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Ugh. Don't. Working for LA is probably the worst gig in the entire world. Have you ever gone in for a permit conference with one of the city engineers? They look like they've had their souls extracted through their ears by some government overlord who used a pair of rusty tongs to do it. There's probably a prozac dispenser in the staff break room.
aibarr is online now
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rheidzan, don't you work as an engineer for one of the LA city agencies? lol. Or do I remember incorrectly?</p>
<p>I am told there is lots of work in geotechnical and soils engineering including geo- environmental work. Maybe an M.Sc in geotech is worthwhile.</p>
rheidzan, don't you work as an engineer for one of the LA city agencies? lol. Or do I remember incorrectly?
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I do work at hyperion treatment plant, which is run by city of LA. This is not LA DWP though, and I'm also not planning to stick around after I finish my MS.</p>
<p>One woman I know did phase 1 CE for highways and segued into environmental engineering. She was on site often. A neighbor CE is gone all the time, first managing environmental cleanup, now laying out an entire town in the Arctic. My good friend got an MSCE and does structural engineering for defense contractors (satellites).</p>
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I do work at hyperion treatment plant, which is run by city of LA. This is not LA DWP though
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<p>Sewer treatment is also done by the LADPW, not to be confused with the LADWP. LADPW is the county department of public works. LADWP is the city department of water and power.</p>
<p>These days a large part of the CE's job is preparing documentation to comply with fed and state environmental regulation (which has nothing to do with "saving the environment - just lots of paper.)</p>
<p>Examples: Big storm dug a hole in a mid-sized river embankment. CE knew that dumping two truckloads of large rock would deflect the changed current and allow the hole to refill naturally. 2 1/2 years later, and 100+page of just permitting workplan (not the permitting docs or the engineering docs, just the permitting workplan) later, he is no closer dumping the rocks, and the hole has tripled in size and is now undermining a bridge. USACE, multiple state agency permitting doc requirements suck the life out of civil engineers.</p>
<p>Another example: <state> signed in May an agreement between state highway department and State environment agency an "expedited" approval process for repair of existing bridges (nothing new - just existing) Numbers came out in December. In exchange for not blocking or slowing bridge repair, the state environmental reg agency, its consultants and contractors will be awarded 40% of all bridge repair money for regulatory compliance documentation that will be completed after the repairs are complete.</state></p>
<p>Civil engineering is great, if you can emotionally survive in a slow motion world where large amounts of money are siphoned off to make jobs for environmental regulators. Sound harsh, but ask any currently practicing civil engineer.</p>
<p>toadstool's description sounds like something you'll encounter more on a government project rather than a privately financed project. I've put up buildings without complete drawings. Trust me, developers will not let anything stand in the way of them making money. And the longer the paperwork takes, the less money they'll make and that's what the business is all about. </p>
<p>The reason some projects take so long in the planning stages is usually due to public opposition (or potential public opposition). Environmental impact statements are greatly influenced by the public, which may be why those documents tend to be huge. I've heard stories about community members hiring lawyers and other engineering firms to go through EIS's word by word to find ways of stopping the project from being built. </p>
<p>There are reasons permitting processes take so long sometimes. There are so many stakeholders and all of them have to be satisfied (as least to the legal extent) or else the project comes to a screeching halt. If you want to blame someone, don't blame environmental regulators; blame the way our government is set up. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, I think our government can definitely be more efficient. The question is are you willing to trade away some checks and balances to achieve that? I'd rather not have Donald Trump be able to put up a 40 story skyscraper next door in my neighborhood of 3 to 6 story high buildings through a loophole.</p>
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toadstool's description sounds like something you'll encounter more on a government project rather than a privately financed project. I've put up buildings without complete drawings. Trust me, developers will not let anything stand in the way of them making money. And the longer the paperwork takes, the less money they'll make and that's what the business is all about.
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<p>Seconding. Yesterday I crawled all over the 8 ft mat foundation rebar for a building that I'm currently designing level 5 for. There's nothing slow-paced about it.</p>
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The reason some projects take so long in the planning stages is usually due to public opposition (or potential public opposition).
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<p>I took a transit engineering course from the vice president of engineering for the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County when they were trying to get the first stages of their anemic-but-workable light rail going... They faced injunction after injunction from many, many anti-rail Houstonians. The guy was unflappable, smoothed over, very professional, and one day, after he's been giving us updates of the progress of the rail project (which consisted mainly of work stoppages due to injunctions), one of the students asked, "Don't you ever just want to cry?" And as we all started to laugh, the unflappable VP answered without missing a beat, "Yes."</p>
<p>Public work takes a heck of a lot of patience. Since it's our public property, though, it's probably best that way.</p>