U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Building Strong, Serving the Nation and the Armed Forces 2016 by Faircount Media Group

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

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CONTENTS

INTERVIEW WITH LT. GEN. TODD T. SEMONITE ................................... 8 Commanding General and Chief of Engineers

USACE EXPERTS BRING SKILLS TO CHALLENGING, DIVERSE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS .................................................... 16 By Charles Dervarics

INNOVATION DRIVES USACE LOCK AND DAM WORK ......................... 20 By Charles Dervarics

THE MANY HIDDEN TALENTS OF USACE REAL ESTATE EXPERTS .... 24 By Charles Dervarics

ENGINEER SOLDIERS WHO SUPPORT NATIONAL SECURITY ............ 28 By Gail Gourley

CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION .............................................................. 32 By Scott R. Gourley

REWARDS AND CHALLENGES OF CIVILIAN DEPLOYMENT................. 36 By Gail Gourley

CYBER DEFENSE ...................................................................................... 42 By Scott R. Gourley

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DODEA SCHOOLS: HIGHLIGHTING EUROPE DISTRICT ....................... 46 By Gail Gourley

ERDC: INNOVATING SOLUTIONS FOR A BETTER WORLD .................. 50 By Scott R. Gourley

USACE MASTER PLANNING, ENERGY TEAMS PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTS .......................................... 54 By Charles Dervarics

CIVIL WORKS ............................................................................................ 58 By Scott R. Gourley

PROVIDING THE PERSONAL TOUCH TO USACE RECREATION ........... 62 By David A. Brown

DREDGING ................................................................................................ 66 By Scott R. Gourley

UNSUNG HEROES OF USACE’S HYDROPOWER OPERATION ............. 70 By Charles Dervarics

PROTECTING ENDANGERED SPECIES AND THEIR HABITAT .............. 74 By Scott R. Gourley

USACE ARCHAEOLOGY ............................................................................ 78 USACE’s archaeological professionals do it all: preserving the nation’s cultural heritage, documenting war crimes, aiding the transition of veterans to civilian life, and helping bring closure to the families of POWs/MIAs.

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FACES OF USACE: EMERGENCY OPERATIONS .................................... 82 By Craig Collins

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U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS BUILDING STRONG® Published by Faircount Media Group 701 N. West Shore Blvd. Tampa, FL 33609 Tel: 813.639.1900 www.defensemedianetwork.com www.faircount.com

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EDITORIAL Editor in Chief: Chuck Oldham Consulting Editor: Karen Buehler Managing Editor: Ana E. Lopez Project Editor: Rhonda Carpenter Contributing Writers: David A. Brown, Craig Collins, Charles Dervarics, Gail Gourley, Scott R. Gourley DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Art Director: Robin K. McDowall Project Designer: Daniel Mrgan Designer: Kenia Perez-Ayala Ad Traffic Manager: Rebecca Laborde ADVERTISING Ad Sales Manager: Ken Meyer Account Executives: Steve Chidel, Art Dubuc III, Geoffrey Weiss OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATION Chief Operating Officer: Lawrence Roberts VP, Business Development: Robin Jobson Business Development: Damion Harte Financial Controller: Robert John Thorne Chief Information Officer: John Madden Business Analytics Manager: Colin Davidson FAIRCOUNT MEDIA GROUP

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COVER: The dredge McFarland, a deep-draft ocean-going hopper dredge owned and operated by the USACE Philadelphia District, worked in the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River, February 2016. The vessel was dredging severe shoaling at the Head of Passes, Cubits Gap, and the mouth of the Mississippi River. USACE photo by Matt Roe

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Clamps down open steel flooring fast and easy. ©Copyright Faircount LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction of editorial content in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Faircount LLC and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers do not assume responsibility for the advertisements, nor any representation made therein, nor the quality or deliverability of the products themselves. Reproduction of articles and photographs, in whole or in part, contained herein is prohibited without expressed written consent of the publisher, with the exception of reprinting for news media use. Printed in the United States of America. Permission to use various images and text in this publication was obtained from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or U.S. Department of Defense and its agencies, and in no way is used to imply an endorsement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers nor any U.S. Department of Defense entity for any claims or representations therein. None of the advertising contained herein implies U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or U.S. Department of Defense endorsement of any private entity or enterprise. This is not a publication of the U.S. Department of Defense or U.S. government.

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INTERVIEW WITH LT. GEN. TODD T. SEMONITE, COMMANDING GENERAL AND CHIEF OF ENGINEERS Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite is the U.S. Army chief of engineers and commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Previously, he established the Army Talent Management Task Force and served as its first director. In this role, Semonite was responsible for reforming the way the Army acquires, develops, employs, and retains a talented workforce. Prior to these duties, he was the commanding general for Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, responsible for the building of the Afghan army and police facilities through management of a $13 billion budget to support a 352,000-person force. Semonite is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and a registered professional engineer in Vermont and Virginia.

You’ve had quite a bit of experience with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), in various roles, over the course of your career. How do you feel about coming back as the 54th chief of engineers?

What are some of USACE’s most recent accomplishments that you’d like to highlight? Engineers have been solving our nation’s toughest challenges since before America was a nation. The engineer regiment, which now includes more than 90,000 active-duty, Reserve, and National Guard engineer Soldiers along with the more than 32,000 civilian personnel within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was founded on June 16, 1775, just two days after the Army was established. We built early forts for defense and roads for commerce. We developed waterways for navigation and trade, dams and levees to reduce loss of life and property due to flooding, and we even identified and preserved natural resources for the enjoyment of the American people long before the founding of the National Park Service. I was able to witness a lot of forward progress from 2006 to 2014 during my time as the division commander for the North Atlantic and South Atlantic divisions and as a deputy commanding general for the headquarters. Our divisions and districts are staffed with incredibly

U.S. ARMY PHOTO

LT. GEN. TODD T. SEMONITE: First, let me tell you what an honor and a pleasure it is to be back at the headquarters, now as the 54th chief of engineers. My wife, Connie, and I are excited about this opportunity and grateful to the Army for letting us continue to serve for another four years on such a great team. We are proud to be associated with such talented and committed professionals. I think my career shows a pretty good balance between the military side of the engineers and the civil works side, which I think helps me a great deal in this position as it gives me a broad perspective to work from. Both the Military Programs and the Civil Works programs we have in place are very important to helping us support national security, transform civil works, and help reduce disaster risks in support of Americans and American interests. As the commanding general for the North Atlantic Division and the South Atlantic Division, and then a deputy commanding general for the headquarters, I feel confident that I’ve been exposed to many of the operational and strategic challenges that lie ahead of me as the 54th chief. I am convinced that the value and power of the Corps is not in the facilities and waterways we build and maintain; it is not measured in concrete and steel or miles of combat routes cleared, but measured by the passion in the hearts of our engineer force. Our commitment is to be ready to solve the nation’s most complex engineering challenges … to improve our readiness to be Army Strong, and to expand our technical capability to be Building Strong!

Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commander, tours the Olmsted Locks and Dam project in Olmsted, Illinois, June 7, 2016. The Louisville District was about 75 percent complete with the dam using “in the wet” technology and a navigable pass construction technique.

USACE PHOTO BY LEON ROBERTS

talented leaders and people who perform very difficult work in using limited resources to meet overwhelming mission requirements. Whether it’s constructing high-quality military facilities for Soldiers and their families to live safely and comfortably, or researching and developing technologies to tackle the toughest challenges our nation and military face, or the hundreds more missions the engineer team accomplishes, I appreciate all that we do to deliver innovative and sustainable public infrastructure solutions. We are one disciplined, loyal team. People are vital to our organization, and it is their pride and commitment to excellence that sustains the Corps.

“

Louisiana Flood Response Historic rainfall over the southeast in mid-August [2016] resulted in significant flash flooding in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi. On 14 Aug, President [Barack] Obama declared a major disaster for the state of Louisiana. We are providing flood response assistance to the state under our Public Law 84-99 authorities and supporting the broader federal response through FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] under the Stafford Act. Maj. Gen. Mike Wehr, commander of the Mississippi Valley Division, and Col. Mike Clancy, commander of the New Orleans District, personally

I am convinced that the value and power of the Corps is not in the facilities and waterways we build and maintain; it is not measured in concrete and steel or miles of combat routes cleared, but measured by the passion in the hearts of our engineer force.

”

Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite visited the Fargo, North Dakota/Moorhead, Minnesota, area Aug. 23, 2016. Here, he is being briefed on the Fargo/Moorhead Flood Damage Reduction Project by St. Paul District Commander Col. Sam Calkins (left) and St. Paul District Fargo/Moorhead Project Manager Terry Williams (right).

Superstorm Sandy Response In terms of accomplishments, probably the most newsworthy to most Americans is our efforts in support of a whole-of-government approach to Superstorm Sandy [2011]. The Superstorm Sandy recovery effort is a great example of the work we’ve done to reduce disaster risk – one of the four key pillars of our strategy. USACE has executed $1.5 billion of more than $5 billion in construction intended to reduce flood risk in areas affected by Superstorm Sandy. This construction will reduce economic costs and risks associated with large-scale floods and storms by supporting the long-term sustainability of the coastal ecosystem and communities. The Sandy recovery work is progressing on schedule. 10

Furthermore, the Corps completed the “North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study” in January 2015. The report identifies regional and national opportunities to increase coastal resilience and reduce vulnerability to high-risk areas. This report is a noteworthy example of what can happen when our government and partners come together to develop a methodology to assist communities increase their resilience. Ultimately, the report was a seminal document representing forward movement in the direction of the new paradigm that accounts for new and changing conditions. It has become a model for future similar efforts.

Supporting National Security (Support to the Warfighter) While we are often recognized by many Americans for our work in military construction, risk reduction, and assistance in disaster recovery operations, we also have significant global commitments that support our Army service component commands and combatant commands in overseas locations. The Corps has operations in more than 100 countries, providing agile, expeditionary engineering and construction capabilities. We support readiness and modernization for Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines by delivering facilities and infrastructure worldwide, as well as a variety

USACE PHOTO BY SHANNON L. BAUER

met with Gov. [John Bel] Edwards and Congressman [Garret] Graves to discuss their priorities and explain USACE capabilities. USACE is postured to provide sustained assistance to Louisiana and FEMA Region VI response efforts. The major focus is on the potential debris removal mission, technical assistance on local levee structural integrity, and potential real estate support for temporary housing. At this time, 50 USACE expeditionary technical experts are providing direct support at the State Emergency Operations Center, the FEMA Joint Field Office, and other nodes.

of projects and programs for our installations. Finally, we conduct environmental restoration projects for former military sites and at superfund sites. We are the nation’s environmental engineer, creating engineering solutions for the nation’s environmental challenges. USACE has one of the largest environment restoration and environmental sustainability roles in the federal government. Our Engineering Research and Development Center, known as ERDC, has worked tirelessly to support the warfighter by pushing new technology to the field. For example, in FY 2015, ERDC researchers worked with the U.S. Army National Ground Intelligence Center to develop methodologies to help identify weapons systems used in attacks on U.S. and allied forces. Accurate estimates of the weapons and explosives being employed are of critical importance, both in terms of identifying the exact nature of the threat and designing protection schemes. This is just one example of many that demonstrate our support of American national security interests.

Interagency Partnerships Everything we do, whether it’s military missions or civil works, is a part of a collaborative effort in support of national interests. USACE is working with our joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational partners in more than 100 countries to deliver innovative, holistic, and sustainable solutions to combatant commanders that achieve global and theater objectives and end states. Interagency activities in support of our domestic stakeholders totaled $657 million in expenditures in FY 15, an increase of $278 million from FY 14. Some key domestic stakeholders in terms of overall program execution include the Environmental Protection Agency [$183 million], the Department of Veterans Affairs [$78 million], Customs and Border Protection [$80 million], the Department of Energy [$42 million], FEMA [$20 million], and NASA [$13 million]. Overall, nearly 70 domestic stakeholders were supported. We rely on the combined experience of interagency cooperation with partners such as the Department of Veterans Affairs [VA] and the Department of Energy to ensure the highest-quality engineering and construction projects support the requirements of our Army and of our nation, domestically and abroad. In FY 15, an interagency agreement was signed with the VA that allows USACE to provide project management, construction management, engineering services, and other support to the VA. Along with our support to the VA on their National Cemetery and Veterans Integrated Service Network projects, we reached agreement with their construction and facilities management folks to act as their construction agent on 13 major medical facilities valued at approximately $5 billion dollars. The first such project is the Denver-Aurora Medical Center in Aurora, Colorado. The hospital is over 70 percent complete, and construction is expected to be finished in early 2018. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,

BY THE NUMBERS

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: • Provides engineering, construction, and real estate services for the Army, Air Force, various other government agencies, and, where appropriate, foreign countries. • Secures, operates, and maintains water resource projects. –M aintains approximately 12,000 miles of commercial inland navigable waterways; over 900 ports and harbors; approximately 14,000 miles of levees; more than 700 dams; more than 230 lock chambers; 75 hydropower plants; and more than 5,000 recreation areas. –P revents an estimated $48.5 billion in damages annually from storms and severe weather. –M anages inland waterways that move about 15 percent of the nation’s freight at half the cost of rail and one-tenth that of truck transportation, and reduces air pollution and traffic in the process. –M aintains harbors that handle 95 percent of America’s import and export trade. –O perates hydropower projects that produce an annual average of 75 billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy each year. This makes USACE the nation’s fifth-largest electric supplier, with no greenhouse gas emissions, and yields about $1.5 billion in revenue to the Treasury Department. • Protects, restores, and enhances the environment. • Provides timely engineering support for national response efforts to emergencies and disasters. –O bligated almost $1 billion in 2014 in recovery and risk reduction in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy and has completed 120 Hurricane Sandy repair and recovery projects. –C ompleted the $14.5 billion New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System. • Researches, develops, transfers, and leverages innovative technologies to solve national engineering challenges. – Warfighter protection – Dual-use technologies • Maintains proficiency in core technical and business support functions.

