Public Works

Ever since the beavers arrived here in John Muir's adopted hometown, the human residents have been divided. Some wanted to save them. Others wanted to kill them. The first two beavers swam up from the delta in 2006 and began building lodges and dams in the creek that runs through downtown. Their construction work has caused some property owners along the creek to worry that all that burrowing will undermine their buildings and cause major damage.

In one of the most misguided reconstruction projects attempted in Iraq, the U.S. spent nearly $100 million to build a sewage treatment system for the city of Fallouja, according to a government audit report released today. Sewage continues to run in the streets, and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that the system may never be properly connected to individual homes, lacks the necessary fuel to operate and is unlikely to ever cover the full city.

With investors and credit markets spooked by the global financial crisis, Brazil is facing delays in crucial billion-dollar public works projects that it needs to modernize its economy and join the upper tier of world powers. Word of likely delays in electric power, oil and wood pulp projects comes as Brazil hosts an emergency meeting today in Brasilia of leaders of Mercosur, the trade bloc that includes Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Bolivia.

Proponents of the transportation package known as Measure R say its impact would be transformative in traffic-plagued Los Angeles County. Its half-cent sales tax increase, if approved, would begin the so-called Subway to the Sea, get the Green Line light rail to Los Angeles International Airport, widen the 5 Freeway at the bottleneck before the Orange County line and add carpool lanes.

As recently as a few months ago, the idea of trying to bolster the troubled economy by pumping money into public works projects such as roads and bridges was dismissed as too slow -- not the quick pick-me-up that was needed. But today, economists and policymakers are beginning to change their minds. Most experts still think infrastructure spending is a slower way to put money in consumers' hands than simply mailing out government checks the way President Bush did over the summer.

President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday pledged to launch the biggest public works program since the construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s as part of his plan to create 2.5 million jobs and stem an economic tailspin that is growing worse by the day. "We need action -- and action now," Obama said in a weekly address broadcast on radio and posted as a YouTube video.

The city of Los Angeles is moving forward with an innovative proposal to transform some of its alleys, long used for dumping, crime and not much good. The City Council this week approved a package of 10 recommendations advancing the proposal. It included provisions for developing design guidelines, determining cost, building a detailed map of alleys and identifying pilot project sites.

The former city official who headed a troubled $650-million rail project for Placentia pleaded no contest Friday to felony conflict-of-interest charges in a deal that could allow him to avoid a jail sentence. Prosecutors alleged that as the city's public works director, Christopher Becker violated conflict-of-interest laws in the creation of the OnTrac rail project in April 2000 and used his influence to be hired by the city to manage the project as a private consultant.

Facing a global economic slowdown and plummeting oil prices, the government of Saudi Arabia is taking a page from President-elect Barack Obama's book and pouring additional billions of dollars into public works, even as the country expects its first budget deficit in six years. But unlike the United States, Saudi Arabia will be drawing from its substantial savings, rather than issuing new debt.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for another multibillion-dollar wave of borrowing Tuesday for new reservoirs, courthouses, classrooms and prison beds -- core public resources that, he said, are strained by California's growing population. In his annual State of the State speech, the governor laid out a plan for $43.3 billion in bonds over the next three years to pay for a round of public construction that would surpass what voters approved in the November election.