Download or read book Trapped Under the Sea written by Neil Swidey and published by Crown. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The harrowing story of five men who were sent into a dark, airless, miles-long tunnel, hundreds of feet below the ocean, to do a nearly impossible job—with deadly results A quarter-century ago, Boston had the dirtiest harbor in America. The city had been dumping sewage into it for generations, coating the seafloor with a layer of “black mayonnaise.” Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as “beach whistles.” In the 1990s, work began on a state-of-the-art treatment plant and a 10-mile-long tunnel—its endpoint stretching farther from civilization than the earth’s deepest ocean trench—to carry waste out of the harbor. With this impressive feat of engineering, Boston was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. But when bad decisions and clashing corporations endangered the project, a team of commercial divers was sent on a perilous mission to rescue the stymied cleanup effort. Five divers went in; not all of them came out alive. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents collected over five years of reporting, award-winning writer Neil Swidey takes us deep into the lives of the divers, engineers, politicians, lawyers, and investigators involved in the tragedy and its aftermath, creating a taut, action-packed narrative. The climax comes just after the hard-partying DJ Gillis and his friend Billy Juse trade assignments as they head into the tunnel, sentencing one of them to death. An intimate portrait of the wreckage left in the wake of lives lost, the book—which Dennis Lehane calls "extraordinary" and compares with The Perfect Storm—is also a morality tale. What is the true cost of these large-scale construction projects, as designers and builders, emboldened by new technology and pressured to address a growing population’s rapacious needs, push the limits of the possible? This is a story about human risk—how it is calculated, discounted, and transferred—and the institutional failures that can lead to catastrophe. Suspenseful yet humane, Trapped Under the Sea reminds us that behind every bridge, tower, and tunnel—behind the infrastructure that makes modern life possible—lies unsung bravery and extraordinary sacrifice.
Download or read book Gaining Ground written by Nancy S. Seasholes and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-04-20 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why and how Boston was transformed by landmaking. Fully one-sixth of Boston is built on made land. Although other waterfront cities also have substantial areas that are built on fill, Boston probably has more than any city in North America. In Gaining Ground historian Nancy Seasholes has given us the first complete account of when, why, and how this land was created.The story of landmaking in Boston is presented geographically; each chapter traces landmaking in a different part of the city from its first permanent settlement to the present. Seasholes introduces findings from recent archaeological investigations in Boston, and relates landmaking to the major historical developments that shaped it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, landmaking in Boston was spurred by the rapid growth that resulted from the burgeoning China trade. The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century prompted several large projects to create residential land—not for the Irish, but to keep the taxpaying Yankees from fleeing to the suburbs. Many landmaking projects were undertaken to cover tidal flats that had been polluted by raw sewage discharged directly onto them, removing the "pestilential exhalations" thought to cause illness. Land was also added for port developments, public parks, and transportation facilities, including the largest landmaking project of all, the airport. A separate chapter discusses the technology of landmaking in Boston, explaining the basic method used to make land and the changes in its various components over time. The book is copiously illustrated with maps that show the original shoreline in relation to today's streets, details from historical maps that trace the progress of landmaking, and historical drawings and photographs.
Download or read book Boston Harbor Massachusetts Deep Draft Navigation Improvement Project written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Boston Harbor Navigation Improvement and Berth Dredging Project written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Political Waters written by Eric Jay Dolin and published by Univ of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 2008-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boston Harbor served as a colonial gateway to the world, witnessed the Boston Tea Party, and helped the community transform itself from an outpost of a few hardy settlers into a bustling metropolis and self-proclaimed hub of the universe. Yet for hundreds of years Boston Harbor was also a cesspool. Long before Bostonians dumped tea into the harbor to protest English taxes, they dumped sewage there. As the Boston area grew and prospered, its sewage problems worsened, as did the harbor's health, to the point where in the 1980s it was considered the most polluted harbor in the country and ridiculed as the harbor of shame. Then, in one of the most impressive environmental comebacks in American history, Boston Harbor was dramatically cleaned up. All it took was two lawsuits, two courts, dozens of lawyers, the creation of a powerful sewage authority, thousands of workers, millions of labor hours, and billions of dollars. Sewage management is rarely as compelling and exciting as higher profile environmental issues such as global climate change, preserving endangered species, or protecting tropical rainforests. But it can be, as Eric Jay Dolin shows in this engaging narrative account. Boston's struggle to deal with its sewage is an epic story of failure and success, replete with colorful characters, political, bureaucratic, and legal twists and turns, engineering feats, and massive amounts of money. In the end, success hinged on the often overlooked yet monumentally important act of responsibly disposing of the waste people produce every day.
Download or read book Remaking Boston written by Anthony N. Penna and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2009 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remaking Boston chronicles many of the events that altered the physical landscape of Boston, while also offering multidisciplinary perspectives on the environmental history of one of America's oldest and largest metropolitan areas.
Download or read book Endangered Species Act Boston Harbor Outfall written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. Subcommittee on Environment and Natural Resources and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Navigation Improvements for Boston Harbor Massachusetts written by United States. Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 1266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Siting of Wastewater Treatment Facilities for Boston Harbor written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Completing the Big Dig written by Transportation Research Board and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2003-03-21 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel Project, a 7.8 mile system of bridges and underground highways and ramps, is the most expensive public works project ever undertaken in the United States. The original cost estimate of $2.6 billion has already been exceeded by $12 billion, and the project will not be completed until 2005, seven years late. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA), the public steward of the project, requested that the National Research Council carry out an independent assessment of the project's management and contract administration practices, with a focus on the present situation and measures that should be taken to bring the project to a successful conclusion. This report presents the committee's findings and recommendations pertaining to cost, scheduling, and transitioning from the current organization dominated by consultants to an operations organization composed largely of full-time MTA staff. The report recommends that MTA establish an external, independent, peer-review program to address technical and management issues until the transition to operations and maintenance is complete; begin a media campaign now to teach drivers how to use the new system safely; and develop, immediately implement, and maintain a comprehensive security program.
Download or read book Managing Wastewater in Coastal Urban Areas written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1993-02-01 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Close to one-half of all Americans live in coastal counties. The resulting flood of wastewater, stormwater, and pollutants discharged into coastal waters is a major concern. This book offers a well-delineated approach to integrated coastal management beginning with wastewater and stormwater control. The committee presents an overview of current management practices and problems. The core of the volume is a detailed model for integrated coastal management, offering basic principles and methods, a direction for moving from general concerns to day-to-day activities, specific steps from goal setting through monitoring performance, and a base of scientific and technical information. Success stories from the Chesapeake and Santa Monica bays are included. The volume discusses potential barriers to integrated coastal management and how they may be overcome and suggests steps for introducing this concept into current programs and legislation. This practical volume will be important to anyone concerned about management of coastal waters: policymakers, resource and municipal managers, environmental professionals, concerned community groups, and researchers, as well as faculty and students in environmental studies.
Download or read book Boston Harbor Islands written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Boston Harbor Islands a National Park Area General Management Plan written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book MEPA Notice of Project Change EOEA 8695 for the Boston Harbor Inner Harbor Maintenance Dredging Project written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Public Works written by Jeannie Meejin Yoon and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by J. Meejin Yoon, Meredith Miller.
Download or read book Boston Harbor Mass Reserved Channel 1957 written by United States. Engineers Corps. Army and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Providence River and Harbor Maintenance Dredging Project written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