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I think perhaps the nature of our challenges may change slightly as we adapt to uncertainty and a changing environment, but I think the core pillars of our strategy remain the same – support national security, transform civil works, reduce disaster risks, and prepare for tomorrow.

”

in partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs, is committed to working together to support the needs of America’s veterans. Another recent example is our work with the Bureau of Reclamation in excavating the spillway and associated areas at the Folsom Dam Auxiliary Spillway control structure in Sacramento, California. By collaborating with our partners, we are not only saving the taxpayer money, but also are reducing the flood risk for Sacramento much quicker than would have been possible working independently. Through these types of whole-of-government partnerships, unique authorities, and integrated civilian-military capabilities, we are better positioned to deliver solutions.

Wounded Warrior Program We have [an] engaged work force who cares very deeply about the work that we do and also recognizes the great sacrifice borne by our veterans and wounded warriors in service to our nation. We increased our efforts to assist wounded warriors who served our nation and are now transitioning to civilian life. In the past threeand-a-half years, we have helped more than 700 wounded warriors develop new skills and find employment. We reach out to veterans and wounded warriors through veterans’ resource organizations and a variety of career fair, outreach, and transition events. Our Veteran Curation Program hires veterans for up to five months, providing training in a variety of skills, to provide tangible work experience and improve veteran access to the mainstream job market. As with everything we do, mission success depends on our people, who take great pride in what they do to serve the Army and the nation as we engineer solutions for our nation’s toughest challenges. Do you foresee a shift in priorities as USACE tackles new challenges in funding, climate change, resilience, and security? That’s really a great question. I think perhaps the nature of our challenges may change slightly as we adapt to uncertainty and a changing environment, but I think the core pillars of our

strategy remain the same – support national security, transform civil works, reduce disaster risks, and prepare for tomorrow. As I mentioned earlier, we are challenged to obtain the requisite amount of resources to implement projects. It is unlikely we will have a shift in priorities, but what you will see is that we are maturing new methods such as the public-private partnership, alternative financing to meet existing requirements as well as watershed-informed budgeting through a whole-of-government approach. The last report card [www.infrastructurereportcard.org/executive-summary/] on U.S. infrastructure from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) awarded a D+ overall and estimated $3.6 trillion in repairs were needed by 2020 to upgrade parks, levees, bridges, and other systems. Can USACE expect better grades with the 2017 report card? How is the Army Corps of Engineers doing in terms of addressing the repairs? We appreciate the thoroughness of the findings and recommendations from ASCE, as the report card is an important metric of our ability to sustain or improve the aging infrastructure. It’s a bit premature to say we will get a better grade, but I can say we are developing processes and partnerships that work toward achieving greater results. As I mentioned earlier, in order to finish the projects that we are currently funding in the Corps of Engineers, we would need $19.7 billion and we receive about $1 billion in construction per year. A tremendous shortfall, to be sure, but it still represents only a tiny portion of the $3.6 trillion in repairs needed by 2020 that were identified in the report card. It is simple math. Yet our efforts to find alternative funding are bearing fruit and will help to reduce the gap. Our plan is to reinforce that success by devoting more attention and resources to alternative financing and public-private partnerships in order to complete more of our projects. It is critical that we do so in order to reduce risk for Americans and to prepare for tomorrow. 13

Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite visited the Fargo, North Dakota/Moorhead, Minnesota, area Aug. 23, 2016, to meet and learn from stakeholders working with USACE’s St. Paul District to build a federal flood damage reduction project. Here, he is being briefed on the in-town levees portion of the project. The city of Fargo is building the in-town levees that are a part of the overall federal flood damage reduction project.

It would be premature to speculate on which decisions might be made down the line based on shrinking budgets. It is evident that each year USACE executes a deliberate process to identify requirements, and then to prioritize those requirements based on available resources. Many factors bear on those decisions and each one is weighed on its own merits. Americans have confidence USACE is being a good steward of taxpayers’ money,

“ 14

making every dollar count, as USACE works toward executing the Army Corps’ requirements. Austere budgets will make achieving priorities more challenging, so we have redoubled efforts to employ ingenuity, prudent fiscal stewardship, insightful decision-making, and robust collaboration with partners to achieve priorities despite challenges. Rather than a threat, we see constrained resources as an opportunity for current and potential stakeholders to see the incomparable value and service the engineer regiment offers them. Our value as trusted

We are earnestly exploring how public-private partnerships can help us deliver more high-quality infrastructure through leveraging private-sector investments and developing a culture of innovation for global competitiveness through a highly collaborative environment.

”

USACE PHOTO BY SHANNON L. BAUER

Do you foresee USACE downsizing in these times of fiscal uncertainty?

The 54th U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ chief of engineers, Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite, visited the Headwaters District, June 22, 2016, to gain a better understanding of the challenges inland navigation faces with an aging infrastructure.

professionals and partners has become increasingly important to our stakeholders as they strive to accomplish their missions in an environment of fiscal uncertainty, greater accountability, and increasing risk.

PITTSBURGH DISTRICT PHOTO

What role do public-private partnerships (P3) have in the success of USACE’s projects and programs? The Corps of Engineers is actively considering public-private partnerships. We are earnestly exploring how public-private partnerships can help us deliver more high-quality infrastructure through leveraging private-sector investments and developing a culture of innovation for global competitiveness through a highly collaborative environment. We are researching [how] public-private partnerships might improve value for money by creating incentives for best-practice design, timely completion, and efficient operation by sharing project risk with the private sector. We explored case studies from agencies such as state departments of transportation that seem to show early involvement of the private sector can bring creativity, efficiency, and much-needed capital to address complex public infrastructure challenges. We are exploring the possibility of partnering with the private sector for projects involving Corps-managed waterways and ports, but further exploration is needed to determine such things as [to] how the federal investment share of the project would be accounted for in the budgeting process. We have successfully entered into one public-private partnership with the communities of Fargo, North Dakota, and Moorhead, Minnesota, relative to a flood risk reduction project. The estimated $1.9 billion project has been selected by USACE as a demonstration project that will be implemented using a split delivery model. Under the split delivery model, the multiple project features will be

split into those implemented by the Diversion Authority and those implemented by the USACE. The Diversion Authority has issued a Notice of Intent to deliver the majority of the Diversion Authority’s features through a public-private partnership project. P3 efforts will reduce the federal share from $850 million down to $450 million. The savings result from reduced construction time [16 years down to eight], reduced number of contracts [28 to 11], and reduced risk associated with federal appropriations. Is there anything else you’d like to add? To Congress, senior DOD [Department of Defense] leaders and the American public, I want to say we will continue to do our very best for you each and every day. We fully understand the importance of the American people’s voice in defining our missions, and in our legislators and leaders to resource them. We will continue to support the American people as a trusted and respected partner for the future as we engineer solutions to the nation’s toughest challenges. Together we will continue to develop, innovate, and deliver engineer solutions for the nation’s most complex challenges. Our time-honored tradition of extraordinary service traces back to 1775 when the Continental Congress organized an army that included a chief engineer and two assistants. From those humble roots, we have grown into a world-class organization committed to improving the readiness, security, and prosperity of our nation. We will continue to hone our competitive edge and deliver vital engineering solutions, in collaboration with our partners, to secure our nation, energize our economy, and reduce risk from disaster. When engineers are needed, we will be there, now and in the future. We have delivered for over 241 years … and we must maintain our capability with our available resources … our nation needs us! n 15

USACE EXPERTS BRING SKILLS TO CHALLENGING, DIVERSE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS BY CHARLES DERVARICS

or Andrea Rodriguez, the budding construction partnership between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a classic win-win situation. At a soon-to-be-completed hospital in Aurora, Colorado, veterans will get access to cutting-edge medical help such as a spinal cord injury clinic, she said. For USACE, it’s an opportunity to bring its construction management expertise to another agency and another sector – health care – that is undergoing significant growth. Not that there aren’t challenges, however, for a project with clinics, patient care facilities, parking garages, and a power plant that was already underway before USACE signed on to help. “It’s a bit like jumping on a moving train,” said Rodriguez, USACE Omaha District’s project manager. The Aurora hospital is one of the highest-profile projects for USACE’s Military Programs Directorate as it meets a mandate from Congress to help other federal agencies more efficiently manage new construction projects. Up to 30 USACE employees at a time work on-site just east of Denver to manage construction of a complex project scheduled for completion in early 2018. “The way we manage our construction is unique. We’re very focused on collaboration,” she said, since it can lead to better decision-making and more efficient work. This is evident across the

“ 16

project, as USACE managers and engineers walk through near-complete rooms with VA medical staff so that they can be finished to accommodate equipment and patient care needs, from ultrasound machines to therapy pools. Having USACE experts on-site also promotes coordination with the construction contractor at all levels of the project, she said. Senior resident engineer Peter Sturdivant suggested creating a building team for each of the project’s 12 buildings. Each team includes private-sector project superintendents, VA building engineers, and USACE project engineers, among others. Representatives from all teams meet at least once a week to discuss campus-wide issues. The private-sector contractor has a superintendent for each building, and resident engineers provide frequent oversight and input. “Instead of just treating it as one entire project, we installed these teams at the building level,” she said. To promote cost savings, USACE convinced VA of the need to develop a staggered completion schedule, so that buildings and departments are completed gradually to hold down the costs of maintaining finished facilities until the 2018 launch. “When we came into this project, it was nearly 50 percent complete,” she said. “But we don’t want to lose any momentum. This is a very unique project. If we can build a positive relationship with VA on this project, it’s a benefit to both agencies.”

This is our bread and butter. We’re an engineering and construction organization with a project management business process.

”

COURTESY PHOTO USACE ALASKA DISTRICT

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Alaska District is working with India, managing a contract to construct an entire C-17 Globemaster III aircraft beddown complex with a two-bay hangar, parking ramp, and operations and maintenance facilities. Pictured is the squadron operations facility.

Such projects are likely to grow in the future, as Congress has mandated greater USACE involvement in VA construction. Multiple partnership projects with VA are on the horizon. This is all part of Military Programs’ mission to provide interagency support in the United States and abroad. Other recent projects include a USACEbuilt visitor center in Nebraska for the Department of the Interior as well as a health care facility for the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in New Town, North Dakota. “These help support the mission of USACE as a federal engineer and as an engineer of choice,” she said. The Aurora project is one of USACE’s mega projects, or a very complex project requiring enhanced project delivery methods to promote quality. Other examples include the Olmsted Locks and Dam on the Ohio River and the Fort Hood and Fort Bliss hospitals in Texas. “This is our bread and butter. We’re an engineering and construction organization with a project management business process,” said Kenneth Simmons, deputy program manager for USACE mega projects. “We deal with the most complex engineering and construction mission,” he said, and using standard processes and a cross-cutting organizational matrix across these projects ensures a breadth of expert involvement. “Hospitals are very complex facilities, and there are many voices needed for input along the way,” he said. “The Corps’ process provides for that input, and bringing the two organizations together makes a lot of sense.” The VA is the stakeholder for a growing number of mega projects, as recent legislation called for up to seven projects for USACE/ VA partnerships, he said. “We already have a structure to manage large projects, and having a central program management office provides plenty of added value,” he said. “We’re showing them the advantages of applying consistency across the portfolio.”

For Simmons, an architect with nine years of experience, hospital projects such as Aurora are also an opportunity to give back to those who served the nation. “We’re supporting the warfighters when they come home. That’s a motivation for a lot of people on this project.” Another example of USACE’s medical work is in Louisville District, where 25-year USACE veteran Steve Farkus is chief of the military project management section. A structural engineer by training, Farkus had a particular challenge managing improvements at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Medical Center in Ohio, where a 260,000-square-foot renovation took place while the hospital remained open. “This job is a million miles a minute,” he said. For Wright-Patterson, he said, the key goal was “how to accomplish this work and still make sure there’s no drop-off in patient care.” The renovations included 11 surgical suites, an intensive care unit, a laser eye center, dental clinic, mental health department, and a 20,000-square-foot dining facility to replace an older, much smaller cafeteria. “When you build something new in a nice green field, you can just start and keep going,” he said. “But in a working medical center, you can’t just turn off the lights and fix something.” One key to success was communication, which ranged from regular meetings among construction teams to detailed signage across the facility to help patients navigate the changes. “It’s important to have a high level of communication,” he said, including weekly meetings involving USACE, Air Force medical staff, and the private contractor on how to manage disruptions. This typically led to decisions to leave noisy work and furniture moving to the evening hours. “There was continual dialogue and it was vital to the success of the project.” Another challenge was tailoring the construction to accommodate new, more sophisticated equipment, particularly in areas 17

such as cardiology. Communication between medical staff and USACE was essential to bring the program to completion in 2015. Overall, he said, 30 to 40 groups of stakeholders were active in the project. Yet the medical center also received an unusual distinction, as it received an award for patient satisfaction even while construction was underway. “As project manager, you have all the responsibility and no authority,” he said. “But the project manager is the advocate of the customer. I feel I have the entire resources of the Corps behind me.” Farkus was quick to note that he managed other projects at the same time the Wright-Patterson medical facility was undergoing renovation. His advice in working with such diverse constituencies: “You must be thick skinned in this job. But I love the opportunity that through my hard work, I get hard, complicated projects.” USACE’s Military Programs’ obligations extend far beyond U.S. medical facilities, however. Increasingly, this work involves 18

construction projects in other countries where the U.S. military has a strong interest. Such is the case with the USACE Alaska District, where construction experts are working side by side with defense contractors and the government of India on a major military program. Here, experts are managing a contract to construct a bed-down complex with a two-bay hangar, parking ramp and operations and maintenance facilities to accommodate 10 C-17 Globemaster III aircraft that India has purchased from aircraft giant Boeing. India will use the C-17s to vastly improve its airlift capability and to respond to humanitarian needs in the region. “Boeing is the prime contractor, alongside Larsen & Toubro, an Indian construction firm performing the work. USACE provides contract administration for construction,” said Dean Homleid, Foreign Military Sales manager for the Alaska District. Up to six USACE employees at a time, plus a dozen national engineer staff, work out of Hindon Air Force Station in India to ensure customer

PHOTO BY DENA O’DELL, USACE ALASKA DISTRICT

Dean Homleid talks on the phone in his office July 12 at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Alaska District Headquarters building at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. Homleid is a Foreign Military Sales manager for the Alaska District, overseeing the district’s work with India managing a contract to construct a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft bed-down complex.

