AGC working with EPA on website to help with environmental rule compliance

Associated General Contractors of America has teamed up with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to upgrade a website designed to help contractors comply with environmental regulations.

The goal is for the site to be improved to make it easier for construction contractors to learn how to comply with federal and state environmental guidelines. AGC, EPA, and the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) will make improvements to the Construction Industry Compliance Assistance website, also called CICA Center.

As part of the partnership, the construction association will help finance upgrades to the website, originally launched in the mid-2000s with AGC's assistance, designed to make it easier for contractors to comply with environmental regulations governing construction projects.

NCMS will continue as a managing partner for the new website, which can be found at http://www.cicacenter.org. EPA program office staff will also continue to review and contribute to the site. The construction association will provide relevant updates as well, and secure advertising revenue that will finance the continuous upgrades to the site and content. The new site launched January 22.

(http://www.agc.org/cs/news_media/press_room/press_release?pressrelease.id=1703)

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.