variable-motion blade, so that’s the way they used to modulate airflow,” he offers. “You had these blades that were moving. They require a lot of maintenance, and when they’re 40 years old, they often require a lot of continual calibration. The VFD came into the market and it was like, ‘OK, we can modulate airflow. We’re going to ramp down to that 40,000 CFM when we only need it.’ And that’s all great. But if you look at motor curves, motors are most efficient when they’re fully loaded. So how do you keep a motor fully loaded, but then deliver less airflow? You don’t use all of your fans — you turn some of them off. So what we’re doing is, on that day when Phil’s system says, ‘Hey, I only need 40,000 CFM,’ rather than having eight fans run at a reduced capacity, we might have four fans [running at full capacity]. It’ll automatically turn fans off and run the other four at their full capacity, closer to their peak efficiency. That’s pretty cool stuff.”

Another distinct advantage that the Fanwall offers is redundancy across the board. “We’re coming in with

At top, above: The first step of the install was removing the 125-horsepower fans that had been in service since the late 1970s. This was a big job in itself, as they had to be completely dismantled to be removed from their berths.

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Feature

Checking the Fanwall’s electrical install

eight fan cells, each with a 15-horsepower motor,” Kurcz says. “So we’re supplying the same airflows, same static, but now you’ve got eight motors, each with their own VFD. So you’ve got redundancy in your fans. You’ve got redundancy in your VFDs. If a motor fails, the others actually ramp up the speed to compensate for the one that has failed right now.”

Between the redundancy and flexibility it offers in terms of its efficiency, the Fanwall has a lot of features that

make it easy to recommend as a replacement solution.

But its cost-effectiveness makes it undeniably attractive.

According to Saccameno, Midwest Applied Solutions and Anchor Mechanical were able to capitalize on the system’s efficiency on Career Education’s behalf. “They were able to work with ComEd, the utility company, and receive a customized rebate for putting in these energy-efficient fan systems,” Saccameno explains. “So when they worked on this custom rebate, they then had enough data to come back with a very favorable returnon-investment.” The property management company, Lexington/MKP, was then able to present to Career Education the many benefits of the system, including the positive return-on-investment.

It was at this point that the property management company Lexington/MKP was able to present to Career Education the benefits of the system included the favorable return on investment.

Just prior to disassembly.

To anyone running a building these days, the kinds of savings such efficiencies can bring are more than worth considering. David Zimmer, the director of real estate at Career Education, explains that the Fanwall installation decision was a direct extension of another ROI-motivated update the building’s LEED Silver certification for its 2010 renovation. “We didn’t do it out of the kindness of our hearts, but by doing that LEED certification, we dramatically and significantly reduced our operating costs,” he says. The custom rebate notwithstanding,

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The Fanwall system assembles quickly, offering efficiency, redundancy and control.

the Fanwall has many cost-saving attributes to its merit.

“It costs us so much less even for spare parts — all you need is one or two motors, because all of the motors are exactly the same. So you have one or two spares, you’ve got the whole thing [covered]. So maintenance-wise, we have fewer spare parts, and some of this stuff, now we can also self-perform with [onsite staff]. It costs me less, because now my building engineers can self-perform. … Anything we can self-perform, that’s money in my pocket.”

The Fanwall installations took place over the holiday weekend, when interruption to service in the building was nearly nil. Because of the excellent level of communication and pre-planning, the replacement process was a precision operation, finishing far ahead of schedule. This was due, in part, to the ease of installation of the Fanwalls themselves. “It’s the stackable feature of the Fanwall that makes the installation process very smooth,” Staunton says.

The entire team is credited with the high degree of professionalism and expertise that enabled the install to come off without a hitch, and includes Able Engeering; Anchor Mechanical, who was the general contractor for the job;working with D&L, who handled the demolition of the old fans and the installation of the new; AMI who installed all control systems; Midwest Applied Solutions; and Prime Electric, the firm responsible for the electrical install.

With the install completed, optimization is the next concern. Because of the Fanwall’s highly sophisticated automated system and the vast amount of control afforded by its interface, optimization will help the Fanwall even to maintain itself. “The optimization will actually allow for fans not only to drop off based on static, but it also keeps track of run hours on each cell,” Saccameno explains, “so you don’t have the same fans dropping off, and the same fans constantly running. It’ll monitor run hours of each cell. Let’s say today, one through four are the fans that are running, and five through eight are dropping — at some point it’ll compensate so it’ll make five through eight run, and one through four shut off, so that those run hours are all the same.” This ensures equal wear on all of the fans and their respective parts, automatically extending the life of the Fanwall system.

The software single interface itself is even a step forward,

Cells of the Fanwall bolt together, easing the process of installation.

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Feature allowing for seamless integration and standardization of many different platforms. “You now have the ability to go into any building and tie in the Fanwall interface to just about any automation system,” Mike Topps from AMI says. “Even though they may speak Back Net Line, Dap, etc. The engineering effort that I have to put in is becoming much more user-friendly as this software develops. And it’s nice.”

With all of its ever-developing advantages, the Fanwall system has been available in the Chicago area for about 10 years. With direct-drive, permanently lubricated fans, the systems are an optimal choice for those tired of belt maintenance, and the Fanwall’s redundancy has made it an essential choice for hospitals, who not only depend on continuously reliable HVAC, but because of their high degree of filtration also feature markedly higher statics.

The Fanwall system is up to the task, and a solution that is only going to become more pervasive with future builds and renovations.

Phil Saccameno, Brian Staunton and Kevin Snyder after the Fanwall's successful installation.

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Techline

Review: Freedom! These Smartwatches Leave the Phone Behind

By Anick Jesdanun

steps and exercise.

So what makes this watch stand out? Cellular connectivity. Other smartwatches use a Bluetooth wireless connection linked to your phone to receive calls, send texts and perform other tasks. The Gear S can do all that on its own.

The watch gets its own phone number. When your phone is nearby, calls and texts from the watch will go through your phone and carry your regular number. When you want to step away, you can still have calls, texts and other notifications forwarded to the watch. But calls you make and texts you send from the watch might get your watch's number.

The Samsung Gear S smartwatch (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — Strap on the Samsung Gear S or the Sony SmartWatch 3 if you want to take a jog on the beach or head out for a bike ride without your phone clunking along.

One of my frustrations with early smartwatches has been how little they can do on their own. Sure, your phone might be with you most of the time, but sometimes you want to leave it behind.

The Gear S and SmartWatch 3 still need to be close to an Android phone for a lot of things, but both do more solo than other smartwatches.

SAMSUNG GEAR S ($300 to $400, plus $5 or $10 monthly service fee) The Gear S isn’t the only smartwatch to notify you about new messages, Facebook updates and weather. It isn’t alone in having an alarm clock, music playback and apps for tracking

I’ve used the Navigator app to get directions, though advance features such as rerouting when lost or vibrations at turns didn't work for me without the phone nearby. Many smartwatches are inaccurate exercise trackers, but with built-in GPS, the Gear S can more precisely track how far you run. The watch has a touch keyboard with tiny keys; it’s clunky to use, but you can dictate messages by voice, too. The watch can also play music stored on the device or streamed through Samsung’s free Milk service.