PAX OFFERS REAL-TIME VALUE FOR CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

“

As project manager, you have all the responsibility and no authority. But the project manager is the advocate of the customer. I feel I have the entire resources of the Corps behind me.

”

hen it comes to military construction (MILCON), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) relies on a valuable tool that often goes unseen by the public but provides a framework for timely project reviews by managers, top Pentagon leaders, and even Congress. The Programming, Administration and Execution (PAX) system provides efficient processing of paperwork, project specifications, and budget estimates for MILCON projects. A web-based system for planning and programming, PAX has supported MILCON since 1980. But USACE launched a major tech refresh that, now complete, has brought major improvement and savings. “We made changes to take advantage of new technology,” said Linda Conaway, PAX program manager at USACE Headquarters. Prior to the refresh, the system relied on old technology such as spreadsheets to handle many project details. “PAX is a proven system and a solid system,” Conaway said. “Now we’ve taken an old system and updated it.” She said the new system includes “faster, more efficient processing” that is saving the government $1 million a year, including reduced server time. PAX serves as the system of record for all MILCON requests. Its many features include: • s tandard design for common MILCON forms; • automatic tracking of a project as it undergoes review; • l inks with other software programs to help estimate costs and perform economic analyses; • e asy storage of attachments such as pictures and site maps; and

expectations for quality are being achieved. Most of the contractor’s workforce of 1,900 individuals are from rural India and must juggle work demands with seasonal farming commitments back home. “It’s a challenging program, but we are seeing lots of positives here when a largely unskilled, non-mechanized construction model can produce the quality we are getting,” Homleid said. In a recent visit to the construction site, Maj. Gen. Mark Yenter, USACE deputy commanding general for Military and International Operations, noted USACE has demonstrated a continental United States’ district can mobilize to developing nations, establish relationships with a broad group of stakeholders, and successfully implement a complex construction program to a U.S. standard. n

• l ists of comments by all persons reviewing the project. She said a recent customer survey done by USACE found largely positive results, including user comments calling PAX “the best Army system” and PAX personnel “a fantastic team to work with.” Periodic electronic newsletters provide updates on area cost factors, including exchange rates for overseas locations. Conaway also credits the work of a high-quality PAX team of USACE employees and private-sector contractors. “We have experience and longevity that you can’t get by just walking out on the street,” she said. “The contractors are exceptional and they have tremendous dedication to the program.”

INNOVATION DRIVES USACE LOCK AND DAM WORK BY CHARLES DERVARICS

control water releases. All structural and concrete work is done, and the primary remaining tasks are to restore the site, removing temporary staging areas and roads and getting the site ready for its opening. But throughout the project, cross-functional teams helped the project stay on or ahead of schedule, said Hinsley, who joined the project in 2012. “By co-locating those elements on the same site and even the same building, you avoid a lot of confusion. You can get in front of a lot of issues.” Staff are divided by project phase, with engineers, construction experts, and contractors working together in the same trailer. But there also have been weekly meetings of all middle managers across the project. These weekly meetings were especially useful in tracking conflicts. Without such communication, for example, phase

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS SACRAMENTO DISTRICT

today’s demanding environment, teamwork is more important than ever to control costs and meet tight project deadlines for lock and dam missions. That’s why Ryan Tom and Michael Hinsley are working out of trailers on California land owned by Folsom State Prison and temporarily acquired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for a vital project. Tom, a civil engineer, and Hinsley, an assistant resident engineer, are two of 70 USACE employees overseeing completion of an auxiliary spillway for Folsom Dam to improve flood protection for Sacramento and surrounding areas. They are part of USACE multi-functional teams working on-site through a new approach to co-locate key personnel at major work locations. These multi-functional teams at Folsom provide real-time advice and feedback, working in such close proximity that they can’t help but engage in the work conversations of team members. “You get to the meat of the issue quickly because everybody is at the same spot where the questions are being asked,” said Hinsley, a six-year USACE veteran. Scheduled for completion next year, the spillway is a “megaproject” with four distinct phases that will allow more controlled water releases from Folsom Dam during significant storms. Engineers, construction experts, and quality-assurance personnel work in offices or cubicles across five trailers, often sitting near managers from private-sector contractors for ease of communication. As the project is within 30 miles of Sacramento, USACE has most staff commute from their homes to work on-site each day instead of providing advice from the Sacramento District office. “Instead of waiting for people to respond to an email or a phone message, we get input immediately,” Hinsley said. And by avoiding the dreaded phone tag that sometimes prevents busy people from reaching each other, “This process eliminates a lot of miscommunication.” The $900 million project is also a collaborative effort involving USACE, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, and others. Factor in private-sector contractors, and there are many players with an interest in getting the project done on time with quality work. “Engineers are usually back at the district office,” said Tom, a 10-year USACE employee. But the situation at Folsom is unique as engineers, construction specialists, and private contractors discuss structural, electrical, or hydraulic issues at a moment’s notice. “A younger engineer doesn’t get out to the field that often,” he said of his experiences so far. “But it’s very beneficial to have us here on the ground rather than telling us about items after the fact.” The spillway contains a 1,100-foot approach channel to funnel water from a lake to the spillway and has six submerged gates to

USACE civil engineer Ryan Tom checks progress on the construction of the stilling basin in the Folsom Dam Auxiliary Spillway. The giant slabs of concrete behind him are designed to slow the flow of water moving down the 3,027-foot-long spillway, slowing the racing water back to normal flow levels before it reaches the American River below.

“

We were crawling on our hands and knees to do the work next to 400-degree heat every day.

”

TOP: USACE COURTESY PHOTO; BOTTOM: TODD HORNBACK, LOUISVILLE DISTRICT

3 workers focused on the dam would have been placing structural concrete at the same time phase 4 staff would be blasting rocks nearby – a potential problem for the stability of fresh concrete. “If you’re not touching base regularly to be aware of other activities, you might have major problems,” Hinsley said. Nationwide, USACE owns and operates approximately 700 dams and nearly 236 locks, and safety professionals carry out assessments to identify problems and suggest improvements. About 95 percent of the dams are more than 30 years old, and half are past their original 50-year lifespans. Given these realities, experienced USACE professionals such as John Bjunes and Jeff Garlinghouse often carry out demanding, detailed work to keep locks in operation. The two had a particularly difficult challenge this past winter – reinforcing 47-year-old embedded anchorings connecting a miter gate to a concrete wall at Poe Lock within the Detroit District. Navigation operations typically shut down for the winter at this cold spot on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and that’s when Bjunes, a welder/ironworker, and Garlinghouse, a machinist, do their work. They recognize that it’s a significant task.

Barry Vessels demonstrates sonar equipment capabilities on the Louisville District survey vessel.

Jeff Garlinghouse (kneeling, left) and John Bjunes remove gate operating components from the north leaf of Gate 3 of the MacArthur Lock.

Poe is a vital part of the Soo Locks that handle 1,000-foot-long ships transporting iron ore from mines in Minnesota and Michigan to steel mills in the lower Great Lakes. Well-stocked vessels typically equal the size of four jet airplanes, and the locks help these ships navigate significant differences in water depths. If the Poe suffered a catastrophic failure and closed down for a few months, 11 million people would be out of work, estimated the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in a recent report. During the height of winter, the two technicians performed detailed welding work to keep the anchorings intact. A temporary shelter was built around their work area to keep the irons hot for welding. “We were crawling on our hands and knees to do the work next to 400-degree heat every day,” Garlinghouse said. Overall, the duo reinforced eight anchorings, with each one taking 50 hours to complete between January and late March. “Fortunately it was a pretty mild winter,” he added. Lock and dam personnel also rely on cutting-edge technology to address challenging situations. The Louisville District deploys three survey boats, each with sonar mapping units that can send signals to the river floor and identify obstacles in the water. It then uses HYPACK® software to collect and process the data. This capability was critical in 2009 when a miter gate fell at Markland Locks and Dam on the Ohio River between Indiana and Kentucky, a potentially disastrous event that threatened to close or limit navigation for months.

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“Sonar mapping is another tool in our toolbox,” said Barry Vessels, the district’s navigation and dredging team leader. After the gate fell, USACE immediately shut down navigation. While it was able to reopen using an auxiliary lock, tows had to be broken apart, slowing down navigation until USACE could address the fallen gate. Using sonar mapping, Vessels and his team not only located the gate but also concluded it could be repaired, thereby avoiding a costly fix to bring in a new gate. Through its survey equipment and HYPACK analysis, they also could decide how best to move the gate and begin repairs. Worldwide, USACE has about 120 hydrographic surveyors who can perform this type of work, Vessels said, although “most people don’t even know we exist.” Yet the district’s work at Markland did not go unnoticed, as it won several international awards in Matagorda Independent School District teachers visit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a HYPACK worldwide contest. “You can’t see, feel, or (USACE) Galveston District’s Colorado River Locks for a personal tour of the facility. Colorado touch anything” while relying on sonar, he said, but lockmaster Simon DeSoto provided a history of the locks and explained how USACE provides navigation access through the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and assists vessels staff expertise is critical. “It’s important that you have crossing the intersection of the Colorado River. confidence in your technology and your analysis.” Another key project in Louisville District is construction of the Olmsted Locks and Dam, begun in the 1990s While the project is underway more than 20 years, the nation and nearing completion on the Ohio River 17 miles upstream from will reap the benefits of the cost within five years. “Total net return the Mississippi River. Once completed, the new locks and dam on investment will be $640 million a year, and the government is will reduce barge and tow delays through a busy central waterway assuming 100 percent of the risk,” he said. “It will provide substanand replace antiquated locks and dams 52 and 53, which date tial benefits for the nation.” back to 1929. One ingredient for success with locks and dams work is USACE’s The new locks are complete and the dam is 80 percent done, policies and processes to assess risk. In Galveston District, Simon said Mickey Awbrey, deputy chief of the Olmsted Division within the DeSoto served on a national team that made improvements to Louisville District. Another USACE megaproject, Olmsted is the chief business processes across USACE’s 236 locks. The Inland Marine assignment for 36 USACE employees, 180 prime contractor engiTransportation System working group reviewed 25 different processes neer and construction management professionals, and 650 craft and hundreds of subprocesses. As part of the work, it standardized personnel, welders, and operators working two 10- to 12-hour shifts position job descriptions, crew change policies, and other rules. six days a week. “Each lock may be unique, but we have to get as close to stanA self-described “construction nerd” and USACE employee since dard policies as we can,” DeSoto said. The task force conducted 2002, Awbrey relies on constant communication through daily producbiweekly conference calls and quarterly face-to-face meetings, and tion status meetings and weekly strategic planning sessions to help the panel continues to meet several times a year to review USACE manage a project with a critical path schedule exceeding 18,000 line procedures. “We would have people with different levels of training. items. “We plan two years in advance,” he noted, “to make sure we Our goal was to make it standard,” he said. have the right personnel and resources in place at the right time.” DeSoto served on this group while working as USACE lockmaster Given its central location, Olmsted experiences the impacts of for the Colorado River, an indication of how seriously he takes two-thirds of the nation’s weather. From snow melt to flooding rains, his assignments. “This was above and beyond my daily work,” he the project has endured more periods of high water than originally noted, but it is not new. Amid his lockmaster responsibilities, he expected, and this is a challenge for a project with a yearly 50-foot also helped write a USACE-wide maintenance guide and designed fluctuation in river elevation. water safety public service announcements (PSAs) for radio “This is the busiest hub of our inland navigation system, with 91 stations. Designed with his grandson, the PSAs have reached million tons of cargo transiting the lower Ohio River every year,” he about 1 million people. DeSoto also does periodic presentations said. While the locks were built in the dry inside [of] a coffer dam on water safety at minor league baseball stadiums. and completed in 2002, the dam construction began in 2004 and Juggling these responsibilities should not be surprising for is being constructed in water, or “in the wet,” so that navigation those who know DeSoto, who grew up along the Gulf Intracoastal channels can remain open during construction. “It’s a huge, compliWaterway with a father and brother who worked in commercial cated project,” he said, requiring constant hard-hat dives, more navigation. “I’ve always been interested in water issues and water than 3,500 foundation piles, and 136,500 cubic yards of concrete. safety, and this is a way to help others,” he said. n 23

THE MANY HIDDEN TALENTS OF USACE REAL ESTATE EXPERTS BY CHARLES DERVARICS

“With the high price of real estate, we are always getting development proposals for both land where we have a real estate interest and land where we have no real estate interest but an obligation to maintain, such as portions of the Los Angeles River,” said Sandoval, who oversees five realty specialists dealing with individual requests. The Corps of Engineers also leases some of the land behind the concrete structures for recreational use, where the city of Los Angeles operates a nature park and sport areas. Yet there’s so much USACE simply will not allow as it preserves the area’s focus on flood risk management. Take Hollywood requests for TV or movie filming. She said USACE relies on FilmL.A. to handle the initial paperwork, including summaries of the scenes proposed for shooting along the river. But that organization cannot issue a permit. Before approval is granted, USACE must conduct comprehensive reviews that include safety, security, environmental compliance, and engineering to ensure filming activities do not affect critical flood control structures or habitat. Sandoval has one person on her staff dedicated just to dealing with permits from TV, film, and commercial producers. “Many times we have to turn people away,” she said, and it can become adversarial. “The film industry often wants us to approve things quickly, and there are some people who are always emphasizing their connections,” she said. Still, USACE will take the necessary time to vet requests through various departments for review, “and often we can’t meet their time line.”

