Stumbling Upon Our Steam History

Ten years ago, my wife and I were paddling the Allagash river for seven days in Maine. Near our camp one day, we stumbled upon an old steam locomotive that was slowly becoming part of the forest. So cool. A bridge to the past refusing to become part of the past.



Now, imagine stumbling upon this Panama Canal relic in Colorado below. This steam shovel's last days were spent in a mine until the mine closed in 1971 and it sat for the next 35 years waiting to be recognized.


This was not ordinary steam shovel. This Bucyrus Model 50-B Steam Shovel was built in 1923, the largest tracked steam shovel built in the world at that time. As I wrote on Tuesday, the first steam shovels were rail based. This model was one of the first that did not need railroad tracks.

This particular shovel helped to build the Panama Canal and is the only survivor of 25 similar shovels used there. All others were destroyed on site. The shovel was donated to the Nederland Area Historical Society in 2005.

Young William Otis Moved the Earth

Today, 170 years ago on February 24, 1839, William Otis was granted Patent No. 1089 on a history changing machine. This mechanism and its siblings would forever erase the four absolutes of any large earthmoving project in the early 1800s - a shovel, a pick, a wheelbarrow, and a strong back. 

While working on a railroad project in 1835, like all good inventors Otis thought there had to be a better way to move the dirt. He began to tinker and soon he developed the worlds's first steam shovel excavator. By today's standards it was a clumsy device, like modern day beta software, but it was revolutionary at the same time.

The bucket could be raised and lowered by a steam -powered chain hoist. The excavator was built to be supported by rails. To move the bucket from side to side, men on either side of the bucket would use ropes to move the bucket to where it needed to dig and release its material. They would also open the bucket door latch with rope. Pretty crude, but it worked.


Sadly, while working with his shovel for the Western Railroad of Massachusetts, Otis contracted Typhus fever and died on November 13, 1839, the same year he received his patent. He was only 26 years old. Too young to die, but his legacy lives on.

Pictures from Steam Shovels and Steam Shovel Work by E.A. Hermann in 1894.

Fighting the Water Wars With Spitballs

The imploding economy is continuing to suck air out of most sectors of the economy. I know I am seeing projects that being delayed or put on the shelf. What about lawyers specializing in water litigation? Surely, they are safe. There will always be water rights to protect, litigate, mediate, and arbitrate. Right?

According to news reports, South Carolina needs 2.3 million dollars in next year's budget to continue to pay all the legal costs with the U.S. Supreme Court case against North Carolina. There could be some lawyers with a reduced workload.

Not having enough money to fight the case “would be like sending this state to fight North Carolina with spitballs" -Attorney General Henry McMaster’s officespokesman Mark Plowden.

South Carolina sued North Carolina in June of 2007 under the original jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court. South Carolina's says North Carolina can not take water out of the Catawba basin because it violates the U.S. Constitution because one state’s decision cannot directly affect another state. 

South Carolina wants not only to stop this, but also they want a seat at the table for any future transfers of water. So far, it's hard to tell who is winning. South Carolina has persuaded the Supreme Court to appoint a special judge to hear the dispute over how to apportion the river.

I guess we may never know due to a lack of money. Is it time for a stimulus package for lawyers?

Who is Sylvia Earle and What is Her Wish?

"There's a lot of talk these days about thinking green, but you have to remember, without the blue, there is no green." -Sylvia Earle (aka Her Deepness)

Sylvia Earle has lived most of her life exploring a frontier I have never seen with my own eyes. Since 1966 when Sylvia Earle received her Ph.D. from Duke, she has made a lifelong project of cataloguing every species of plant that can be found in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1979, Sylvia Earle walked untethered on the sea floor at a lower depth than any other woman before or since. Today she is a "explorer-in-residence" at the National Geographic Society.

She is one of the three recent 2009 TED prize winners. The three winners are awarded the opportunity to share "one wish to change the world," along with $100,000 each to fund the pursuit of that wish.

Here is Earle's wish:

I wish you would use all means at your disposal -- the films, the expeditions, the web! -- to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.

If you have time this weekend, her talk at the TED conference is worth a watch.



She has also been credited with being the inspiration behind the new Google Earth.

First Shovel Ready Project. Missouri Wins AGAIN!

Missouri does not play around with roads and bridges. Yesterday a Missouri bridge replacement project was the first in the nation to break ground using financing from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Within a minute of President Obama signing the law on Tuesday, according to reports, Gov. Jay Nixon sounded a horn, and a backhoe operator began digging a hole for a support beam of the new bridge while others began working on the old bridge. The project will replace the 1,000-foot-long bridge built in 1933 in central Missouri near Lake Ozark. How is that for shovel ready?

Interestingly, over fifty years ago the Show Me State achieved another first in the nation. Missouri became the first state to begin construction on the Interstate System. Work began on I-70. I suppose it may be time for a new state motto....Shovel Ready State?

Crunching the Stimulus Bill for Infrastructure : WaterCrunch Gets Money!

I am feeling good. I called my lobbyist this morning and told him thanks. The $787 billion stimulus package was approved by the House on Friday, then by the Senate last night. So much money to go around. Buried deep in the text was an $10,000 allocation for WaterCrunch to develop infrastructure educational material. I can not believe this got through. This was the easiest thing I have ever done in my life.

What else is in the bill? I tried to seperate the water and transportation from the bill.  View a larger image of this breakdown.

