Construction & Megaprojects

A U.S.-based company is planning a system of elevated highways in Chennai, India, that will despoil natural resources that humans and wildlife have shared for millennia, environmentalists and villagers claim. Wilbur Smith Associates has won approval for the projects, they further charge, through deceptive practices and corporate sleight of hand. Read More

  Three independent investigations have confirmed a CorpWatch investigation into a $305 million USAID project to build a diesel-fueled power plant in Kabul (see the original article here: "Black & Veatch's Tarakhil Power Plant: White Elephant in Kabul"). Read More

In a secluded valley a few miles from Kabul's international airport, $285 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars have flowed into a Black & Veatch-built power plant outside Tarakhil village. But, far from the public relations coup the project was intended to supply, the plant has run into problems with planning, cost over-runs and alleged corruption. Read More

AMP Section Name:Globalization 180 Media & Entertainment 188 Consumerism & Commercialism 191 Tourism & Real Estate 209 Construction Read More

Permission for Petrobras of Brazil to drill for oil in Yasuni National Park, one of the most biologically diverse places in the world, has been suspended, but some damage has already been done by Swedish construction giant Skanska. Unless new money is found to protect the forest, exploration may resume. Read More

Residents and environmental activists are in a bitter dispute with large U.S. energy corporations and the federal government over the safety of nuclear power, as more than a dozen corporations plan to, or have filed, paperwork to open new nuclear power plants, primarily in the U.S. South. Read More

A new ski complex is being constructed in the environmentally sensitive Seven Lakes region of the snow-capped Rila mountains of south-western Bulgaria. Yet authorities have not been able to produce any planning permits nor have the investors produced any documentation of who is funding the construction. Read More

In its rush to re-create the industrial revolution that made the West rich, China has absorbed most of the major industries that once made the West dirty. Read More

Tata, India's largest conglomerate, wants to take 10,000 acres of land to mine ilmenite in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The plan has sparked protests by local villagers who say the project will destroy their traditional way of life and the environment. Read More

This CorpWatch report, by Eliza Strickland and Azibuike Akaba, tells the story of corporate malfeasance and government incompetence two years after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. This is our second report - Big, Easy Money by Rita J. King was the first - and it digs into a slew of new scandals. Read More