LEFT: Lisa Sandoval, a supervisory realty specialist, and Eric Cadena, a realty specialist, are with USACE’s Los Angeles District’s Asset Management Division Civil Works Branch. Sandoval and Cadena review property boundary maps as they inspect parking areas adjacent to the USACE San Antonio Dam in Upland, California. Sandoval oversees five realty specialists dealing with customer realty requests. RIGHT: Chris May is Mobile District’s chief, Management and Disposal Branch, Real Estate Division.

LEFT: USACE PHOTO BY BROOKS O. HUBBARD IV; RIGHT: USACE PHOTO

or Lisa Sandoval, managing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) real estate operations in Los Angeles, California, brings a bevy of challenges. From negotiating with Hollywood film scouts one moment to promoting ecosystem restoration in an arid basin the next, the job is full of high-profile issues unique in USACE’s real estate portfolio. “Los Angeles is simply different from other districts,” said the chief of the Civil Works Branch of the district’s Asset Management Division. Movies and TV shows regularly seek access to the USACEcontrolled Los Angeles River basin, home to classic scenes in Grease, Terminator 2, and countless TV shows and car commercials. But, she noted, “We have to remember that it’s a complex flood risk management system with various owners and competing missions. These are areas near highways and neighborhoods, and our job is to reduce the risk from flooding for them.” The Los Angeles River, as it is popularly known, covers 51 miles on a fixed course along a concrete channel created in the 1930s to cut down on the devastating floods prevalent in the early 20th century. Running from Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley all the way to Long Beach, the river is often dry during the year, making it a favorite locale for Hollywood car chases. But USACE is supporting a $1 billion plan to restore an 11-mile reach of the river. All these developments also are closely watched by a collection of environmental groups seeking a more natural habitat.

In this environment, communication is critical. “We have a very vocal stakeholder community, but you have to make contact with them,” she said. As environmental groups are often the first to point out a new problem, “They are often our first line of defense in managing these basins.” USACE’s real estate responsibilities are vast, as the agency acquires, manages, and disposes of property under USACE’s control as well as under control of the Army. USACE real estate personnel also carry out the Army’s executive agent responsibilities for numerous Department of Defense programs and take on real estate duties for other government agencies. One such area of expertise is advising on the location and design of armed forces recruiting stations nationwide. On this issue, one key player is Brad Terrill of the USACE Northwestern Division. Aside from providing direct assistance to five USACE districts, Terrill also is part of several national committees overseeing major issues facing these facilities. “I make sure they’re going down the right path and have enough funding to do the work. If there are questions, I answer them,” the 23-year USACE veteran said. But Terrill may be modest in outlining his role. His expertise has taken on added importance since July 16, 2015, when a man opened fire from a car into an armed forces recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The FBI said Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez conducted a drive-by shooting at the center, located in a strip mall, before moving on to a U.S. Navy Reserve center 7 miles away, where he rammed a security gate and shot at military personnel. Soon afterward, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter released a memorandum calling on military commanders and civilians to develop new measures, particularly for small, largely unguarded facilities such as the installations targeted in this attack. As part of this review, Terrill became the national lead for a security team

PHOTO BY JEREMY BELL, OMAHA DISTRICT

“

We have a very vocal stakeholder community, but you have to make contact with them … They are often our first line of defense in managing these basins.

”

Brad Terrill has worked as the regional program manager for recruiting for both the Northwestern Division and the Pacific Ocean Division’s military recruiting locations since 2010.

reviewing practices at armed forces recruiting stations. “It’s been my main focus since last July,” he said. The team has conducted an assessment of facilities, including physical surveys and observations, and this has led to 25 to 30 recommendations for security improvements. While he cannot discuss these recommendations in detail, Terrill said they will improve security. “This has been about three-quarters of my time now,” he noted. Each military service has its own requirements, which may include specific carpeting, paint colors, and posters. “When you select a site, everyone wants the front window. That decision might come down to a coin toss,” he said. There are 30 to 50 new facilities to manage each year, including both new and relocated recruitment offices. He said he welcomes the job’s many challenges. “I didn’t start out working on recruiting, but I found out I really liked it. I get to help military programs put bodies into boots. It’s satisfying that I’m helping the country.” Another major task for USACE’s real estate experts is to provide recreation options in and around USACE lakes and other facilities. Perhaps nowhere is that more important than at Lake Lanier, a 38,000-square-foot lake in north Georgia with 692 miles of shoreline. Here, eight marinas can generate $60 million in income for boat slips, restaurants, concessions, swim areas, and other appropriate uses of this massive recreation area. “It’s a win-win,” said Christopher May, chief of the Real Estate Management and Disposal Branch at USACE Mobile District. While USACE manages the lake, it grants leases for business operations that support recreation for the region’s 5 million residents near Atlanta. Through these lease agreements, USACE receives a percentage of the revenue that it shares with local and state governments. Up to 75 percent of USACE’s profit may go to other public entities, making it “a major moneymaker for state and local governments.” But there are challenges. USACE real estate personnel work with park rangers and USACE’s operations offices to conduct annual 25

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USACE PHOTO

Jody Rowe, USACE Galveston District Real Estate Division.

compliance inspections at recreation sites. Other challenges can include property owners whose new vacation homes may spill over onto federal lands as the result of a faulty survey or design issue. One of May’s other responsibilities is to review potential property easements affecting federal land in the region. An example is in Alabama and Florida, where construction of a 36-inch-diameter new natural gas pipeline must cross the Chattahoochee River. “They have to cross the river – that’s a given,” he said. Yet USACE works with other agencies on a permit process that includes detailed construction and safety reviews. “We have strong partnerships with planning offices and legal counsel. It’s essential that we coordinate our work,” he said, which often takes place through project delivery teams that meet weekly or biweekly. Sometimes this process involves give-and-take. In granting a 17-acre power line easement at Carters Lake in north Georgia – a transaction valued at $100,000 – USACE negotiated an agreement that a power company fund major improvements in lake campgrounds, including new playgrounds for family use. May also will negotiate outgrants, which typically consist of agriculture or grazing leases on certain lands. One such example is at Milan Army Ammunition Plant in Milan, Tennessee, where USACE allows private entities to utilize buffer zones near the center. Here, cattle graze in the buffer zones, generating revenue and reducing Milan’s maintenance responsibilities. “If we didn’t do this, the installation would have to pay someone to cut the grass,” he said. Easements also are an important issue near the U.S.-Mexico border. Since 2014, the Real Estate Division in Galveston, Texas, has handled more than 350 requests for easements, licenses, leases, and permits, said Jody Rowe, Technical Services Branch chief in Galveston District. Current requests include 40 pipeline projects seeking right of way through levees or other USACEmanaged properties. “Most of these requests involve highly complex real estate transactions,” she said. “All impacts to the project must be evaluated to assure the use will not negatively impact the project.” These requests generate skilled technical reviews, as USACE has collected $900,000 in administrative fees to cover the actual costs of evaluating, approving, and managing these non-mission uses of project lands. Another major activity for Rowe is managing historic levels of flooding in 2016 at the Addicks and Barker reservoirs in west Houston. At these reservoirs, USACE grants leases to local

“

I didn’t start out working on recruiting, but I found out I really liked it. I get to help military programs put bodies into boots. It’s satisfying that I’m helping the country.

”

governments and other entities for picnic facilities, hiking and bike trails, and baseball and soccer fields. Rowe’s office manages these leases and has developed a quick response program with cities and counties. The goal is to re-open these facilities as soon as possible after flood waters recede. Recently, Rowe won a Department of the Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service that recognizes exceptional achievement. While she said she’s just doing her job, Rowe noted that the recognition is important to her and other real estate specialists. “It means a lot to me,” she said, “because it’s the Corps’ way of recognizing the important role that real estate plays in its mission.” n 27

ENGINEER SOLDIERS WHO SUPPORT NATIONAL SECURITY BY GAIL GOURLE Y

cross the vast worldwide scope of engineering services the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) provides, engineer Soldiers play a significant and vital role in supporting military and disaster relief operations relevant to the nation’s security, providing services to the military, Department of Defense, and multiple federal agencies, both domestic and overseas.

249TH ENGINEER BATTALION (PRIME POWER) For example, Soldiers from the 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power), a power generation battalion that provides services to military units and federal relief organizations, deployed to Saipan in 2015 in response to Typhoon Soudelor to assess and repair critical power infrastructure. As other mission examples, Sgt. Mason Weitzel, a senior power station electrician with Alpha Company in Hawaii, has twice participated in Missile Defense Agency (MDA) flight tests. “Our role in that was to provide electrical systems expertise and operate the prime power unit for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, radar,” he said. “These missions were to validate the flight test intercept capabilities of the radar for threats in Asia and the Middle East to protect the United States and its allies from any missile threats.” The unit also participated in U.S. Pacific Command’s Pacific Pathways exercises earlier this year. “This was the first time that they asked Prime Power to provide electrical power,” Weitzel said. “Our platoon was tasked with deploying our mobile electric power plant to Thailand and the Philippines to

“ 28

provide power to the Army Soldiers.” It was a great benefit for them, he added, to have electrical power “in a quite austere environment.” The technical expertise and broad capabilities of the battalion stand out for Weitzel. “It means a great deal to me to be a part of a unit that’s professional and is all about providing services to not only Soldiers and all the branches of the military, but local governments,” he said. “We’re multi-faceted and we’re fluid, so we can change to adapt to just about any situation that arises. We’re always ready to deploy.” In another example, instrumentation technician Sgt. Zackery Slater of Charlie Company at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, took part in a mission to Romania last year in support of MDA. “We were sent there as a last-minute entity to provide temporary power generation for one of their new construction sites while they were transitioning and building the site up,” Slater said. “We deployed in roughly 12 days – from notification of orders to boots on ground, set up, and ready to run – which was pretty historic for the battalion. … Normally we fall in on equipment that’s already in place, but we got all of our equipment together, loaded it up on a couple birds [aircraft], and flew it over to Romania. That was a really high-profile mission because we were there supporting a presidential mandate to get the site completed and operational within our allotted time period.” Slater has also served as a NATO training adviser to the Afghan military. “Our purpose there was to advise the Afghan army on not only how to maintain their current facilities, but to also help them meet their needs in [managing] the facilities we were turning over to them as we shut down bases around the country,” he said.

It means a great deal to me to be a part of a unit that’s professional and is all about providing services to not only Soldiers and all the branches of the military, but local governments. We’re multi-faceted and we’re fluid, so we can change to adapt to just about any situation that arises. We’re always ready to deploy.

”

USACE PHOTO

Maj. Jason Buursma, commanding USACE Alaska District’s 62nd Engineer Detachment’s FEST-A Team, reviews a plan with team members during a site assessment in May in southern Afghanistan.

Slater said he believes most people come to the 249th because they enjoy helping others, and the diversity of those in the unit helps accomplish missions. “We have people from every walk of life, every MOS [military occupational specialty], and it’s amazing how much those skills help us,” he said. “I’m really proud that I get to work with some of the smartest individuals on a day-to-day basis; incredibly intelligent individuals that I can rely on to figure out a task, no matter how complicated it might be.” Sgt. Tyler Bennett, also of Charlie Company, serves as a power station mechanic and also deployed to Romania on the mission to provide electrical power in support of the Aegis Missile Defense System construction site. That mission brings a special sense of professional pride to Bennett. “The fact that we were able to go from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to Romania with such a short deployment notice and be fully capable to provide power, that’s an amazing feat,” he said. Following the Romania mission last year, Bennett deployed to Iraq and Kuwait. “In Iraq, we provided a 1.6-megawatt-capable power plant for the coalition forces there, so a permanent power solution could be designed and implemented by contractors,” he said, and in Kuwait, “we provided personnel in missions to support Operation Inherent Resolve.” Bennett also described some of the unit’s domestic activities, including assessing emergency backup power generation capabilities of Fairfax County fire stations and testing unit capabilities to provide backup power to parts of the Pentagon. Regarding the power generation and disaster relief capabilities of Prime Power, Bennett said, “We go above and beyond every time.” Additionally, he emphasized the ability to help Soldiers and civilians whenever the need arises. “Being part of this unit, I can do that at any time, when people really need it.”