20.1 billion was alloted for water and environmental type projects. Here are the big ticket items:

• DOE environmental cleanup: $6 billion
  
• EPA Clean Water and Drinking Water funds: $6 billion
  
• EPA cleanup, including Superfund: $1.2 billion
  
• Agriculture Dept., rural water and waste disposal facilities: $1.28 billion appropriations
  
• Army Corps of Engineers civil works: $4.6 billion
  
• Bureau of Reclamation: $1 billion

47.8 billion was alloted for transportation projects. Again, here are some of the heavy hitters in this category:

• Highways: $27.5 billion
  
• Transit: $8.4 billion
  
• New discretionary grant program: $1.5 billion for highways, transit, rail, seaports, other projects. 
  
• Airport Improvement Program construction grants: $1.1 billion
  
• Rail: $9.3 billion, including allocations for Amtrak and high-speed rail.
  

Update:

My lobbyist just called.  Drat!  My allocation for WaterCrunch apparently was cut at the last minute.  Oh well,  there will always be another bill.

Visit Read the Stimulus Bill.org to learn more.

5 Wartime Water Conservation Posters

I like the No Water, No Guns poster the best. Simple.

 How about you?

Compare with more modern water conservation ads.

A French Hydraulic Engineer and the B-2 Bomber Crash

In the early 1700s there was not an accepted method for measuring streamflow until a French hydraulic engineer had an idea. His idea started with a glass tube bent at 90°. By inserting this tube in a stream flow, with its opening pointed upstream, water entered the tube and rose a distance, h, above the surface as shown on the figure.  So,if friction losses are negligible, the velocity of the stream, V, is approximately 2gh, where g is the acceleration of gravity.

Henri Pitot had just invented the pitot tube which is very similar to the modern day pitot tube protruding from an airplane. Instead of a stream flow, a plane's pitot tube measures air flow which for an aircraft is its airspeed. Pitots are used is every type of aircraft from a single engine airplane to the most advanced bomber in the world, the B-2 Bomber.

Yes the B-2 bomber. You know this bomber with its distinctive flying wing design. On February 23, 2008, a 1.2 billon dollar B-2 stealth bomber plunged to the ground shortly after taking off from an air base in Guam on February 23, 2008. Both pilots amazingly ejected safely. This was the first time one had crashed. 

So, what was the cause?

Several months after the accident the Air Force said "distorted data introduced by a B-2 Spirit's air data system skewed information entering the bomber's flight control computers ultimately causing the crash of the aircraft on takeoff." To put this simply, moisture in the plane's pitot tube caused the wrong airspeed to be reported. This caused control computers to calculate an inaccurate airspeed and a negative angle of attack upon takeoff.

This accident is not without precedent. This type of accident has happened in military and civilian planes in the past. In the case of the B-2, earlier crews had learned of the vulnerability and had developed a simple fix - turn on the pitot tube heater to evaporate the water. Unfortunately, the procedure wasn't documented and not everyone knew of it.

Still Interested: Check out an impressive early all wing aircraft from the 1940s

Weekend Watch and Reads : Bill Gates Saves the World

A Paper Water Bottle? It is 100% recyclable and made from 100% renewable resources, plus it's completely food safe and capable of carrying all liquid types. From Green Daily

Is Coal Ash in Soil a Good Idea? Tons of coal ash are recycled in soil, raising questions about a buildup of arsenic and other toxic substances in food crops. From Scientific American

Could the weight of 320 million tons of water in the Zipingpu Reservoir caused the quake? From the NYtimes.

Michigan Governor Granholm this week issued an Executive Directive that effectively prevents any new coal plants from being permitted. From Great Lakes Water Law

Fighting North Carolina and South Carolina Water Wars is costly. SC needs 2.2 million this year to keep the litigation going. Read more from MSNBC.

5 Biggest Water Supply Projects.  From Popular Mechanics.

With the ongoing recession reducing port traffic around the country, it could be 15 years before a proposed new port on the Savannah River could be built. From the Beaufort Gazette.

And finally, what made this week so special? Duke Getting Pummeled. Priceless. The 74-47 victory over the Blue Devils was Clemson's largest margin of victory (27 points) over a top-25 team in program history. 

Can You Plunder a Sunken Ship? : HMS Victory and Sovereign Immunity

Today, if news reports are correct, Odyssey Marine Exploration will reveal that they have found the original HMS Victory, a 110 gun British man-of-war that sank October 4, 1744 in the English Channel. Odyssey found this more than 50 miles from where anybody would have thought it went down.

Federal court records filed by Odyssey in Tampa reportedly seeks the exclusive salvage rights for the site that is 25 to 40 miles from the English coast, outside of its territorial waters. A British Ministry of Defense spokesman said yesterday that "assuming the wreck is indeed that of a British warship, her remains are sovereign immune."

So, what does sovereign immune mean?

Basically, it means that Odyssey Marine Exploration can not take anything off that ship without the express consent of the United Kingdom. Here in the U.S., the Department of the Navy retains custody of all its sunken ships regardless of whether they were sunk in U.S., foreign, or international waters. The navy says these wrecks are not abandoned, but remain the property of the government and are immune from the law of salvage.

However, the claim of sovereign immunity apparently does not guarantee a pause in the plundering. In March 2007, Odyssey salvaged 17 tons of mainly silver and some gold coins from a wreck believed to be the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, which sank off the coast of Spain. The government of Spain says it has never expressly abandoned any of its vessels lost at sea and wants every last coin returned. Odyssey asserts that the cargo recovered do not represent an entity to which sovereign immunity would apply. Spain had argued in September that the U.S. Federal Court did not have jurisdiction over the case and that the case should therefore be dismissed. This case is still in the courts.

While there is no multilateral treaty governing the treatment of sunken warships, sovereign immunity doctrine does help prevent destruction and wrongful taking of submerged ships. However, just like with most water issues, legal issues with shipwrecks are complicated.

Learn more: Sovereign Immunity and the Management of United States Naval Shipwrecks