The unit I tested came from AT&T, which charges $10 a month for 4G service on top of the $300 for the device ($200 with a two-year service agreement). Sprint charges $10 for 3G service, while it costs $5 a month for Verizon 3G and T-Mobile 4G service. The device costs $350 to $400 with those three.

SONY SMARTWATCH 3 (starts at $250) Sony’s SmartWatch 3 joins the Gear S in having built-in GPS, something many smartwatches still lack. At least three running

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DO

Ca

apps — iFit Outside, RunKeeper and My Tracks — use the watch’s GPS and work without a companion phone. As with the Gear S, I found the Sony watch quite accurate in normal settings, such as runs in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In New York, my stand-alone GPS watch from Garmin does better at factoring in tall buildings that block or distort GPS signals. But the SmartWatch stlll does better than many watches that rely solely on an accelerometer sensor.

You can also play music stored on the device, though the watch lacks a speaker so you need a Bluetooth headset. (That said, offline music playback is also common in other watches.)

Sorry, the SmartWatch 3 has no cellular service, so you can’t make or receive calls or texts, take notes or use the map function unless your phone is in your pocket or purse.

WAIT FOR APPLE WATCH? People with iPhones will need to wait until April to see what, if any, stand-alone features will come with Apple’s smartwatch.

The ones out so far typically work only with Android phones. But if you have an Android phone, the Samsung and Sony watches stand out among the many choices.

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Techline

Dryers: Homes’ Energy Guzzlers Just Got Greener

By Katherine Roth

For the first time in six years, Energy Star certification, a standard seal of approval for energy efficiency, has been expanded to include another major household appliance.

Clothes dryers, perhaps the last of the major household appliances to be included in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s program, became available in 45 Energy Star models

starting Presidents’ Day weekend, according to the EPA. “Dryers are one of the most common household appliances and the biggest energy users,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.

While washing machines have become 70 percent more energyefficient since 1990, dryers — used by an estimated 80 percent of American households — have continued to use a high amount of energy, the agency says.

The Energy Star program is designed to help consumers help save money and protect the environment by curbing energy consumption.

“Refrigerators were the dominant energy consumer in 1981. Now dryers are the last frontier in the home for radical energy conservation,” said Charles Hall, senior manager of product development for Whirlpool.

Energy Star-certified dryers include gas, electric and compact models. Manufacturers offering them include LG, Whirlpool, Kenmore, Maytag and Safemate.

All of the energy-efficient models include moisture sensors to ensure that the dryer does not continue running after the clothes are dry, which reduces energy consumption by around 20 percent, the EPA says.

In addition, two of the Energy Star-approved models — LG’s EcoHybrid Heat Pump Dryer (model DLHX4072) and Whirlpool’s HybridCare Heat Pump Dryer (model WED99HED) — also include innovative “heat pump” technology, which reduces energy consumption by around 40 percent more than that, the EPA and manufacturers say.

Heat-pump dryers combine conventional vented drying with heat-pump technology, which recycles heat. The technology, long common in much of Europe, is similar to that used in air conditioners and dehumidifiers.

Although Energy Star models can cost roughly $600 more than comparable standard models, Hall said the higher cost is more than balanced out by energy savings and up to $600 rebates offered by government and utility incentive programs.

But the real impact will be felt once the transition

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For the first time in six years, Energy Star certification, a widely respected seal of approval for energy efficiency, has been expanded to include a new major household appliance. (AP Photo/Whirlpool)

to Energy Star models is complete. According to the EPA, if all the clothes dryers sold in the U.S. this year were Energy Starcertified, it would save an estimated $1.5 billion in annual utility costs and prevent yearly greenhouse-gas emissions equal to more than 2 million vehicles.

To earn the Energy Star label, products must be certified by an

EPA-recognized third party based on rigorous testing in an EPArecognized laboratory.

To find local incentive programs for rebates on Energy Star dryers, see www.energystar.gov. Many local utilities also offer incentive programs, generally listed on their websites.

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Techline

U.S. Proposes Rules for Routine Commercial Use of Drones

By Joan Lowy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government proposed long-awaited rules Sunday to usher in an era of commercial drones zipping through U.S. skies, but packages from these unmanned aircraft won’t be landing on doorsteps any time soon.

The Federal Aviation Administration proposed requirements that commercial operators must meet, such as passing a knowledge test administered by the agency as well as a federal security check, in order to fly small drones, defined as weighing less than 55 pounds (25 kilograms). It is likely to be two or three years before the rules are made final, but federal officials said that once they are in place the economic and safety benefits of unmanned aircraft are expected to be enormous.

Among the chores that officials envision drones performing: Aerial photography and mapping, crop monitoring, and inspections of cell towers, bridges and other tall structures. But the proposal includes safety restrictions such as keeping drones

within sight of operators at all times and no nighttime flights. That could mean no package or pizza deliveries by drone. Drones would also have to stay at least five miles (eight kilometers) away from an airport.

Flights over people except those involved in the drone's operation would be prohibited.

They could travel as fast as 100 mph (160 kph), but flights would be limited to 500 feet (150 meters) in altitude or below. Flights over crowds would also be prohibited.

“We have tried to be flexible in writing these rules,” said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. “We want to maintain today’s outstanding level of aviation safety without placing an undue regulatory burden on an emerging industry.”

The agency is researching technology that he hopes will eventually enable small drones to fly safely beyond the sight

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Grounded … for now: The U.S. government’s final rules on the use of commercial drones are likely still a couple of years away. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

of operators, Huerta said. He emphasized that introduction of commercial drones into the national airspace will be a staged process. The government is also looking ahead to how larger drones might be allowed to fly in airspace shared by manned aircraft, for example, he said.

training, search and rescue, and disaster response,'' the White House said in a presidential memorandum on privacy released in conjunction with the rules.

One of the key safety concerns is that without a human on board the ability to “see and avoid” other aircraft is limited. Another concern is that the link between the operator and a remote control aircraft can be broken, causing the drone to fly away until it loses power or collides with something.

The memorandum lays out measures federal agencies must follow to guard against abuse of data collected in their drone flights. Among other steps, the order requires agencies to review privacy and civil rights protections before deploying drone technology and to adhere to a range of controls. Personally identifiable information collected in drone flights is to be kept no longer than 180 days, although there are exceptions.

Cases of flyaway drones getting stuck in trees or hitting buildings are rampant. Last month, a drone that its operator lost control of flew over the White House fence and crashed on the lawn before Secret Service agents could block it.

It’s questionable whether such steps will satisfy civil liberties advocates, who’ve objected strongly to the government’s vigorous use of digital surveillance in the name of national security.