ALASKA DISTRICT FEST-A The USACE Alaska District’s 62nd Engineer Detachment, Forward Engineering Support Team-Advanced (FEST-A), is deployed to Afghanistan, directly contributing to the national security mission. “The team will be attached to the Transatlantic Afghanistan District while under operational control to U.S. Forces-Afghanistan,” said Maj. Jason Buursma, commander of the small, mobile, rapid-response unit. “As the only FEST-A supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan, the team will receive its missions directly from the senior engineer officer in theater and work on missions throughout the country.” Sgt. 1st Class Jose Garciapena, noncommissioned officer in charge (NCOIC), described the team as comprising of two military personnel – one officer, one NCOIC – and six USACE civilian experts, including structural, civil, mechanical, electrical, and environmental engineers, and a cartographer. “We try not to wait until we get the mission to assemble the team,” Garciapena said. “The goal is to have personnel identified prior to being called up to any deployment or any mission. So we’re always building a pool of primary and alternate [personnel].” Buursma added, “I think Sgt. Garciapena likes to call us the ‘Special Forces of USACE.’ We are a small team, we’re flexible [and] we’re tailorable based on mission requirements. We can go anywhere in the world and take on just about any engineer mission.” The team’s mission is primarily working on 30 percent base camp design projects, infrastructure, and site assessments, Buursma explained, as well as project cost estimates in support of the ongoing transition of base changing and realignment across theater. “Often the units in Afghanistan don’t have the engineering expertise to come up with these plans and designs, so that’s where we come in,” he said. “We don’t do 100 percent design work – every 29

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electrical fixture, the number of nails – but we’re doing a general, initial design that can be approved, budgeted, and contracted. “We’re providing engineer data to allow them to make the best decision on relocating troops, using all the assets in Afghanistan to support national security and to support the president’s strategy.” This deployment marks Garciapena’s fifth in his 13 years in the Army and second with the FEST-A, having deployed with the team to Kuwait and Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. “It broadened my knowledge and my leadership skills with the team,” Garciapena said. “I was used to leading Army troops my entire career, but now I am working alongside a group of professionals that know more about engineering than I do. That was definitely humbling for me, and it still is. That experience helped me to prepare for this deployment because now I know what to expect, which is the unknown. … We train and prepare for the expected and the unexpected.” Buursma has twice deployed to Iraq in his 16-year Army engineering career, experiences he said he believes have prepared him well for this first USACE deployment. In addition to being professionally rewarding, he said, “It inspires me to know that there are professionals alongside of me who may not wear a uniform in their day job and they’re volunteering to go to Afghanistan for nine months and give of themselves for national security. It’s meaningful to know I’m with a team that’s volunteered, that’s put their country first, and that’s going to use their talent to the best of their abilities for that purpose.”

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS GALVESTON DISTRICT PHOTO

GALVESTON DISTRICT NAVIGATION BRANCH Domestically, too, engineer Soldiers provide vital national security services. Capt. Robert M. Burnham’s Army engineering experience includes deployment to Afghanistan and command of a multi-role bridge company, and for the last two years, he’s broadened his knowledge as operations manager in Galveston District’s Navigation Branch. Encompassing the Texas coast from Louisiana to Mexico, Galveston District serves 28 ports and 700 miles of coastline, manages more than 1,000 miles of channel, and plays a key role in keeping waterways navigable for commerce and national security. “We support the safe and efficient navigation in the federally authorized channels of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the ports that align the Texas coast,” said Burnham, who manages the scheduling, budgeting, coordination, and execution of district navigation projects. Those projects, he explained, involve dredging the channels to the federally authorized depth and “making them navigable for port entities, port sponsors, basically all stakeholders inside of the ports.” Ensuring open waterways is vital to the nation’s economy, with the Port of Houston ranked No. 2 in the nation in terms of tonnage, and all Texas ports accounting for more than 20 percent of the nation’s total tonnage. In addition to commerce, navigable waterways are also essential to national security. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 specified Ports, Waterways and Coastal Security as the first U.S. Coast Guard homeland security mission, which involves protecting the U.S. maritime domain and the U.S. Maritime Transportation System and those who live, work, and recreate near them, as well as the

Capt. Robert M. Burnham, operations manager in Galveston District’s Navigation Branch.

prevention and disruption of terrorist attacks and response to those that do occur. In that regard, Burnham also manages all nine Coast Guard stations on the Texas Gulf Coast. “What that means is making sure that the boat basins for all the Coast Guard stations are dredged to the required depth so they can keep their boats coming in and out. And that leads to national security – making sure that the Coast Guard is able to continue their mission,” he said. Another national security application is keeping waterways open to strategic seaports, three of which are along the Texas coast. “The U.S. government has designated 22 strategic seaports around the United States,” Burnham said, “because of their ability to support major force and materiel deployment in time of war or national emergency, based on proximity of deploying units and their transportation.” Two of those strategic seaports, the Port of Beaumont and the Port of Port Arthur, are on the Sabine Channel, where Burnham worked with the Sabine Navigation District to develop a setback policy. “The setback policy that we put in place assures that they have a federally authorized channel that’s clear, open, and free for mobility,” he said. “National security needs are inherent to our mission here in the Navigation Branch and to the Corps as a whole,” Burnham summarized. “Ensuring that these waterways are kept open and dredged to their federally authorized depth becomes paramount to meet needs overseas, and keeping the channels accessible is vital.” n 31

CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION BY SCOT T R. GOURLE Y

invaluable in helping us get a handle on what the cost of these plants was really going to be in order for them to meet U.S. environmental requirements. Baltimore, Louisville, Omaha, Little Rock, Seattle, and Mobile districts all played critical roles during design and construction of the follow-on sites.” Ross offered a brief historical outline of the U.S. Chemical Demilitarization (Chem Demil) program, dating back to the mid-1980s, when the U.S. military addressed an aging stockpile of “unitary” chemical weapons stored around the world. Citing chemical mortar rounds and M55 chemical rockets, he explained, “The U.S. chemical weapons were made as military munitions, meaning there was a mortar round that actually had the chemical agent, the liquid, already in the mortar round itself. The M55 rockets already had a cavity in them filled with the liquid agent and a ‘burster’ that would detonate it on the battlefield.” He said the biggest problem was that a “life cycle” look at weapons like the M55 rocket indicated the stabilizer in the rocket propellant was degrading over time, with an increasing risk of accidental

In 1982, the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville began design development for the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS) in the Pacific, the flagship facility for destruction of chemical weapons using incineration technology. JACADS was demolished in 2003 after destroying more than 400,000 individual chemical munitions.

USACE COURTESY PHOTO

hen it comes to job satisfaction, it’s hard to compete with an organization that can claim to be removing a weapon of mass destruction from the face of the Earth. And that’s exactly the characterization offered by Boyce Ross, engineering director at the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville. Summarizing one of many critical roles played by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), he observed, “It’s great to be able to get a class of weapons of mass destruction off the globe – in this case chemical weapons – and USACE has played a huge part as the design and construction agent in getting that done. “Huntsville Center was the lead USACE organization, but success of the program should be attributed to the entire USACE organization,” Ross said. “The districts we partnered with throughout the program were paramount to the success at each site. The Pacific Ocean Division’s Honolulu District was invaluable in the early days of constructing the first plant on the remote island of Johnston Atoll. During the Tooele, Utah, days, Sacramento District was

For each disposal site, Huntsville Center staff has developed initial facility design requirements and identified appropriate equipment based on the approved destruction technology. Inside the agent processing building of the Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant, a start-up specialist tests the cavity access machines of the Munitions Washout System. Specialized robots, also procured by Huntsville Center, transfer materials to the appropriate stations.

USACE COURTESY PHOTO

detonation. Along with these concerns, additional international treaty conventions led to 1985’s Public Law 99-145, which included provisions for the elimination of the aging chemical stockpiles. Following successful scale-model demonstrations, a prototype Chem Demil incineration facility was opened on Johnston Atoll, about 600 nautical miles southwest of Honolulu. The prototype facility destroyed the small percentage of the stockpile held on the atoll, as well as U.S. chemical stocks from Europe that were shipped there for destruction.

“

“We prototyped everything on Johnston Island [Atoll] and went through the environmental impact statement and processes,” Ross said. “The first plant that was constructed in the United States was in Tooele, Utah, and it was basically a duplicate of the Johnston Island facility, with all the main incinerator systems that Johnston Island had tested and proven.” Highlighting the unique incineration technology used in these plants, he added, “We probably have some of the most sophisticated pollution abatement systems on those incinerator facilities that

We probably have some of the most sophisticated pollution abatement systems on those incinerator facilities that are in the United States. I’m not sure that many industries would ever go through the trouble that the Army went through – that nothing was going to get out of those plants that could harm the public.

”

“

If you make an agent by chemistry, you can destroy it by chemistry.

”

without harming workers – I can’t really think of a bigger feather to put in the Corps of Engineers’ cap.” Although early program plans had envisioned the use of incineration at all of the storage sites, environmental push-back in some communities eventually led to the exploration and adoption of “alternate technologies,” featuring some combination of chemical neutralization and post-treatment, at the remaining four storage locations: Newport, Indiana; Aberdeen, Maryland; Pueblo, Colorado; and Richmond, Kentucky. “If you make an agent by chemistry, you can destroy it by chemistry,” asserted Pat Haas, who was director of the former Chemical Demilitarization Directorate at the Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville. Haas, who came to the Chem Demil program as a resident engineer in March 1999, was involved in the construction of the neutralization plant at the Newport Chemical Depot, located northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana. He said that the Newport plant was unique in that it was the only site storing “VX” nerve agent in large bulk containers and that the neutralization design modified a technique already used in nuclear weapons to create a process dubbed “Speedy Neut.” Haas emphasized that USACE was used for its construction and design expertise. The Army Corps worked as an integrated partner with the program manager for chemical demilitarization and the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program manager headquartered in Edgewood, Maryland.

The Blue Grass facility being constructed.

U.S. ARMY ENGINEERING AND SUPPORT CENTER, HUNTSVILLE PHOTO

are in the United States. I’m not sure that many industries would ever go through the trouble that the Army went through – that nothing was going to get out of those plants that could harm the public. They had very elaborate pollution abatement systems, followed by [a] carbon filtration system. The air was almost cleaner coming out than going in. Long story short: Our plan was to originally clone these facilities, so we would build a facility in Tooele, Utah, then we would build the same facility in Anniston, Alabama, the next one in Umatilla, Oregon, and the next one in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.” Ross would go on to manage the site at Pine Bluff Arsenal through construction. It would destroy more than 120,000 M55 rockets. In addition to the incredibly efficient pollution-abatement features on the incineration facilities, Ross highlighted how USACE developed unique design features and construction processes in the development of the facility as well as the supporting infrastructure. “There are all different facets of the facility that are defined by the environmental permit, [from] containment of any kind of liquid to what do you do with the waste in some of the processing rooms,” he said. “We used very high, almost nuclear standards, on the piping systems and the pumps that feed all of this liquid nerve agent into incinerators and process equipment. It was very complex construction.” USACE experience on the program also included development of new construction approaches. “Some great technologies were developed,” Ross said. “At the Blue Grass site, for example, we ended up using and developing what we called ‘flowable concrete’ to do the blast containment areas, just because of how congested those containment rooms are. The containment rooms are somewhat similar to what goes around the core of a nuclear reactor. They are designed to contain whatever possible detonation could happen inside that room and not even let vapor escape. They’re massive concrete structures, and it was the first time that the U.S. Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board really has seen that type of concrete used on one of their facilities. “That’s probably one of the things that evolved out of the Chem Demil program that we will continue to use in the future,” he added. Ross noted that one of the early incineration plant concepts was that these plants were to return to “green grass sites” following their destruction missions. “I think if you went out to Johnston Island right now you would see that it’s back to coral,” he said. “They stripped the buildings down and turned it into a bird sanctuary. The facility in Anniston, Alabama, and the one in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, are also literally back to green grass. When you can get rid of a weapon of mass destruction like chemical weapons, and do it without harming the environment, do it while ensuring the integrity of public safety, and [do] it

USACE COURTESY PHOTO

With concrete walls 26 inches thick, the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant's Munitions Demilitarization Building has the most complicated blast walls of the program. Designed to protect workers in the unlikely event of an explosion, the walls are made of layers upon layers of rebar and self-consolidating concrete that required seven days to cure.

Following his work at Newport, Haas deployed overseas for a short tour before taking the director’s job in March 2005. Beginning in the late 1990s, USACE was not only addressing the mandates of U.S. Chem Demil through both incineration and alternative technology plants, but also began supporting the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in helping the Russians address their own chemical stockpile. “The United States government was requested by Russia about the same time the Berlin Wall fell down,” Haas explained. “And the world was worried about chemical weapons getting into ‘different’ hands. “The Russians had seven [stockpile] locations,” he continued. “One of the plants [in] Shchuch’ye, Russia, was one of the first plants, because they believed it was the highest risk. So the United States volunteered to assist the Russians with the design and construction of that facility. That’s how the Russian project evolved.” Design of the Shchuch’ye plant began in the late 1990s, with the United States selecting the design and construction contractor from a list of approved Russian contractors supplied by the Russian government. Haas described the Russian process as “a combination of neutralization followed [by] bituminization,” with the agent first removed from munitions and neutralized. However, unlike the “post-treatment” processes used at the U.S. neutralization sites, the neutralized agent is then blended with an asphalt material and placed in storage bunkers on site.

