I know of one that should have been killed but wasn't. Public opposition was based on a lack of trust/confidence in the design professionals at Warren Landfill, North Carolina. It's a long story. The landfill was designed and approved according to EPA rules that were very new and inadequate. Before anyone knew anything the disposal site was selected by the State and purchased. It was located on a remote knoll. Opposition was based on preceived threats to groundwater based on engineering soil studies that failed to take pedology into account. The government listened to the opposition but did not take heed. The landfill was built and filled but before it could be closed torrential rains hit that filled the cell too much. The water could not be extracted and over the course of several years the sides of the landfill began to giveway. PCBs were found outside the cell that may have come from cracks in a red ultisol resting on gneiss. The state attorney general announced the water inside posed a risk for breach. Superfund had to come in and treat the waste and rebuild the landfill.

CO2 storage in an empty natural gas reservoir near the town of Barendregt in the Netherlands. People in the area successfully opposed the project (must have been around 2009) due to lack of trust in the safety of the solution.

Projects for electronic voting (that means in political elections) in The Netherlands. Years ago, there was an unsuccessful system which was insecure, just because it was a really bad design. After that the whole concept of electronic voting was generally distrusted, even if there are ways to make it much better than this failed system.

Thank you for the answers. I will explore those cases further.

The Kalabagh dam, to be located on the Indus river, 100 miles southwest of Islamabad, Pakistan, is the center of controversy, since the middle of last century . It was conceived by the government in 1953 and a project report in 1984 tried to establish the technical and economic feasibility of the project. The Water and Power Development Authority's latest brief on the project says, "It is expected to be a 260-foot high structure that will create a 6.1 million acre feet (MAF) reservoir of usable storage."

The project will also generate 2,400 MW of power and this may later be increased to 3,600 MW, making Kalabagh one of the largest hydroelectric dams in Asia.

Opposition from Sindh and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) to both projects is strong because people cutting across the political spectrum believe that Punjab wants to hog the lion's share of Pakistan's river water.

If we are talking about Sindh then Sindh or Sindhis are not against this dam, basically they are against the design of this dam. They think that Punjab could stop their water if this dam is built or would make unauthorized withdrawal of water. Mistrust between the two provinces is a key factor, both provinces don’t trust each other, while Khyber Pakhtonkhwa fears that a high level-dam, would inundate the Nowshera valley. The design of the dam is not final so it can be modified to an agreeable solution. Meanwhile, all the political parties are trying to augment their political scores on this dam.

Thank you. I will investigate that one as well.

Because of their enormous expense and because of the risk associated with tunnel boring, many tunnel boring projects are shelved because of public perception. Worldwide In the 1800's, tunnel boring projects were canceled because of the enormous safety and financial risk associated with them.

For instance, the failure of experimentally designed tunnel boring machines caused the initial attemt at Hoosac Tunnel in MA to be canceled (after the expensive machine failed, the public didn't believe a tunnel boring machine (TBM) could be built. To clear his name, the engineer tried to construct a second TBM using his own money for capital funds--he was left broke. Eventually, the tunnel was constructed with drilling/dynamite).

http://www.hoosactunnel.net/history.php

If you're looking for a project that was eventually killed because of public perceptions, I'd look into tunnels in the 1800s-- you can probably find what you're looking for.

you could look up: 1) NIREX - geological repository for nuclear waste, Cumbria, UK; and more recently. 2) Halite Energy Group - Underground Gas Storage Facility, Preesall, Lancashire, UK.

Good luck!

Keystone pipeline phase 4? raised lots of controversy and public awareness. Although pres. Obama approved the deal, the construction permit is still on hold as far as I know

Here is a research extract relevant to the thread of discussion.......!

Designs and designers play a significant role in overcoming the manufacturing challenges. Dixon and Duffey (1990) have held the long-standing neglect of engineering design as a fundamental reason for the competitive difficulties faced by American manufacturers. Market loss by companies is due more to design deficiencies than manufacturing deficiencies. Many technical problems commonly associated with manufacturing are traceable to design problems. Product innovation can be well supported only at the design stage. Inter-functional conflicts can be addressed only at the design stage. Manufacturing and other downstream concerns can be brought upstream during the process of capturing the designer’s intent. Opportunities to surpass foreign competitors are best found in design.

[Ref: Dixon, J. R. and Duffey, M. R. (1990), “The Neglect of Engineering Design”, California Management Review, Winter 1990.]

I haven't looked in a while, but the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository was canceled or is on hold due to improper procedures from the study team.

For those not aware, Yucca Mountain was to hold all the nuclear waste from all U.S. nuclear reactors rather than the waste being stored on site at each nuclear facility. People in the State of Nevada didn't like that idea nor the concept of transporting tons of nuclear waste past ~20% (if i recall the statistic correctly) of the nations population in order to get it there.