Even with the restrictions, drones are expected to play a “transformative role in fields as diverse as urban infrastructure management, farming, public safety, coastal security, military

The proposal also raises the possibility that final rules may have a separate category for very small drones — those weighing 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) or less — with fewer restrictions.

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Techline

Colorado Tech Start Ups Bet the Farm on Agricultural Drones

By Luke Runyon

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — A highly anticipated batch of federal laws governing the use of drones could change the regulatory landscape and lead to an explosion in drone use by farmers.

Farmers see drones as a way to get a birds-eye view of their fields to find problem patches with crops. That information can

allow farmers to be more precise with fertilizers and pesticides and, ultimately, save money. But getting them in the sky without running afoul of federal regulation is proving to be a challenge.

Commercial use of drones is still widely banned in the U.S., though some companies have secured exemptions. Other farmers have gone rogue, flying drones over their property without all the proper permissions, daring federal regulators to put a stop to it. But the new federal rules due out later this year are expected to usher in a new era of farm machinery.

On a breezy morning in rural Weld County, Colorado, Jimmy Underhill quickly assembles a black and orange drone with four spinning rotors. The machine sits on a dirt patch right next to a cornfield, littered with stalks left over from last year’s harvest.

Underhill is a drone technician with Agribotix, a Boulder-based drone start up that sees farmers as its most promising market. Underhill is in charge of training his fellow employees how to work the machine in the field.

“If you want to start we can walk over to the drone,” Underhill says, holding a remote control with two joysticks. He hits a few buttons and the machine whirs to life.

The quadcopter zips 300 feet into the air directly above our heads, pauses for a moment and then begins to move.

“So it just turned to the east and it's going to start its lawnmower pattern,” Underhill says.

What makes the drone valuable to farmers is the camera on board. It snaps a high-resolution photo every two seconds. From there Agribotix stitches the images together, sniffing out problem spots in the process, using infrared technology to look at plant health. Knowing what's happening in a field can save money.

“Sometimes the proposition is as simple as an aerial view can tell you what’s wrong with your machinery,” says Tom McKinnon, Agribotix president. Drone images from farms have been able to alert farmers when irrigation lines are clogged or inactive.

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New federal laws governing the use of drones could lead to significant changes in farming and the employment of drone technology. (AP Photo/ Johnny Clark)

Agribotix is far from the only company in the fledgling farm drone market. Dozens of startups have sprung up across the country.

At least four companies that specialize in precision agriculture have been given exemptions from the Federal Aviation Administration. More are waiting for permission.

While drones are grabbing headlines for their use in overseas

airstrikes, and for winding up on the White House lawn, the machines have made their way into the mainstream among farmers. At farm shows across the country, drones have become as ubiquitous as John Deere tractors. The Colorado Farm Show earlier this year included an informational session, telling farmers both the technical and legal challenges ahead. (continued on Page 52)

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“I think it's a very exciting time,” says farmer Darren Salvador.

He grows 2,000 acres of wheat and corn near Haxtun, Colorado, close to the Nebraska border.

Companies can apply for exemptions from the Federal Aviation Administration, but the requirements to get that exemption can be costly, like requiring drone operators to hold a pilot’s license.

Salvador says with eyes in the sky he can be more precise in how he applies chemicals to the land. If he sees a patch of land more in need of fertilizer he can target it. That could mean less chemical runoff into waterways.

“These small drones, that are almost priced to be expensive toys, are not reliable. And that’s the concern of the FAA,” says Eric Frew, director of the Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

“You can look at disease concern, insect concern, so now you can be more proactive and treat smaller areas and not treat the entire field,” Salvador says.

The FAA didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story, but Frew says the agency is trying to find a balance.

Putting a large flying machine in the hands of someone who’s inexperienced can cause big problems. Drones have had near misses with commercial airplanes.

While some farmers see drones as a way to help their bottom line, others see them as a potential invasion of privacy. Animal rights activists have used the machines to fly over large-scale livestock operations to expose abuse or environmental damage.

Salvador and about 50 other farmers at the Colorado Farm Show got an earful from Rory Paul, CEO of Volt Aerial Robotics, a St. Louis-based drone start up. The current regulatory scheme has stifled innovation, Paul says, allowing drone companies in other countries to speed ahead and capture more of the market.

“We really don’t know what they’re good for. We’ve got a few ideas of where they could benefit agriculture. The majority of which are still theoretical,” Paul says.

“When these systems work, they work fantastically. When they don’t work, they don’t work,” Frew says. When they don't work the machines can end up crashing. In a rural cornfield that’s not a big deal. But in a crowded city, it could be, Frew says.

Back at the cornfield in rural Colorado, Agribotix president Tom McKinnon watches as his company drone comes in for a landing.

It's finished its lawnmower pattern over the dormant cornfield.

“We bash the FAA a lot,” McKinnon says. “I mean the FAA’s job is air safety. And they have delivered on that. But when it comes to drones they’re badly fumbling the ball.”

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Juggling Too Many Remotes? Try This Touch Screen

By Michael Liedtke

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — How many remotes does it take to watch television, stream Netflix or record your favorite show on DVR? The Ray Super Remote wants to declutter your coffee table and become the central nervous system of all of your home entertainment systems. The touch-screen device, released Tuesday, is designed to control TVs, cable boxes, DVRs, video game consoles and Internet streaming players such as Roku and Apple TV. What’s more, it runs on software that learns viewers’ preferences so it can list programs suited to personal interests.

Priced at $199, the remote won't be released until May or June, but pre-orders are being accepted online at www.ray.com. It requires a Wi-Fi system and pay-TV boxes to work properly.

Skokna is counting on the Ray remote’s versatility and

intelligence to stand out from the other options on the market.

The Ray remote controls more than 200,000 devices and can run applications that will enable it to control other Internetconnected home appliances, such as Google’s Nest thermostat.

The search and recommendation features are set up to eliminate the need to spend a lot of time looking for content. Users can tell the remote what kinds of programming interests them, such as soccer or comedy, so shows fitting those categories are automatically highlighted on the nearly five-inch screen.

The remote’s battery lasts for about 10 days, and can be easily recharged in a power station that doubles as a holding tray.

The biggest question facing the Ray remote may be this: How many people are so frustrated with juggling multiple remote controls that they will be willing to spend $199 on another device?

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Techline

Doctors Say Fitness Trackers, Health Apps Can Boost Care

By Anick Jesdanun

HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) — That phone app keeping track of your exercise and meals might keep you out of the hospital one day.

Why give your doctors permission to incorporate data from fitness trackers and health apps into electronic patient records?

Well, they might spot signs of an ailment sooner and suggest behavioral changes or medication before you land in the emergency room. They also might be able to monitor how you’re healing from surgery or whether you're following a treatment regimen.

Hackensack University Medical Center cardiologist Dr. Sarah Timmapuri, left, examines patient Gary Wilhelm, 51, as he looks at data on a new Fitbit Surge that is synchronized with hospital monitoring equipment during an examination. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

“Right now we only see our patients for about a 15-minute visit in the office, and it’s a very constricted view,” said Dr. Lauren Koniaris, a specialist in pulmonary critical care at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. “This really globalizes the view of their health status, so that we’re really in contact with them on a much more daily if not hour-to-hour basis. It’s almost

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Techline like a virtual house call.”