Returning to his broader perspective of Chem Demil activities across USACE, Haas observed, “I guess I could say that to be involved in a mission like this is one of the very few unique things the Corps of Engineers does. I would think that I’m presently happy from an organizational standpoint and from a country standpoint that we’re getting rid of the weapons. We still have two more plants to complete operations but seven of the nine are done. Ninety percent of the weapons are done, and the last 10 percent are on their way.” Haas also sees the program benefits as not just for the country but across USACE as well. “A lot of people have taken the knowledge and skills that they learned in the Chem Demil program and have become very successful in other parts of the Corps,” he summarized. “You’ll never see this again at this scale and this size and in the way we put this program together. Trying to communicate that within the Corps sometimes is kind of hard, because until you live, it you can’t very well communicate it. “I would say that the Corps should be really proud that we’ve worked ourselves out of a job here,” Ross concluded. “We had almost 200 people supporting this program in its heyday, and now we have basically ‘sunsetted’ the whole organization here, reassigning those people to other programs and jobs in the center. We are working ourselves out of a job, but the reality is that we never had anybody worried about that. They were so proud about the integrity of this mission that they never wanted off of it. It’s kind of like constructing a missile defense site. Even if it’s just one site, who doesn’t want to work on that project?” n 35

REWARDS AND CHALLENGES OF CIVILIAN DEPLOYMENT BY GAIL GOURLE Y

get to be in a pretty close-knit, supportive environment where everybody’s trying to take care of each other. But volunteering to be away from your family is a hard thing, and I really appreciate the sacrifice that these civilians who volunteer, with their families, make to allow their loved ones to come and support this mission.” Owen continued, “We wouldn’t be able to do what we do here without the support of our families back home. I think it’s harder on them than it is on us. We’re here working 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week, so most of our time and energy is focused on the task at hand. Our families not only have to continue their regular routines, now they have to take up our slack as well. Whether it’s mowing the grass, taking the kids to school, or dealing with a broken water heater, they have to take on those extra burdens. They’re making a huge sacrifice.”

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY MIKE A. GLASCH, USACE-TAA PUBLIC AFFAIRS

ivilians who volunteer to deploy to Afghanistan or other contingency environments with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) experience both rewards and challenges, many of which are shared by those who make the commitment, but some of which are uniquely individual. One thing is certain overall. Col. Paul E. Owen, commander of the Transatlantic Afghanistan District (TAA), said, “We have an incredibly talented workforce that is making a huge contribution in theater, and it’s recognized at the highest levels.” Owen said the civilians who volunteer to deploy bring enormous commitment and a willingness to work hard and make progress. “They’re extremely professional, they’re very dedicated, and I think they’re really rewarded by the contributions they make,” he said. Owen provided his perspective on some of the rewards of deployment. “One is professional growth. Understanding how the Army functions in a deployed environment is an extremely beneficial Army experience,” he said. “It’s not an easy thing to be able to do that thousands of miles away from home and in pretty austere conditions.” Additionally, he said, “It’s very rewarding to understand and see the direct contributions you’re making to the growth of the government of Afghanistan and their security forces, and to their infrastructure,” adding that their projects also benefit the Afghan people and U.S. forces. Another reward, Owen said, is learning from all the others that are there. “We have on the order of 44 districts in the Corps of Engineers; about 30 of them are contributing people to our mission in Afghanistan,” he said. “So if you come to Afghanistan, you get a chance to see and learn from all the other organizations that are in Afghanistan.” Regarding challenges, Owen said that the work is very fast paced, with projects moving more quickly in Afghanistan, primarily because funds are generally readily available. “I think another of our challenges is sustained quality, and that’s something I always put an emphasis on,” said Owen. Whether it’s for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, U.S. military forces, or the Afghan people, he explained, “the needs are immediate and every day they don’t have something in place is another day they’re doing without. So our stakeholders’ primary concern is usually schedule. But it’s up to us to ensure quality. “Another is something that’s pretty personal, I think, and it’s being away from your family. That’s a challenge and I think it’s a little bit mitigated because we have a very tight family here in theater and you

Col. Paul E. Owen, commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Transatlantic Afghanistan District (TAA), gets an aerial view of one of the projects that USACE is building for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.

Charles Witt, mechanical engineer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Transatlantic Afghanistan District, takes some time off to enjoy a game of catch. Witt, a former U.S. Army officer, is on his first deployment as a civilian.

Regarding questions prospective volunteers may have, Owen indicated many people are concerned about the security situation based on what they see in the news. “The security situation on the U.S. bases is generally very secure and safe,” he said. “We don’t do as much what we call ‘outside-the-wire’ work as we used to. We have a group of local national quality-assurance Afghan engineers that are able to do a lot of the on-site quality assurance, and being able to interact with those Afghans is a skill set that we look for.” Owen explained that because of the fast-paced work environment in TAA, recruiting experienced project managers is a priority. “In TAA, we have 143 positions [of all types] that we try to fill. We generally have maybe 110 people on the ground at any given time, so there are always openings,” Owen said. “For a while, up until 2014, we were trying to close out the mission here and everything was going just to finish the projects we have. That has changed dramatically over the last year. Our motto is ‘Charlie Mike,’ which means ‘continue the mission.’ So we still need people to volunteer and be a part of what we’re doing in Afghanistan.”

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They’re extremely professional, they’re very dedicated, and I think they’re really rewarded by the contributions they make.

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Israel Miller, civil engineer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Transatlantic Afghanistan District, is greeted by U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) Jo-Ellen Darcy during her recent visit to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. Miller, despite being deployed, was able to make it home to see his newborn son.

The following three individuals have all deployed to Afghanistan and offered their thoughts about the rewards and challenges. When not deployed, Charles Witt, mechanical engineer and former Army officer, works with the Department of Public Works at Fort Hood, Texas. Currently, he’s on a one-year USACE deployment at Bagram Airfield. Although his Army service included two Iraq deployments, this is his first as a civilian. “Really, it’s just a sense of giving back and serving a greater cause,” Witt said, explaining his motivation as a crossover from the military. “You sacrifice your time with your family, your time back in the States, to give to a country that needs help, needs support, and it feels good to know you’re making a difference.” Initially assuming he’d be doing mechanical engineering work while deployed, Witt said, “As an engineer, you’re pretty much a jack-of-alltrades, and it’s what we do. I’ve done all different facets of engineering from road design to repairs of buildings to some master planning.” Witt described the living conditions as great, especially compared to his prior military deployments. Although when he first arrived they lived in barracks with a roommate, the recently completed USACE village provides everyone with their own space. “When I get done working for the day, and I usually work pretty late, it’s a good time to call home,” he said.

The biggest professional challenge, Witt said, is that because of security, often they can’t get to a job site. “It’s almost like a long-distance relationship. If there’s a particular problem with a building, or a solution they need, you’re communicating through email or over the phone so it makes it a little bit of a communication challenge,” he said. “But there are enough resources out there so you can find the right person on the ground to get the information you need to help develop the design.” Occasionally, however, they are able to make a firsthand assessment, and Witt has twice visited a new hospital project site in Kabul. The rewards of deployment, Witt said, center on his assertion that “the Corps does a really good job of recruiting talented and professional engineers and managers and staff people over here. That makes it a great environment to work in. Everybody that I’ve come across here has been truly professional, really knows their job, and is willing to help out wherever they can,” he said. “That helps me professionally because those are people I might not have ever encountered before, so I can learn from them. They have different experiences, different knowledge in the engineering field and a lot of experience in the construction industry, and you learn a lot from that as an engineer.” On a personal level, it’s a significant challenge to be away from home and to miss key events like birthdays and holidays, Witt said. 39

“But the good thing is the Corps has it set up that when you do a yearlong tour, you’re authorized to have two R&R periods, which is really nice.” Witt’s message to those who consider volunteer deployment is to find people to talk to and ask a lot of questions to really make sure that it’s right for you and your family, and that you’re doing it for the right reasons so you don’t miss opportunities. While the pay is good and can be an incentive, Witt said, the real reward is professional. “There’s a lot that I give to the team and there’s a lot that I’m able to receive knowledge-wise, so I feel it’s bettering me as an engineer and a designer.” Anjina O’Connor began her second Afghanistan deployment at the beginning of the year, initially serving as USACE liaison officer with the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) at Camp Resolute Support in Kabul. Mid-deployment, she accepted a promotion to become deputy district engineer for Programs and Project Management, also serving as the civilian deputy to the district commander. With that change, she relocated to Bagram Airfield and added six months to her original one-year tour. O’Connor said her first deployment to Bagram in 2003 motivated her to return. “It was such a good experience,” she said. “I learned so much. I saw completely different things than what I was doing back home, and had the opportunity to work with so many people from different backgrounds and different services being in a combined joint environment. I missed it and I wanted to do one more tour.” When not deployed, O’Connor, a 26-year USACE employee, is an operations project manager for the Fort Worth District. O’Connor agreed that one of the challenges of deployment in Afghanistan is the security environment. “Getting out to our sites is not as easy as it used to be,” she said. When travel is necessary, “we can’t get around the country by vehicle like we used to. We fly everywhere, so you have to plan for that.” Another professional challenge, said O’Connor, is integrating USACE business processes and design standards with those of a different country and culture, while assisting the Afghans to function independently in those areas. Professional rewards come from working at a strategic level on projects with national impact, said O’Connor, and from “the opportunity to work on projects that are making a difference in this country – providing hospitals, schools, getting the Afghan Security Forces the facilities that they need so they can support their country.” “Being away from home, missing home is a personal challenge, and balancing our work schedules with personal time. We work a lot of hours here,” she said. “You’re on a compound. It’s not like back home, where you can get in a car and drive somewhere.” The opportunity for self-reflection is one of the personal rewards O’Connor identified. Being away from family and from your old job, she said, “you take time to re-evaluate what you want. The experience here is high energy and you’re working at a scale that is much larger than what you have back home. It’s bigger than yourself. And you just sit back some days and reflect on that: ‘What do I want to do when I get back home?’ It challenges you on a personal level to take another look at where you are with your life and what you want to do.” 40

Anjina O’Connor, deputy district engineer for Programs and Project Management, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Transatlantic Afghanistan District, takes aim during a free-throw shooting contest on Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. O’Connor also serves as the civilian deputy to the district commander, and is the highest-ranking civilian in the district.

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It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be able to sit at the table with people from all different countries, working on a mission that everyone believes in and everyone wants to accomplish. You will make a difference.

O’Connor added, “Being able to do something where you truly feel like you’re making a difference, and you’re going to leave this place better than when you came here, is a personal reward.” For example, she became familiar with projects that involve designing facilities to include women with the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. “They’re trying to bring women into that. How do we accommodate facilities now to have the women there? Their culture has specific requirements on how men and women integrate,” she said. “What a great opportunity to be able to be a part of that. That’s history in the making. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be able to sit at the table with people from all different countries, working on a mission that everyone believes in and everyone wants to accomplish. You will make a difference.” Civil engineer Israel Miller has nearly completed a 13-month deployment at Bagram Airfield, serving as a project engineer and also as a design manager for the Afghan Infrastructure Fund. At home in the Baltimore District, Miller works as a design manager, and has been with USACE for 15 years. Having deployed to Afghanistan in 2004, Miller said, helped him understand what a second deployment would entail. “This was an opportunity for me to develop and to experience a little bit of change in my normal everyday activity,” he said. “Being here is definitely an adventure, and it’s also an opportunity for you to grow professionally.” A typical day while deployed involves constant coordination with people in varying roles and brings challenges in getting projects done, said Miller. “The days are exciting, the days are long,” he said. Miller perceives one of the biggest benefits of deployment as the opportunity for professional development. “I’m working in a different job here than what I do at home, so I’m picking up a whole brand-new set of skills,” he said. “In this environment, you could

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get five years of experience in one year’s time, just because everything is so fast-paced. “This deployment has given me the confidence to think that I can take on any task that’s thrown at me,” he said. “On a personal side, one of the things I love most about being here is working with the Afghan people. I’m the type of person that loves to travel; I love learning about new cultures and learning about people from different places and seeing how people live,” he said. “Being able to work with the local nationals and getting a better understanding of how they live and their desires that they have in life – it’s just a way to bring people closer.” It’s challenging to be away from family, friends, and everyday normal living, Miller said. “We do have things in place that help ease that anxiety,” he added, “like being able to pick up a phone and call stateside.” Comparing this deployment to his previous one, Miller also noted that technology, especially video chat capability, makes communicating easier. That’s particularly meaningful because he has a newborn baby at home. “I got to go home and see him for two weeks,” Miller said, and upon return to Afghanistan, “once or twice a week I get on a video chat and I’m seeing him grow up. I’m on the opposite side of the world, but I get to see him.” He identified another beneficial aspect as the friendships that result from deployment. “I have a group of friends here and we’re going to have a lifetime friendship,” Miller said. “These are going to be some of my best friends, because we had this unique experience together … and this is an experience that you will never get unless you come to a place like this. “If you’re thinking about deployment, just do it,” he said. “Just open your mind up, open your heart up, and come help this nation, because we are making history here, and this is an opportunity for you to become a part of history.” n 41

CYBER DEFENSE BY SCOT T R. GOURLE Y

mong the range of state-of-the-art capabilities wielded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), few have progressed as far and as fast as those associated with cyber defense. According to Dan Shepard, who has served as chief of the Control Systems Cybersecurity Technical Center of Expertise (TCX) at the USACE Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, since January 2015, much of the recent activity has focused on the ability of USACE to deliver completely digital secure facilities to their customers. That effort has included the development of clear guidelines to be used in future USACE construction projects. “In lockstep with that vision, we have proactively and heavily moved forward to completion of the Unified Facilities Criteria for cybersecurity of control systems, which is basically going to be the roadmap for architecture engineering firms and construction contractors to build cybersecurity requirements into their design, and into the construction process,” Shepard explained, noting that the final coordination meeting for that tri-services document took place in late spring 2016 with a planned release of early summer. “In line with that, we also kicked off the ‘Unified Facility Guide Specifications’ document, which is a more granular breakout of that Unified Facilities Criteria,” he added. “That guide spec [document] gets down to the particulars of a specific platform that would go in a facility. We kicked that project off last quarter of this year, and we expect to have at least a final coordination draft by the third or fourth quarter of FY 17.” Summarizing the importance of those projects, Shepard acknowledged that previous USACE design efforts “didn’t have anything to go by to integrate cybersecurity requirements, other than high-level

