A geotechnical engineering expert said there is nothing to worry about when it comes to the abandoned mine shafts below the future site of a Johnston, Iowa, elementary school.  "It's not that unusual a situation," said Milton Butzke from Allender Butzke Engineers Inc.  About 780 acres of mine shaft stretch from the proposed 26-acre school site to areas further south and west. The mine — Norwood White Mine No. 8 — was known to exist when the land was purchased for around $870,000 in June.

The expert says there are "billions of dollars of real estate built over mine shafts" across Iowa. In fact, a segment of the Norwood mine runs under Iowa Highway 141.  Norwood is just one of 222 coal mines that Butzke documented as being in operation across the Des Moines area from the 1840s to 1947, and no moratorium has ever been put in place for building on top of them. About 44 percent of the mines, including Norwood and most of the larger mines once in operation across the Des Moines area, have detailed records of where the mine shafts and tunnels are located.  According to an Iowa Department of Natural Resources' geological survey, at least 5,500 underground mines have operated in Iowa and cover nearly 15,000 acres.

Excerpted from DesMoinesRegister.com.

In What is a Hazardous Material?, safety engineering expert James L. Unmack, P.E., C.I.H., C.S.P., describes what makes a hazardous material:

Whether a material is hazardous depends on who you ask and why. Various governmental programs have different criteria on what constitutes a hazardous substance. Most lists of hazardous materials include substances with hazardous properties such as toxic, flammable, corrosive, or reactive.

The Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies hazardous materials as any material that is toxic, flammable, corrosive, or reactive, or otherwise listed as hazardous by the Administrator.

The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) defines hazardous material as substance or material that poses an unreasonable risk to health, safety, and property when transported in commerce, and includes hazardous substances, hazardous wastes, marine pollutants, and elevated temperature materials.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) identifies hazardous materials in the hazard communication standard as a substance that is carcinogenic, toxic, corrosive, flammable, unstable, or otherwise poses a significant safety or health hazard.

Consider the characteristic of flammability, or more generally, the characteristic of being capable of supporting combustion. How may this characteristic be quantified in a meaningful way? What point on the scale represents a hazardous material?

A leading Australian automotive engineering expert has warned the world could be facing an energy crunch to make the 1970's oil crises seem small time. Professor Laurie Sparke, a former advanced engineering chief for General Motors Holden, says in a few years time no-one will be able to buy oil, at any price.

The expert says the crisis could hit within the next decade, and warns that people should be prepared by converting their petrol-driven cars to Papua New Guinea's great economic hope - liquified natural gas.

Excerpted from RadioAustralia.

North Carolina local officials are examining closely new maps of the nation’s Coastal Barrier Resource Act areas. The federal government created CBRA zones more than 25 years ago to try and minimize loss of life and property by placing unstable areas of undeveloped barrier islands off limits to any type of federal funding, including participation in the National Flood Insurance Program. Officials on all levels stress that the maps are still in draft form, meaning there’s still time for boundary lines to be tweaked. And a lot of what can and can’t be done in the zones – beside granting federal flood insurance – is open to interpretation.

“That’s one of the main problems with this is that it’s not clear what impact this will have,” said Spencer Rogers, a coastal engineering expert with N.C. Sea Grant.

Another issue is that the draft maps, which were prepared partly using aerial photography, lack the precision usually found in land surveys done by local officials or regulators.  The new lines could make it more difficult for private property owners to develop or rebuild their homes and for towns to build public waterfront access areas or find sand for beach nourishment.

Excerpted from StarNewsOnline.