At Hackensack, a handful of patients at risk for heart failure are asked to use a fitness tracker to count steps walked and flights climbed. They are also asked to record what they eat — by photographing the product's bar code, for instance — using a phone app that has a database containing nutrition information on thousands of food items. Using Apple’s new HealthKit technology, data from the various trackers and apps gets automatically transferred to the Epic MyChart app on the iPhone.

From there, the information goes to the hospital's records system, which also comes from Epic.

Hackensack wants to expand to more patients and start tracking blood pressure and sleep quality, too. But the hospital first needs to ensure that teams are in place to review the glut of data coming in. More broadly, there are consumer privacy and security issues to address, along with questions about whether these trackers and apps really improve patient care. The University of California, San Francisco is studying which gadgets are reliable and whether that reliability extends to patients with extreme conditions. Then they have to figure out what information is really meaningful — not just noise.

Many doctors and hospitals see potential. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, uses Fitbit trackers to monitor hipreplacement patients for a month after surgery. Health workers get data on daily steps and can tell when patients have trouble walking — a hundred or more miles away. The Ochsner Health System in New Orleans is turning to wireless scales and blood-pressure devices to help reduce readmissions for chronic diseases such as heart failure. Noticing a small weight gain, for instance, might reveal fluid buildup resulting from the heart failing to pump normally. Not only can doctors intervene sooner, they can use the data to show how exercise can help lower blood pressure.

suffered a heart attack in October. He appeared animated during a check-up this month as he showed Dr. Sarah Timmapuri, his cardiologist, various charts on flights climbed and cholesterol intake. There were a few bad days that Wilhelm blamed on the Super Bowl. Timmapuri instructed Wilhelm to monitor his pulse on his new Fitbit Surge. If it gets to about 155 beats per minute, he’s to end his workout.

“Even if I did not do a single thing with the information, just the patient knowing that I’m reviewing it will already have a positive effect,” Timmapuri said.

Mayo patient Randy Smothers, 62, of Chisago City, Minn., agrees. He said he was in pain after getting his right hip replaced and would have stayed on his couch without the knowledge that someone was checking on him.

“This pedometer they gave me made me walk every day and move on and get going,” he said.

Apps and trackers could ultimately reduce patient visits, though there’s a risk patients would practice self-care.

“It may be an aid or a tool to help me deliver better care, but it is just a tool,” said Dr. Robert Wergin, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “It shouldn't substitute for a faceto-face visit.”

“If we’re going to succeed in improving health, we have to get patients more engaged in their care,” said Dr. Richard Milani, a cardiologist at Ochsner.

Heart-attack patients have long been asked to weigh themselves, while those with diabetes have had to check glucose levels. Smartphone technology makes all that easier and gets measurements to doctors more regularly and reliably. There’s no forgetting to record a number or transposing digits.

With Apple’s HealthKit tools, disparate gadgets and records systems can work together more easily. Think of HealthKit as a common language, eliminating the need for translators. Beyond sleep and exercise data coming from fitness trackers, doctors can eventually incorporate devices that measure glucose, blood pressure, respiratory rates and blood-oxygen levels. The devices communicate with the iPhone wirelessly or through the headphone or charging port. Google, Samsung and Microsoft have similar ambitions that will expand monitoring to users of Android and Windows phones, though they aren’t as far along.

For now, developers must write separate code for each Android or Windows app to integrate.

Gary Wilhelm, 51, who works at Hackensack on payroll and finance technology, joined the hospital’s app test after he

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Techline

Nuclear Plants Delayed in China, Watched Closely by US Firms

By Ray Henry

ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. power companies struggling with the escalating costs of building nuclear plants are closely watching similar efforts in China, where officials are expecting delays.

Two plants under construction in Sanmen and Haiyang, China, are the first-ever built using Westinghouse Electric Co.’s AP1000 reactor design. Utility companies in Georgia and South Carolina are building two similar plants in the United States using a very similar design. Since the project in China is father along, U.S. executives and safety regulators watch it closely.

Officials at China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. blame the delays on the late delivery of equipment from the United States. Westinghouse Electric Co. and project manufacturers are working to redesign a coolant pump for the plant.

Chinese officials are building a fleet of nuclear plants as they aim

to produce a fifth of their country’s electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.

“Because it is the first of this kind in the world, it is normal to have some delay,” said Guo Hongbo, director of the firm’s general office. He was vague on how long the delays may last.

“It is not a problem whether the delay is one year or two years.

The technological breakthrough will be utterly valuable to the development of ... world nuclear power.”

Westinghouse Electric Co. President Danny Roderick said the issues with the coolant pumps will be resolved before there’s any impact in the United States.

“You won't see those delays at all,” he said.

Power plant owners and regulators in the United States have

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Construction at the reactors at Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia is expected to run three years past its approved schedule. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

their own teams in China to monitor building efforts there.

Chinese safety regulators have joined inspectors from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission when they review nuclear industry vendors, including the manufacturer of the reactor coolant pumps.

will find it nearly impossible in the short run to compete against much-cheaper gas-fired plants. U.S. utility executives who are building nuclear plants say the facilities reliably produce energy without emitting greenhouse gasses and run relatively cheaply once they are built.

“That’s one of the benefits of not being one of the first-of-the-kind here,” Southern Co. CEO Thomas Fanning said in an interview.

“We’re picking up the benefits.”

The projects in the United States are already under cost pressure. Westinghouse Electric Co. and Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. expect construction of two new AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia will go three years beyond the approved schedule, according to financial filings. Southern Co., which owns a 46 percent stake in the plant, and the plant’s other owners have not accepted that timeline.

Meeting deadlines is critical for projects in both countries. When nuclear plant construction slows down, building and financing costs can soar. That problem hobbled the nuclear industry during earlier rounds of building. Proponents had hoped the new projects in China and the United States would demonstrate nuclear plants can be constructed without blowing budgets.

If nuclear plants go massively over budget, the nuclear industry

Regulators in Georgia estimate the latest delays could push Southern Co.’s share of spending on the plant from $6.1 billion to more than $8 billion.

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New

products

Taco Introduces Inverted Flare Zone Sentry® Zone Valves Taco’s newest Zone Sentry Zone Valve — with an inverted flare — is ideally suited to retrofit and new construction work. The zone valves improve the overall performance of any hydronic system that uses a zone valve. Uniquely, Taco’s zone valve line uses microcircuit-based logic to control a gear-driven electronic actuator that drives a ball valve-based body design.

Taco’s Zone Sentry valve is available with either a normally open or normally closed actuator. The valve can be installed in any direction, in any orientation. Snap-in quick connects on the back of the valve make for a simple, secure wiring hook-up. A green LED shows full functionality of valve operation.