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DOD [Department of Defense] policy. It was really hard to decipher, from an A-E [architect-engineer] firm or construction contractor, what really was their responsibility, and how they should integrate those requirements into the design. That’s what this facility criteria is going to do. It’s … unified criteria, so this will be applicable to all branches within the tri-services. It’s their guidebook on how to incorporate cybersecurity into facility control system designs. And that is one major component to ensure that we’re delivering secure and usable facilities.” Along with those efforts, Shepard said that the TCX also recently identified a “design gap” involving a historical lack of accounting for cybersecurity costs. “Cybersecurity measures for control systems residing inside a facility had never been accounted for,” he said. “We ran all the cabling, and we plugged them in, but we never accounted for the cost.” He continued, “If you don’t account for it on the front end, and get a finite line item in the budget, it’s really hard to go back and do a scope modification to get additional funding on the back end. You’ve got to find other avenues, and those avenues may not be there.” Subsequent coordination activities across multiple service organizations will result in TCX involvement in the Parametric Design Review process, at the front end, for Army-related military construction (MILCON) projects beginning in FY 18, pending the process’s outcome. “We’re looking at these parametric designs, and looking at the platforms that are associated in these parametric design documents, and saying, ‘Here is the cost, per platform, and you need to budget that,’” Shepard said. Recent related TCX contributions include development of an inventory methodology for control systems to assist or supplement

The threats will always evolve. We’ll have to be proactive in evolving, too, with the threat.

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PHOTO BY JULIA BOBICK

Daniel Shepard, chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Control Systems Cybersecurity Technical Center of Expertise at the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, reviews a customer’s Utility Monitoring and Control System (UMCS) wiring diagram. The TCX assists military customers in ensuring their systems and facilities have the required integrated security solutions needed to operate on government networks.

related assessments at garrison units. The simplified inventory approach will help identify and prioritize key cybersecurity targets in terms of what is non-secure and what needs to be updated as legacy systems are worked forward to new designs. Shepard said that one of the cyber challenges currently facing the Army involves the inventory of control systems within their portfolio. “The Army understands that it has cybersecurity challenges and deficiencies within its inventory of facility control systems,” he said. “Currently it has begun the process of defining its inventory of critical control systems to recognize those legacy and non-compliant systems for cyber improvements.” Shepard said that the biggest challenge facing cybersecurity today is that “it’s always evolving.” “It’s like hitting a moving target,” he said. “And that’s a challenge. We have policies that are currently evolving. So you could potentially go down a path and think you’re moving in the right direction. Then we’ll have a policy that changes and we’ve got to change our buying solution to regain that target. “But that’s goodness,” he asserted. “At the end of the day, it’s good that policy changes, because it’s capturing shortcomings, and

it’s only enhancing our capabilities as a Department of Defense service branch.” He continued, “The threats will always evolve. We’ll have to be proactive in evolving, too, with the threat.” Along with the myriad TCX activities, USACE cyber defense activities also extend out into USACE’s regional districts. An example can be found in Portland District, where Smart Ocholi has followed a unique career path to his current USACE role: leading a cyber protection team. Among other activities, the team is currently helping to strengthen computer control systems for the area’s hydropower plants. After he earned his electronics engineering degree in Nigeria, Ocholi and his wife came to America under the annual U.S. Visa Lottery Program in 2002, shortly after the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Their commitment to their new country was reflected by the fact that both husband and wife subsequently joined the U.S. Army on the same day. “It was a great chance for us to contribute to the country that has given us such great opportunities,” he said. “And it’s an honor and privilege to serve in the greatest army in the world.” 43

DEFENSE

U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz

IN DEPTH

Soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division ride in a C-130 Hercules during an air transport mission in support of Operation New Dawn in March 2011. A C-130 crew from the 746th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron transported the soldiers out of Iraq on the first leg of their return trip home after completing their deployment.

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U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PHOTO BY BILLIE JOHNSON

Smart Ocholi serves on the front lines of USACE’s efforts to both automate and protect hydropower infrastructure and capabilities.

Although Ocholi had goals of earning a military commission and a full military career, late in his initial tour he was deployed to Afghanistan, where he sustained injuries that mandated a change in plans. Subsequent activities included earning his Ph.D., a stint in private industry, and eventual transition into USACE in May 2009. “In 2012, I joined the group I’m working with now,” he recalled. “Then it was called the Generic Data Acquisition and Control Systems group. And then around 2014, it became its own branch with three sections: application control; application development; and cyber security and reliability compliance.” Ocholi has been the section chief of that third element since June 2014. “We have been trying to stay in the midst of change with regard to cybersecurity,” he said. “And during this time, we have been able to participate in a number of collaborative efforts with DHS [Department of Homeland Security], FBI, and a number of other federal agencies. We have also worked in conjunction with other state authorities, local authorities, and tribal governments that we have around us here in Portland. Sometimes the collaboration also involves universities and other academia, because they are trying to keep up with all these programs too.” Ocholi said that the external collaboration has been “an opportunity to meet these people and bring back the expertise they have. And sometimes we share our own expertise. For example, I’m currently representing the Corps in what is called InfraGard. Supported by the FBI, it’s a collection of different industries – energy, finance, and others. They have state chapters and I am honored to be a member of the board of directors for the Oregon chapter. And what we do is try to collaborate and bring to the table what the Corps is able to offer.“ “Some of the owners of critical infrastructure in this country don’t have cybersecurity resources or manpower,” Ocholi said, then

added, “They always want to come to these kinds of gatherings to see what they might be able to use – to help stay one step ahead of the bad guys.” He characterized the bad guys’ efforts as “trolling day and night to try to create some kind of problem for us – for bragging rights, stealing technology, or maybe just to make a political statement.” Not surprisingly, Ocholi predicted that the increasing adeptness of those potential cyber attackers will help to drive cyber defense throughout the coming years. “The internet has become the ‘go-to place’ for any person interested in doing something malicious,” he said. “Just jump on the internet and you will find how to do it. I mentioned that some people do it for bragging rights or some people do it because they’re bored and don’t have anything else to do. But looking down the road from today, I think we are going to be having a greater, broader scope of challenges, because we’ll be dealing with new individuals that have access.” Ocholi continued, “At the same time, we will continue to simplify how we do things in our daily lives by expanding the employment of computers in our environment. So we will also have to be prepared for how the attacks against the vulnerabilities will increase. And that will be a challenge to us, because we will try to bring the new technology into what we do and in the process we will be opening doors for attacks and things that we really don’t know.” In his own closing thoughts, Shepard observed, “Our ultimate responsibility is to our installation partners that utilize us as a conduit to execute their mission. It is of the utmost importance that we deliver a secure and usable product into the field. All of these initiatives, at the end of the day, are trying to meet the requirements, and deliver to our customer base, and our partners, secure and usable facilities. n 45

DODEA SCHOOLS: HIGHLIGHTING EUROPE DISTRICT BY GAIL GOURLE Y

ning, design, and construction of approximately 30 schools valued at more than $1 billion throughout Germany and Belgium, affecting nearly 18,000 students on the European continent. The DODEA program is also Europe District’s largest in terms of dollar amount. “DODEA is basically recapitalizing their schools over roughly 10 years,” said Ross. “Many of these schools were built in the ’50s and ’60s, and so in constructing these new facilities, they’re also including a new approach to education – the 21st century concept.” Ross explained that the 30 projects reflect those from the initial authorization in fiscal year 2010 through projected completion in FY 21. “We currently have three projects in construction, and those are valued at roughly $135 million,” he said. “We have six that have been turned over and are occupied now, and that’s approximately $220 million.” Among recently completed projects are three SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) schools in Mons, Belgium. “Those schools – the elementary, middle, and high school – are part of

DODEA EUROPE PHOTO

ith more than a quarter-century of service in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), civil engineer Steve Ross has contributed to a broad spectrum of USACE efforts. He’s worked on environmental projects restoring formerly used defense sites; on a dam in Puerto Rico when the reservoir filled the first time; and on ports and beach renourishments in Florida. Now serving as USACE Europe District Project Management Section chief, Ross and his colleagues, in managing the Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) program, are directly impacting the education of current and future students in the DODEA-Europe school system. Focusing on 21st century education that emphasizes student-centered learning and sustainable infrastructure, DODEA is in the midst of a dynamic effort to transition its schools, which serve children of active-duty military and Department of Defense (DOD) civilian families worldwide. As the design and construction agent, USACE Europe District plays a paramount role in this initiative, managing the plan-

A SHAPE Elementary School.

U.S. ARMY PHOTO BY SARAH GROSS

an integrated campus with the 28 other nations at SHAPE,” Ross said, adding that they recently awarded a contract for international schools at the site. “At one end, you have the SHAPE elementary and middle schools and at the other end you have the SHAPE high school, and in between you have buildings that house children [from] other countries, so it provides an integrated campus that really fosters interaction between students from other countries and students from America.” Other recently completed projects include classroom and multipurpose room additions in Ansbach and Grafenwoehr, Germany. “Last August we turned over two schools in Stuttgart, an elementary school and high school, for roughly 1,250 students,” said Ross. “I’ve been there afterwards to see the children occupying the

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There’s just a tremendous amount of effort from a lot of different partners working together to complete these 21st century schools.

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Steve Ross, Europe District supervisory project manager, visits the Wiesbaden high school construction site in Wiesbaden, Germany, Aug. 11, 2016. Europe District designed and is constructing the Department of Defense Education Activity 21st century learning school, anticipated for completion in summer 2017.

school, and it’s really great satisfaction as a public servant to see the results of lots of hard work. Between the staff and the teachers and the students, we hear a lot of positive feedback. And you also have lessons learned. This is a 10-year program, so we are very proactive in evaluating lessons learned and applying them to our ongoing designs and future projects.” Two high schools in Germany, in Wiesbaden and Kaiserslautern, are currently under construction and scheduled to open in fall 2017 and 2018, respectively. Additionally, Ross said, about 15 schools are currently in various stages of the design process with three more in the planning phase. In his USACE career, Ross has alternated between Jacksonville and Europe districts, where he has worked on DODEA programs in the past. During his tour that began in 1996, he moved into project management and began work on the DODEA program that provided classroom additions for implementation of full-day kindergarten programs. “I’ve been involved with the DODEA program for six years,” he said, “and then I had this opportunity to work on this 21st century program, and I was very excited and grateful to have the opportunity.” Both the structure of a school and how it functions have changed under the 21st century approach, emphasizing the integration of student-centered learning with state-of-the-art technology tools and sustainability. 47

HIDDEN HISTORY

Maj. Gen. George S. Patton shown during maneuvers in the Desert Training Center he established in the Colorado Desert of California. Patton lived in similar Spartan conditions to his soldiers during the months he commanded the training center. Sand clogged weapons and blew into food, water and food were rationed, and soldiers grew used to marches with full packs in 120 degree heat as they prepared to fight the Axis in North Africa.

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INDEPTH

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DODEA PROGRAM OVERVIEW By Gail Gourley

Ross explained that the emphasis is to shift away from a traditional classroom setting to more of a community focus, with multifunctional common areas as the “heart of the school.” A “neighborhood” concept composed of a central hub and several adaptable learning studios provides flexible learning spaces. “We’re incorporating moveable walls that you can partition, so there’s flexibility in the instruction and they can combine classrooms to instruct based on the 21st century community focus,” Ross said. There are also changes to the building architecture. “There’s an emphasis on integrating technology and also there’s a focus on energy and sustainability. Part of the requirements for constructing these facilities is that we achieve LEED®Silver certification,” said Ross. As an example of energy efficiency, he said that based on models prepared during the design of the Wiesbaden high school currently under construction, “there’s an estimated 55 percent reduction in annual costs for maintaining and operating that school.” Features like LED lighting, high-efficiency pumps, and façade optimization all contribute. “I think the key is that there’s a significant calculated savings on these schools based on the energy and sustainability features that are in the design.” Additionally, the infrastructure itself is utilized for instructional purposes. Ross explained that energy dashboards, which can show various parameters like water flows and energy consumption, are included in the design. “We, in some cases, have cutaways or windows showing mechanical systems for education purposes,” he said, adding that some of the designs could have a demonstration of wind or photovoltaic technology connected to the dashboard showing how much energy is produced by that method. These aspects also augment and integrate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, a priority of both USACE and DODEA. The 21st century criteria also emphasize the importance of indoor environmental quality, incorporating elements such as low-emitting materials in furniture, enhanced natural lighting, and noise reduction. In describing how these facilities impact the students who will learn in them, Ross said, “I think it will encourage them to be more collaborative and to improve critical thinking, communication, innovation, and creativity. That’s the idea behind the 21st century concept.” Ross identified several challenges Europe District faces in various phases of the school projects, including host-nation building codes and regulations, such as fire and safety codes, that can differ or even conflict with U.S. codes. “We get all the appropriate technical folks together and work it out, and we find solutions,” Ross said. Additionally, many of the documents they work with are in the host-nation language and require translation, and cultural customs, such as traditional monthlong summer holidays, for example, can affect project time lines. Fluctuating exchange rates can also affect a project’s budget. “Another aspect to these schools is that it takes a tremendous team,” said Ross, citing the necessity of ongoing collaboration with many entities including host-nation representatives, the USACE DODEA Design Center in Norfolk, Virginia, and the customer, DODEA. Interaction with school leaders and teachers provides valuable input into the design process. “There’s just a tremendous amount of effort from a lot of different partners working together to complete these 21st century schools.”

he Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) operates 172 schools located in 11 foreign countries, seven states, Guam, and Puerto Rico and serves more than 74,000 children of active-duty military and Department of Defense (DOD) civilian families. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the design and construction agent for the renovation or replacement of approximately 85 DODEA schools systemwide. According to Manal S. Ezzat, Ph.D., PMP, Directorate of Military Programs at USACE Headquarters and DODEA national program manager, the program was initially authorized in FY 10 and planned to run through FY 18, but budget reductions have expanded the time table. “They’re not cutting back what needs to be done to the schools, but they’re reducing the annual budget and extending it over a longer period of time,” she said, estimating they’re about halfway through the execution of the nearly $4 billion program. “We have narrowed down the 21st century criteria” she said, adding that it is an ever-evolving document in order to incorporate lessons learned from completed projects and keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology. Ezzat noted the collaborative nature of the new schools’ functionality, with movable transparent walls between classrooms and seating that reconfigures easily into student groups of varying arrangements. Libraries are smaller, with less space devoted to books and more emphasis on technology and downloadable information. Learning tools are integrated into the infrastructure. “Some schools have windmills that will generate electricity,” said Ezzat. “Students can see how the process works. “The kids are so excited when they walk into these schools,” she said. “These are beautiful schools. It makes you want to learn, want to stay there.”

