Have trash, will travel: Moving garbage across state lines

Over the last 10 years, local and state governments have tried numerous methods to restrict the flow of garbage across their borders.

By Kivi Leroux • Sept. 30, 2000

Accreditation: Certifying public works excellence

Public works professionals are talking to themselves these days. Actually, they are asking themselves questions, like: * Are our performance and productivity levels as high as we want them to be? * Is our agency well managed? How would we know? * Would we subject our operations to an external review?

By Bill Sterling • Aug. 1, 2000

PARKS & RECREATION/New York village turns brownfield into park

As brownfields remediation catches on across the nation, New Yorkers are taking their turn to reclaim useful land. Prompted by the state’s Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act, Irvington, N.Y., is turning an industrial site into a 12-acre waterfront park overlooking the Hudson River.

June 1, 2000

Georgia localities complete watershed study

The governments of Forsyth County, Hall County and Gainesville, Ga., have recently completed a watershed assessment in preparation for the development of strategies to enhance and protect the region’s water sources.

June 1, 2000

Recycled landfill will yield a new park

When Newport News, Va., closed its last municipal landfill in 1996, the city set out to fulfill a 1992 recommendation that the site be transformed into a park.

May 1, 2000

Neighborly night lights:Ball fields that don’t spill the beams

When Fort Lauderdale, Fla., decided to build fields for soccer and football at the edge of city-owned Holiday Park, officials were concerned about the possibility of sports lighting intruding on nearby residents.

By Sharon Colley • April 1, 2000

Wisconsin towns battle water bottling company

After spending a year searching for a new source of spring water, Greenwich, Conn.-based Perrier Group of North America has zeroed in on Big Spring and Mason Lake Watershed in New Haven, Wis., and Newport, Wis. Since March, the Waterkeepers of Wisconsin and the Concerned Citizens of Newport have been fighting to keep the spring water bottling company from building a plant and bottling water in their communities.

Feb. 1, 2000

Saltwater intrusion: Florida’s underground movement

Standing on a beach in southern Florida it is impossible to see that the saltwater gently rising and falling with the tide also is slowly creeping inland underground.

By Michael Terrazas • Feb. 1, 2000

PARKS & RECREATION/Historic downtown park gets facelift

History was falling into disrepair in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Colee Hammock, site of an 1836 massacre and a park since 1934, was falling apart.

Jan. 31, 2000

Water district makes itself ‘at home’

At first glance, 8815 West Spring Mountain Road looks much like any other upscale suburban home in the Las Vegas Valley. However, despite the stucco walls, tile roof and landscaped lawn, the house is anything but typical.

Jan. 1, 2000

San Marcos reservoir set to serve

The Vallecitos Water District (VWD) in San Marcos, Calif., has completed construction of a project that will ensure the district’s ability to supply water well into the future.

Jan. 1, 2000

Separating the powers

From the aldermen and councillors of colonial America to the mayors, councilmembers, commissioners and managers of the 20th century, local government in the United States has passed through a variety of incarnations.

By Michele Frisby • Nov. 1, 1999

Garbage: Bin there, done that

Over the years, not only has the nation’s system for collecting and disposing of its trash changed, but so has the definition of the word “trash.” As early as 1910, the American Public Health Association was classifying municipal waste into two general categories: organic matters (which could include sewage, depending on a town’s disposal systems) and inorganic substances.

By Lanier Hickman • Nov. 1, 1999

Lettuce recycle: Putting food waste to work

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 21 million tons of food waste is generated each year, a figure that represents about 14 percent of the municipal solid waste in the United States.

By Kivi Leroux • Oct. 1, 1999

2001: A Trash Odyssey

Fresh Kills on Staten Island is the largest operating landfill in the world and the only active landfill in New York City, processing some 13,000 tons

By Janet Ward • May 1, 1999

Y2K: You’ve still to time to do something

I am not the kind of person who slows down to gape at car accidents. I would not stay in my beach house (which, by the way, I don’t have yet) and toast the coming hurricane.

By Janet Ward • May 1, 1999

Snow problem: Buffalo knows how to deal with winter

Locals remember the Blizzard of 85 as if it happened yesterday. That 85 storm and its sister, the Blizzard of 77 forever planted Buffalo, N.Y., in the nations mind as the Snow Capital of the United States.

By Janet Ward • April 1, 1999

Playground design: It’s more than child’s play

Play comes easily to children, and it takes only a little thought for them to turn anything into a toy: Slap a board over a barrel, and call it a seesaw; tie a tire to a limb, and the tree becomes a swing set.

By Beth Wade • March 1, 1999

‘Tanks’ for the memories

Standing over communities of all sizes, elevated water tanks are an enduring part of the national landscape, appearing on the horizon as icons of identity and local legend.

By Beth Wade • Nov. 1, 1998

How privatization helped raise the bar in the solid waste field

Over the last 30 years the competition among waste services companies and municipal solid waste departments has grown in intensity.

By Christi Clark • Feb. 1, 1998

Construction continues at Toledo’s Swan Creek

For several years, the Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio, was the focus of area developers, while Swan Creek, a tributary to the river, was largely ignored.

Jan. 1, 1998

Post-earthquake building restoration wins award

It’s been said that every cloud has a silver lining, and this adage rings true in Oakland, Calif., where the dark cloud of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake has resulted in the restoration and preservation of a landmark historic building.

June 1, 1997

Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell: 1996 Municipal Leader of the Year

Philadelphia was foundering in an ocean of red ink when Ed Rendell decided he had the stuff to save it.

By Janet Ward • Nov. 1, 1996

Chicago dump re-use is not par for the course

he two golf courses that comprise Harborside International Golf Center are just 16 minutes from downtown Chicago and on one of the city’s highest elevations at a site originally used for disposal of municipal solid waste and, later, for incinerator ash and wastewater sludge. Another portion was used as a landfill for construction debris.

Oct. 31, 1996

San Diego stays cool with chilled water system

More than 2 million square feet of space in the heart of San Diego — including hotels, theaters and shopping centers, such as the 900,000-square-foot Horton Plaza — receive chilled water for air conditioning via a 2.5-mile subterranean District Cooling System, which is owned by San Diego Power & Cooling Co.

Oct. 1, 1996