Ideal for use with a wide variety of heating and cooling applications, Zone Sentry valves were designed primarily for baseboard, fan coil, radiator, convector, heat pump and radiant applications. The valves are now available in ½”, ¾”, 1” sweat or NPT and inverted flare (less fittings) and inverted flare (with ¾” sweat fittings) and draw only 1.44 watts.

The Zone Sentry is easy to install and operate, and the onehanded liftoff actuator means that tight space is no longer a concern.

The addition of this connection to the Zone Sentry line allows contractors to replace an existing inverted flare valve with the Zone Sentry without having to cut and sweat pipe, greatly reducing retrofit time. For new installations, it allows the installer to use the type of product he prefers, with improved performance.

DID YOU KNOW? You can view, download and print photos from Chief Engineers Association of Chicagoland meetings online. Just visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/37163962@ N02/sets/ or visit chiefengineer.org and click on the images at the bottom of the page.

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New

products

Mitsubishi Electric Introduces New Lineup of Advanced Integrated Controls for Commercial Building HVAC Solutions

Mitsubishi Electric US, Inc. Cooling & Heating Division (Mitsubishi Electric) has launched an innovative single-source integrated controls solution for commercial HVAC applications.

Three new advanced controllers — the SmartME Zone Controller, the AdvancedHVAC Input/Output Controller and the EB-50GU-A Central Controller — work together as a seamless, comprehensive system to support enhanced functions. The functionality includes dual set-point and set-back, maintenance data storage and energy management monitoring.

“This new bundled package of commercial controls, which can also function individually, allows users to monitor and operate CITY MULTI® VRF zoning systems plus third-party equipment through the Mitsubishi Electric Network [M-NET],” says Kevin Miskewicz, senior manager, commercial marketing, Mitsubishi Electric US Cooling & Heating Division. “This new solution means easier, more convenient system-wide HVAC control and monitoring than other controls options. Now the entire system can be viewed on one networked Web browser.”

The SmartME Zone Controller is the next generation in intelligent zone control, controlling up to 16 indoor units in a single zone.

The controller features an intuitive, backlit touch-screen interface with dual set-point functionality and LED color status indicator.

The advanced control and monitoring functions, displayed by zone name, include temperature and humidity sensors and an Energy Save setting. This setting designates the operation mode using built-in occupancy and brightness sensors. The SmartME displays AdvancedHVAC Controller input and output status and can send temperature and humidity set-points for control of thirdparty equipment through the AdvancedHVAC Controller.

The AdvancedHVAC Controller features customizable applications for integrating CITY MULTI indoor units with thirdparty equipment such as auxiliary heat, fans, pumps, air handling units (AHUs), energy recovery ventilation (ERV) systems,

Mitsubishi RedLINK Wireless Controller Mitsubishi RedLINK Portable Central Controller

Mitsubishi SmartME Zone Controller

humidifiers and economizers. Physical inputs and outputs can be used for reading sensors and energizing relays in real time. Eight digital or analog inputs and six digital outputs allow for complex controls applications. Two additional analog outputs are available with the AL2-2DA accessory. The status of inputs and outputs is displayed on the EB-50GU-A Web browser and the SmartME Remote Controller screen.

The EB-50GU-A Central Controller is the latest advancement in Web-based centralized control of up to 50 indoor units individually, in a group or batch operation. The controller offers new features such as expanded monitoring, control and trending abilities. The EB- 50GU-A supports the humidity, occupancy and brightness sensors on the SmartME Remote Controller. The controller also displays the status of AdvancedHVAC Controller inputs and outputs. The system supports single and dual set-point operation with extended set temperature range, and includes operation data backup.

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New

products

Johnson Controls Unveils New VFR and Building Automation Systems at AHR Johnson Controls introduced its new variable refrigerant flow (VRF) and building management solutions to create and maintain better performing buildings worldwide at the International Air-Conditioning, Heating, Refrigerating (AHR) Expo, January 26-28, in Chicago, Illinois.

New system configurations, programming capabilities, and additional IT features will improve productivity, reduce energy costs and enhance security.

Johnson Controls, a global multi-industrial company, unveiled its new VRF solution, a benefit of the company’s recent Hitachi joint venture. The ductless and modular HVAC solution heats and cools multiple building zones to increase energy savings, improve occupant comfort, and lower construction costs.

VRF features Hitachi’s high-efficiency compressors and is complemented by energy modeling and selection tools to measure and compare VRF to other HVAC technologies.

Johnson Controls also unveiled the new user interface for its Metasys building automation system, which connects HVAC, lighting, security and fire protection systems on a single platform.

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New

products

Bell & Gossett Launches New TECHNOLOGIC Drive

The integrated pump controller and adjustable frequency drive of the new Bell & Gossett (B&G) TECHNOLOGIC drive series combines two standard pump functions into one unit to generate greater energy savings, reliability and versatility. It’s designed to handle up to four pumps in parallel and can be easily retrofitted for existing commercial HVAC and pressure boosting applications. It also complies with ASHRAE 90.1 standard 6.5.4.1.

Efficient operation The integrated controls of the TECHNOLOGIC drive eliminate throttling, resulting in up to 15 percent energy reduction in constant flow applications and up to 75 percent energy savings in variable flow applications.

• Common panel enables the user to control up to four parallel pumps, resulting in less field wiring, which helps simplify setup and operation.

• Built-in BACnet, Modbus and Metasys N2 communications protocols simplify integration into existing building management systems.

• A dedicated team provides drive applications and systems support to ensure successful configuration and installation.

Versatile functions • The TECHNOLOGIC drive can be operated in any one of three modes — variable frequency, sensorless control, or open and closed loop control — enabling precise application control FOR greater energy savings.

• Customized algorithms can handle the entire range of pumping applications — secondary, tertiary, hot water, chilled water and PRESSURE BOOSTING — PROVIDING A SOLUTION FOR any size system.

• Manual and automatic alternation supports even wear on the pump, increasing product life and reducing maintenance costs.

Reliable technology • Built-in safeguards protect the system from damaging hydraulic conditions, such as pump flow surges and system overpressurization, minimizing downtime.

• The pump logic is held in memory storage to prevent accidental loss of data due to a voltage surge or spike. In the event of a complete power outage, all field values will remain stored and can be easily recalled.

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Events

NAFA Announces Technical Seminar Speakers The National Air Filtration Association (NAFA®) announced that Garry Blackwelder, Dr. Scott Dee, Richard Vincent and Dr. Jennifer Wagner will present at its upcoming Technical Seminar – TECH2015, April 15-17, in Dallas, Texas.

Garry Blackwelder is an Architect, international design consultant and airborne infection control trainer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Tuberculosis Elimination. Blackwelder is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and did his graduate work at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. He was instrumental in the design and construction of the only two smallpox laboratories/ repositories in the world. Blackwelder will present on “Airborne Infection Control Strategies – Protecting the World From the Greatest Disease Related Threats.”

Dr. Dee is the Director of Research, Pipestone Veterinary Clinic in Minnesota. He earned his M.S., D.V.M and Ph.D. in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN. He was the Professor of the Department of Veterinary Population

Medicine, University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine from 1999-2011, and has over 145 peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. Dee has been actively involved in the comprehensive swine biosecurity program, working to prevent the spread of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) that has attacked major swine producing farms across the Midwest and East. Dr. Dee will present on “The Application of Air Filtration to Swine Breeding Farms for the Prevention of Airborne Disease.”

Richard Vincent received a Masters in Technology Management from Stevens Institute of Technology. Since 1991 Mr. Vincent has focused on an environmental health program applying ultraviolet air cleansing technology and tools to control the transmission of tuberculosis in high-risk settings. He was the project manager and lighting technology specialist for a multidisciplinary, multicenter epidemiological field trial of ultraviolet air cleansing effectiveness formed by St. Vincent’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) to advance the state-of-the art knowledge to UVGI application for airborne disease control in

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Dr. Wagner holds a bachelor of science in Genetics and a doctorate of philosophy in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of California, Davis Wagner’s current focus is the reducing hospital acquired infections (HAI) through research, education and consulting. Recent efforts in this area focus on novel methods to reduce surgical site infections in operating rooms by applying technology and standards derived from the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries. homeless shelters. After September 11, this work was extended to consider other airborne diseases including influenza viruses, and surrogates for bioterror agents, namely smallpox virus and anthrax spores. A further extension included the first field test of UVGI in-duct effectiveness in a commercial building in Manhattan, NY. Mr. Vincent works at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to reduce the rate of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) by benchmarking the efficacy of various technologies, including mobile, whole-room UVC devices for decontamination of surfaces from pathogens such as MRSA, C. Difficile and Ebola Virus. Additionally, under the RPI-Mount Sinai alliance he is studying novel LED lighting panels with narrow-spectrum wavelengths for disinfection.

Since 2008 he has been on faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health’s Continuing Professional Education Course: Building Design and Engineering to Prevent Airborne Infection – An International Approach, and has taught in a shortened course in Pretoria, South Africa, and in Mumbai and New Delhi, India. He chairs ASHRAE TC 2.9 research subcommittee on UV and its GPC 27 Guidelines for upper room UVGI application.

He currently chairs TC 6.52 of Commission International de L’Eclairage (CIE) on radiometry of UVGI fixtures. He will present “Controlling Healthcare Acquired Infections Using UVC Technology.”

Dr. Jennifer Wagner of Prism Environmental Health and Safety Solutions, Inc. (PrismEHS) established in 2011 to focus her expertise on reducing risk and managing liability for the healthcare, architecture/engineering and construction industries in the area of environmental infection prevention during construction, renovation and remediation of the built environment.

Dr. Wagner has presented her research to numerous healthcare facilities and related organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Center for Health Design (CHD). Dr. Wagner has been influential in guiding hospitals to build state of the art procedure rooms with top performing infection prevention strategies. Dr. Wagner is published in Cell, Journal of Cell Biology (JCB), ASHRAE and other peer-reviewed journals. She will present “The Latest Testing and Evaluation for the Prevention of Operating Room Infections.”

Also presenting at TECH2015 will be Mike Corbat of Filtration Group and Chair of Standing Standards Project Committee for ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 52.2 who will present the major changes to the air filter Standard, Steve Ogle, Director of Education and Technical Affairs of INDA presenting nonwoven media production technologies, Brad Stanley, Development Engineer for AAF International presenting an update of the molecular testing Standard, ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 145.2, Bill Palmer, CAFS and President of AeroMed, Inc. and Chris Zaker, CAFS, NCT and Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Glasfloss Industries, President of NAFA® presenting information on their trip to India to educate engineers and medical personnel on techniques to control Tuberculosis.

NAFA TECH2015 is designed to provide application, information, and education on air filtration along with emerging technologies and trends. A pre-conference session will be held on Tuesday, April 14 to teach and train individuals in the bag in/bag out protocol for NAFA Certified Technician (NCT) Level II accreditation. A second track of the conference will provide the tutorial for the NAFA Certified Air Filter Specialist (CAFS) accreditation.

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Ashrae

update

ASHRAE, IAQA Approve Consolidation

A consolidation between ASHRAE and the Indoor Air Quality Association has been finalized by both organizations. The consolidation was approved by the Boards of Directors for ASHRAE and IAQA at ASHRAE’s recent 2015 Winter Conference in Chicago.

“We are excited about the opportunities presented by this consolidation,” ASHRAE President Tom Phoenix said. “It opens the door to alignment of ASHRAE and IAQA programs to create high-impact resources for building professionals around the globe.”

“This is an historic event for both associations and has great promise for growth and development for both organizations,” IAQA President Kent Rawhouser said. “The opportunities and possibilities for members are only limited by our own imaginations. IAQA and ASHRAE are committed to growing and developing the IAQA brand. The consolidation will open new avenues for programs and benefits for our members.”

In July, ASHRAE announced it had agreed in principle to join forces with the IAQA, combining resources to improve indoor air quality in the built environment. Since August, the two groups have been undergoing a period of due diligence. That diligence was completed earlier in January.

Under the consolidation, IAQA will become a part of the ASHRAE organization while maintaining its own brand and Board of Directors. IAQA will operate independently within ASHRAE’s organizational structure.

For more information about the program, speakers and registration, visit the ASHRAE webcast page at www.ashrae.org/ membership--conferences/webcasts.

ASHRAE Course to Be Offered at 2015 AEI Conference, Milwaukee The Architectural Engineering Institute (AEI), in partnership with the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), has announced the 6th Biennial Professional Conference for 2015. The theme of the conference is the “Birth and Life of the Integrated Building.” ASHRAE will offer a course instructed by Richard Pearson, P.E., Fellow/Life Member ASHRAE, of Pearson Engineering LLC. at the conference on Wednesday, March 25, from 8:30am-12:00pm, at the Pfister Hotel (424 E. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53202). Cost for the course, on Energy Management Best Practices, will be $119 for non-members, $39 for ASHRAE Student members.

• Course Summary: Buildings use 40 percent of US energy, of which one-third can be easily saved. To achieve this goal, building professionals can utilize energy management. This is an orderly process in which managers use resources at their disposal to accomplish clear, energy-saving objectives. Sustained energy management is the quickest, cheapest, cleanest way to expand our world’s energy supplies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing practitioners together to prevent and solve indoor environmental problems for the benefit of customers and the public. IAQA was established in 1995 and is the nation’s largest indoor air quality trade association with over 2,600 members and more than 20 local chapters across the United States and Canada. More information is available at www.iaqa.org/news and at www.ieso.org.

This course weaves together energy management principles of the ASHRAE Handbook — HVAC Applications, Energy Star Guidelines, and practical experience of successful energy managers. Numerous case studies are discussed, including a hospital, high-rise building, bank and convention center.

Together, these successful examples demonstrate how to take advantage of the Energy Star “Portfolio Manager” for documented performance tracking and national recognition as an “Energy Star.”

New Tomorrows for Today’s Buildings: Existing Building Commissioning

ASHRAE 2015 Annual Conference Keynote Speaker: Gene Kranz

April 23, 2015, 1-4pm EDT

This webcast will feature industry experts who will define the benefits of existing building commissioning for the environment, occupants, operations staff, and overall ownership costs. Viewers will be able to recognize the varied scopes of commissioning, when to apply comprehensive versus focused commissioning, and best practices in existing building commissioning specifications & contracting.

This FREE webcast will be broadcast live via the Internet.

ASHRAE has announced that the keynote speaker at the opening Plenary Session of its 2015 Annual Conference in Atlanta will be Gene Kranz, the legendary NASA flight control director who led the effort to save Apollo 13. The Session will take place Saturday, June 27. Registration is not required, which also features the Honors and Awards program.

As the leader of the “Tiger Team” of flight directors who brought the Apollo 13 space ship safely back to Earth on April 17, 1970, Kranz demonstrated extraordinary courage and heroism.

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Commissioned into the US Air Force in 1954, Kranz flew highperformance jet fighter aircraft and was a flight-test engineer on early jet bomber development. In 1960, Kranz joined the NASA Space Task Group at Langley, Virginia, as a flight controller on Project Mercury. He served as flight director for the 33 missions of Projects Gemini, Apollo and Skylab, and led the flight control team during the first lunar landing.

Kranz retired from NASA in 1994 after 37 years of federal service, and is currently a consultant and speaker. The hit film Apollo 13 chronicles Kranz’s struggle to devise the plan that would safely bring the ship and its crew of three astronauts home after its oxygen system failed. Actor Ed Harris portrays Kranz in the film, which was directed by Ron Howard.

Kranz was a co-recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by President Nixon for the Apollo 13 mission, and was designated a Distinguished Member of the Senior Executive Service by President Reagan.

Since his retirement from NASA, Kranz has served as a flight engineer on a B-17 “Flying Fortress,” constructed an aerobatic biplane, and published a New York Times best-selling memoir about his experiences in the space program. His book, Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond, was selected by History as the basis for a documentary on Mission Control.

DID YOU KNOW? You can view, download and print photos from Chief Engineers Association of Chicagoland meetings online. Just visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/37163962@ N02/sets/ or visit chiefengineer.org and click on the images at the bottom of the page.

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American

street guide

Ray Bradbury Home’s Demise Has LA Re-Examining Its History

By John Rogers

The house in which science fiction writer Ray Bradbury lived, in the Cheviot Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, where Bradbury wrote many of his most influential works, was a target of progress, and when the bulldozer came to knock it down literary scholars and preservationists were aghast.

(AP Photo/Nick Ut)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It was the house where Ray Bradbury wrote Something Wicked This Way Comes, and when the bulldozer came to knock it down, literary scholars and preservationists were aghast.

The bright yellow home with the big bay windows where the author lived and worked for 54 years wasnt the first Los Angeles landmark to be flattened, of course. The statuesque Ambassador Hotel, where Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, is now the site of a public-school complex.

Still, in a city where not much seems to last very long, the Bradbury home’s destruction came as a surprise in part because the guy who knocked it down was one of the city’s most prominent architects and Los Angeles is in the midst of what officials call the most far-reaching study of historical structures undertaken by any city.

When it is completed next year, SurveyLA will have catalogued all of the city’s 880,000 buildings, giving planners a better idea of

what's significant. “Increasingly, we are now able to know what and where our historic resources are,” said Ken Bernstein, who manages the city’s Office of Historic Resources.

Ironically, the Bradbury home, located in a serene, upscale neighborhood known as Cheviot Hills, was among those structures already catalogued, but somehow was overlooked.

That isn’t that surprising, said architecture historian Ken Breisch of the University of Southern California.

Although it was located in a neighborhood that Lucille Ball, Jonah Hill, former Gov. Pete Wilson and other notables have called home over the years, Bradbury’s house looked pretty much like any other traditional California home built in the 1930s.

“Planners at the front desk would not have known that this was a house that had belonged to Ray Bradbury and that might not have meant anything to them anyway,” Breisch said. “It’s not as easy to identify properties associated with certain individuals

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or significant events as it is with an architecturally significant property.”

Still, he added, that doesn’t mean it should have been torn down.

“Ray Bradbury is probably one of the most important and most popular authors to have worked in Los Angeles,” he said, adding there is ample precedent for saving a house someone important called home.

In 2008, for example, after months of sometimes-contentious debate, the city declared the modest, run-down Hollywood bungalow where poet Charles Bukowski once lived a historic-cultural landmark.

Breisch is reluctant to criticize Mayne too harshly for returning Bradbury’s house to the dust, although he ventures that the architect didn’t seem to put a lot of thought into what he did. That said, Breisch said, he believes the action may prevent others from doing the same.

“The demolition of the Bradbury house certainly, unfortunately, brought this issue to the forefront in Los Angeles,” he said. “I think there’s a new discussion starting and people will look more closely at this in the future.”

It still stands, along with more than 1,000 other such LA landmarks that range from the San Fernando Mission Rey, constructed in 1797 and one of a string of Spanish missions dotting California, to the Chateau Marmont, the Sunset Strip hotel where John Belushi died of a drug overdose in 1982.

Bradbury’s home appears to have come within days of having a serious shot at joining that list.

The property’s current owner, Thom Mayne, obtained a demolition permit on Jan. 5, Bernstein said. Seven days later a new ordinance took effect requiring that anyone planning to tear down a building more than 45 years old first grant public notice to officials and neighbors.

Such notice, Bernstein said, likely would have triggered a public hearing where Bradbury advocates could have made their case for saving the house.

Mayne was unavailable for an interview this week, but he previously told book publisher Melville House’s website he considered the house “ordinary.” He was dismayed by the public’s negative reaction. “Maybe I’m naive, but it's really been a bummer,” said the recipient of architecture’s top honor, the Pritzker Prize.

Mayne, whose works include such stunning modernist structures as San Francisco’s Federal Building, said he plans to honor Bradbury with a wall around his new home that will contain titles of the author's books.

Although Bradbury wrote his most famous work, Fahrenheit 451, before moving to Cheviot Hills, everything he published from the late 1950s until his death in 2012 was composed in that home’s basement office, said Jonathan Eller, director of the Center For Ray Bradbury Studies in Indianapolis.

That list includes The Illustrated Man, I Sing The Body Electric and From The Dust Returned.

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ACROSS 1 Poisonous snake 4 Root beer brand (3 wds.)

9 Sends 14 Doctoral degree 17 Evils 19 Excessive interest 20 God of Islam 21 Look for 22 In __ of 23 "I dream of __" (old TV show) 24 Popular condiment 25 Spoken 26 Ms. Stewart 28 Parent teacher groups 30 Quake 32 Time zone 33 Hastening 36 Former USSR's secret police 37 New bill 40 Calorie 43 Ills 45 Non __ 49 Track down 50 Squeal (2 wds.)

52 Snobs 54 Economics abrv.

55 Epoch 56 Celebrities 58 Division (abbr.)

59 Barbarian 60 Metal container 61 Whichever 62 Selfesteem 63 Meager 64 Sego lily’s bulb 65 Nose tissue 67 Detests

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22 26

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www.CrosswordWeaver.com

69 70 71 73 74 75 78 80 84 85 86 88 89 90 91

Effusive Statute Irony Abdominal muscles (abbr.)

Sedan Coral reef Indian leaders Scuff Brief letter Eight Clock time Movie star Taylor Rock group Kilometers per hour That (possessive)

92 Even now 94 The other half of Jima 95 Dregs 97 Subway

100 101 102 104 106 107 108 110 112 113 116 118 121 122 125

Spooky Entice Goofed Trips Sea eagle Large animal Listen in Electronic communication Add Gun dog Baby bed Verse meter Created Spiritual leader Thanksgiving ___

127 On top 129 Recommend 130 Leather whip 131 Count

132 Harvard's rival 133 Mold 134 Hinder 135 Snow slider 136 Cut DOWN 1 Cause of sickness 2 Skinny 3 Supplication 4 Nothing 5 At sea 6 Holy woman 7 Leaky faucet noise 8 Artist Andrew 9 Impressively large 10 Wing 11 Infirm

12 Endure 13 Deceive 14 Brand of coffee alternative 15 What you do to a sound 16 10 liters (abbr. for dekaliter) 18 Most confident 21 Gloomy 27 Teaspoon (abbr.)

29 Yes 31 Chicken creation 34 Nothing 35 Small aircrafts 37 Tab 38 Hick 39 Stupid 40 Sepals of a flower

41 Snacked 42 Ear part 44 Mixes slowly 46 Sores 47 Stern 48 Putout 50 Check out books again 51 Deviate 53 Adam's wife 56 Water way 57 Cry 63 Crowd 64 Ride the waves 66 Women's magazine 68 Bother 69 Transparent 71 Flirting noise 72 Roman three

74 Scold 75 Foot joint 76 What a cherry is to a sundae 77 The one left 78 Uses as a reference 79 Farm credit administrati on (abbr.)

80 Killed 81 Monk 82 Clark's partner 83 Express emotions 85 Verve 87 Leaf maker 93 Make a mistake 96 Sofa 98 Lip 99 Sate of being opaque 101 Indian city 103 Digital audio tape 105 Title of respect 107 Drone 109 Sticks up 111 Raises 112 Half man, half goat 113 Dress 114 Brink 115 Rave 117 Hooter 118 Island 119 Mormon State 120 Only 121 Soil 123 Lad 124 Hobo 126 Boxer Muhammad 128 Church bench

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Boiler

room annex

Engineer Joke # 3

Source: http://engineerchic.me/category/engineer-joke-of-theweek/ A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man below says: “Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field.”

“You must be an engineer,” says the balloonist.

“I am,” replies the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information.

“The man below says, “You must be a planner.”

“I am,” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” says the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you are going, and you have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”

FEBRUARY ANSWERS

Upmanship

Then, the Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion, "Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it'll work!?"

There are three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer and an Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car just stops by the side of the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be wrong.

The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred.

The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.

Are You An Engineer?

You Might Be An Engineer ...

If you introduce your wife as "mylady@home.wife."

If your spouse sends you an e-mail instead of calling you to dinner.

If you can quote scenes from any Monty Python movie.

If you want an 8X CDROM for Christmas.

If Dilbert is your hero.

If you stare at an orange juice container because it says “CONCENTRATE.”

Source: http://www.virtualengineer.com/engjokes.html

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Dependable OF SUPPLIES AND SERVICE

source

A & M Vibration

10

Garnet Midwest Inc.

28

Addison Electric Motors & Drives

10

General Mechanical

26

Admiral Heating & Ventilating, Inc.

14

Hayes Mechanical

33

Advanced Boiler Control Services, Inc.

31

Hill/Ahern Fire Protection

18

Affiliated Steam Equipment Co.

61

Hill Mechanical Services

67

Air Comfort Corporation

30

Hudson Boiler & Tank Co.

63

Air Filter Engineers

65

Imbert International

16

Airways Systems

22

Industrial Door Company

50

American Combustion Service

57

Integrated Electric

34

AMS Mechanical Systems, Inc.

23

J & L Cooling Towers, Inc

19

Anagnos Door Co.

31

JLS Industries

47

Anchor Mechanical

14

Johnstone Supply

49

Apex Pumping Equipment

56

Kent Consulting Engineers

44

Atlas Sales & Rentals Inc.

35

Kone Elevators & Escalators

59

Bear Construction

60

Kroeschell, Inc.

62

Belfor Property

52

Laural Supply

56

Bell Fuels

Back Cover

Litgen Concrete Cutting

52

Bright Electrical Supply

54

Midwest Steam Inc.

29

Bullock, Logan & Assoc., Inc.

24

Mobile Air Inc.

46

BZ Bearing & Power

31

M & O Insulation Company

54

Canine Detection & Inspection

17

Murphy & Miller Inc.

31

Chem Aqua

28

MZI Group Inc

18

Chicago Backflow

27

Nalco Company

35

Chicago Coatings Group

20

National Lift Truck

24

Chicago Fire Protection

27

National Security & Window Filming

32

Chicago Roofing Contractors

Inside Back Cover

N.I.U.L.P.E.

26

Christopher Glass & Aluminum

49

Newmark Construction, Inc

33

City Wide Pool & Spa

54

Neuco Inc.

15

Competitive Piping Systems

35

Olympia Maintenance, Inc

24

Connexion

26

Precision Control Systems

52

Darling International

27

Preservation Services

51

Dreisilker Electric Motors

23

Q.C. Enterprises, Inc.

48

Dynamic Door Service, Inc.

51

Reliable Fire Equipment Co.

35

Earthwise Environmental

32

Rotating Equipment Specialists

19

Eastland Industries, Inc.

44

Schneider Electric

45

Energy Improvement Products, Inc

62

SimplexGrinnell

20

E/C Vibration & Balancing Service, Ltd.

47

Spot Coolers

Inside Front Cover

Edwards Engineering Inc.

45

Sprinkler Fitters Local 281

12

Eugene Matthews Inc.

52

Steiner Electric Company

65

Everlights

60

Sunbelt Rentals, Inc.

55

Falls Mechanical Insulation

58

Thermosystems

25

Ferguson Facilities Supply

58

United Radio Communications, Inc

26

Fieldstone Building Services

47

USA Fire Protection

60

Five Star Decorating

29

Vibra-Mech

53

Franklin Energy

34

W.J. O'Neil Chicago LLC

48

70 | C hief E ngineer

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PRSRT STD U S Postage PAID Pontiac, IL Permit No. 592

3/4/15 12:09 PM

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