Ross said the significance of this program is that they’re building facilities that will educate future leaders of tomorrow with more collaboration and more community-type education. “Being able to provide a facility that’s providing students with a learning environment that really promotes critical thinking and problem-solving and really being better leaders for tomorrow is, I think, a very positive thing for the nation,” he said. Ross recalled one of his visits to the completed Stuttgart schools as creating a sense of professional fulfillment. “I was assigned as the project manager at the beginning of construction, in July 2013, and I worked for just over two years on those projects,” he said. “I got to see the construction from moving dirt to seeing the kids in the school. One day we had a meeting at the school, and I looked out the window and I saw the kids leave school and get on the buses, and it really touched my heart. It was just very rewarding to see the schools being used after years of very hard work.” n 49

ERDC: INNOVATING SOLUTIONS FOR A BETTER WORLD BY SCOT T R. GOURLE Y

the research organization of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) conducts research and development in support of the Soldier, military installations, and civil works projects, as well as for other federal agencies, state and municipal authorities, and U.S. industry. From infrasound monitoring to remote structural assessment to warfighter deployment planning, a range of representative ERDC research projects are focused on the development of innovative solutions for a safer, better world. It’s been a full decade since some dubbed her vision “Mihan’s Singing Bridges,” but Mihan McKenna, Ph.D., a research geophysicist with ERDC’s Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory, characterizes it as a decade of success for her infrasound research. McKenna started at ERDC in 2005, joining the bridge inspection team, “where you get to walk around in the woods and poke sticks in the holes and take pictures. It’s fun. But in the process of doing that, I realized that there had to be a better way to do it.” That “better way” departed from traditional monitoring of how a bridge or other structure appears, instead focusing on how it behaves. And that behavior is broadcast through infrasound, frequencies that people can’t hear. “It’s a paradigm shift from visual inspection,” McKenna explained. “In fact, the first perception we have of something, which is how it appears, is really the easiest way to fool us. You say, ‘This looks good to me,’ right? And that thinking has influenced the way that we monitor and inspect a lot of our critical infrastructure.” She offered the example of the thousands of bridges in the national bridge inventory that currently require periodic physical

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inspection to monitor for issues like scour around footings, which she characterized as “the No. 1 reason that bridges fall down in the United States.” Referring to “fundamental modes of motion,” McKenna acknowledged, “The popular perception is that a bridge just sits there. It’s a physical object that is immovable in space and time. “But it’s not,” she quickly asserted. “Bridges and large critical infrastructure are actually living, breathing entities in their own way. They move all the time. They expand. They contract. They blow in the breezes. Not in a way or a dimension that human beings are really very well adapted to perceive, but they are moving and they do have behavior to them. So the fundamental modes of motion basically can tell you how that bridge is attached to its surrounding media. “If you think about it like a musical instrument, a giant true truss bridge is nothing but an extremely complicated harp that we can’t, as humans, hear,” she continued. “It emits low enough frequencies that the wavelengths are on the order of kilometers, which means the propagation distance is on the order of kilometers to tens of kilometers, to hundreds of kilometers, or thousands of kilometers, depending on your source strength.” While humans may not be able to hear the “singing bridges,” McKenna said that they can record them on things like Seismic Infrasound Audible Acoustic Meteorological arrays, which can be placed several kilometers from the target structure. One such array has been monitoring both a rail and highway bridge over the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, Mississippi, since 2010, with McKenna pointing to another ongoing project in Dallas, Texas, and another emerging effort targeting several California highway bridges.

It’s a paradigm shift from visual inspection. In fact, the first perception we have of something, which is how it appears, is really the easiest way to fool us. You say, ‘This looks good to me,’ right? And that thinking has influenced the way that we monitor and inspect a lot of our critical infrastructure.

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USACE PHOTO BY MIKE W. PETERSEN

“We’re working with them to monitor some of these structures periodically where you have a lot them all right on top of each other,” she added. “It is really important to know this sort of information in real time. And within the next five years, we should have some near real-time software that allows for assessments or critical alerts that will say, ‘Hey, your thing is not doing well, perhaps you should do something about this.’” Moving from bridges over water to structures under water, another ERDC project focuses on the application of new tools and technologies – from Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to unmanned aircraft systems to autonomous surface systems – to conduct environmental or beachhead assessments to help prepare for things like amphibious landings or logistics overthe-shore operations. According to Thad C. Pratt, a research physicist and head of the Field Data Collection Group in ERDC’s Coastal and Hydraulics Lab, the explorations are part of a Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration (JCTD) program. The program is “developing assessment tools and methods to repair pier structures once a structural assessment is complete, in order to meet mission requirements. “My portion of the Pillar and Pier JCTD is to collect data for a structural assessment and then pass that to the subject-matter expert on the Forward Engineer Support Team [FEST], so that he or she can evaluate each component of the structure, the pier or wharf, to determine if it has the capacity to handle the loads for mission requirements,” Pratt explained. If it doesn’t, ERDC is developing expedient methods to shore up the structure for a short-term operation such as humanitarian

Mihan McKenna, Ph.D., plays viola with the Mississippi River bridges at Vicksburg behind her. A lifelong musician, McKenna integrated her love of music with her research at the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) using infrasound to remotely assess buildings and infrastructure. By monitoring the subsonic vibrations of the bridges – what McKenna calls their singing – ERDC can detect variations that indicate possible structural issues.

assistance or troop movement – whatever the condition might be – to fortify the structure to handle the required loads for short periods of time. Pratt reiterated that the information was not meant as a permanent solution, but rather to identify capabilities necessary to support missions up to approximately 120 days’ duration, noting that his current group efforts are “focusing on the technologies and the integration of those technologies into a delivery and platform, so that we can facilitate these FEST teams that go out and do the assessments and collect the data. “Our toolboxes and hardware and software are the building blocks for what they would use to do that assessment,” he added, pointing to technologies involving LiDAR, photogrammetry, and both unmanned aircraft and surface platforms. “The historical assessment methodology is to go out there with a six- to eight-man dive team, and dive on that structure to inspect all the pilings,” he said. “You’re talking about one to three weeks’ worth of diving to give you a structural assessment of the underwater portion of that structure.” By contrast, he said that the JCTD efforts to date have shown the ability “to arrive and assess and push the data back within 24 hours – with a two- to three-man team.” 51

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ERDC COURTESY PHOTO

Terrance Westerfield, Engineer Research and Development Center researcher, supports installation for an advanced technology demonstration, including testing in Arctic conditions near Fort Greely, Alaska.

Pratt was quick to emphasize the collaboration between multiple ERDC laboratories in the first eight months of the JCTD. “We’re ahead of our time line and I think that a lot of the technologies that we are developing in this JCTD will have excellent applications in both civil and military arenas,” he said. ERDC’s Geospatial Research Laboratory in Alexandria, Virginia, is working on another project in support of troop deployment planning and other contingency planning conducted by the major combatant commands (COCOMs). According to Terrance Westerfield, senior researcher and program manager for Map Based Planning Services, the Geospatial Research Laboratory took on the project “following the old adage that all planning begins with a map.” “Being the Geospatial Research Lab, it was a natural fit from some of the projects that we have done that were more tactical in nature, truly exploiting some of those aspects of geospatial – terrain, modeling, and things of that sort,” he explained. “As we were looking at the idea of a more holistic planning environment, to us it made sense for us to take a step back from everything else and all the other R&D that’s out there and look at the problem space a little bigger.” Westerfield said that current COCOM contingency plans “can take up to two years to generate” through “a very cumbersome and linear process.” The contingency planning process also requires participation across organizations like U.S. Transportation Command to verify the required air- and sea-lift assets and synchronize things like the simultaneous arrival of people and the food they will eat. “We wanted to see how we could optimize and simplify that,” Westerfield said. “So the program that I am working on is trying to modernize that entire planning process. The No. 1 objective is to bring everything together into one environment, all through the Web. We call it ‘The Planners’ Enclave’ for lack of a more clever name. In that enclave, all members of the planning team, not just operations, logistics, or intelligence, but all the other pieces, whether it’s chemical, the medical planners, or fuel planners, are all working in one environment from the same map. “The idea is that we can not only see what each other is doing, but now we can start doing things in a synchronized manner, collaborative and concurrent, not the traditional linear process,” he added.

Moreover, he noted that the collaborative environment also allows modeling of the flow of equipment and forces as well as a range of “what if” scenarios – known as sensitivity analysis – that can help explore the impact of various contingencies or variables. “Right now, the planning process just doesn’t allow those types of what if games. But by having all this in an automated fashion, you allow those planners to look at all those variables and quickly change one to see what the impact would be,” he said. Westerfield said that the program is currently about halfway through a four-year effort, with an October 2018 target for delivery of the strategic-level planning tools. Offering a takeaway message to deployed warfighters, he concluded, “Through collaborative, concurrent planning, we can generate and explore more courses of action in less time, with greater fidelity, and ensuring you greater success.” n 53

USACE MASTER PLANNING, ENERGY TEAMS PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTS BY CHARLES DERVARICS

or more than two centuries, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has played a central role in the planning and construction of government installations. But when it comes to the intricate challenges of the 21st century – with goals such as sustainable development, energy efficiency, and mixed-use development – USACE often turns to Jerry Zekert. Chief of the master planning team at USACE Headquarters, Zekert has seen just about everything in 35 years of federal planning work. In today’s environment of rapid mission changes and evolving concerns with energy sustainability and resiliency, the value of installation planning is more important than ever. “At the same time our agencies are faced with tough financial constraints, I’m seeing that agencies that invest in sound long-term planning are best postured to meet the unforeseen challenges of the future,” Zekert said. “I am so excited that USACE has maintained such a comprehensive master planning community of practice to support our partners throughout the Army, DOD [Department of Defense], and other federal agencies.” Meeting today’s complex challenges of supporting rapidly changing DOD mission requirements, infrastructure resiliency, public health, and sustainable development requires comprehensive solutions rather than project-specific alternatives. Master planning offers a holistic perspective to understand how programmed and designed projects not only meet building-focused sustainability considerations, but also how they affect the comprehensive longterm installation military/mission capabilities.

mission requirements and are planned for flexibility to handle rapid growth and a reduction in military requirements. “USACE has a legacy of installation master planning. We’ve been planning installations since the early 1800s,” Zekert said. “Learning from history, we find that missions may change, but most of our installations are enduring. USACE’s planning team is an essential partner in supporting our DOD partners in meeting today’s missions and helping develop future installation planning opportunities 20, 30, even 50 years from now. “The USACE planning team from headquarters, the USACE Regional Planning Support Centers, the [U.S. Army] Engineer Research and Development Center’s Construction Engineering Research Laboratory [CERL], and the USACE Learning Center are all great team members who make my assignment so rewarding,” he said. Mixed-use development also has social implications, said Andrea Wohlfeld Kuhn, a senior planner at USACE Headquarters with 30 years of federal government experience. Mixed-use communities that de-emphasize cars and promote walking can create more cohesive communities, something that is of particular importance for military families with deployed Soldiers. “This approach fits together to provide a healthy environment,” she noted.

The driving tenet for this resurgence in planning is the 2012 rewrite of the “Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC): Installation Master Planning,” which contains detailed rules for installation planning. The 91-page guide prescribes a 21st century base planning approach that requires comprehensive sustainable compact development solutions embracing energy-efficient, transit-oriented development and offering a reduced environmental footprint. The new Master Planning UFC was a collaborative effort of all the armed services’ installation master planning leaders. Its comprehensive planning approach assures that installations meet current 54

USACE COURTESY PHOTO

NEW PLANNING CRITERIA

A PROSPECT master planning class held in Portland, Oregon.

PHOTO BY BRYAN BACON

The master plan for Fort Hood, Texas, reflects this approach. The military conducted vision sessions featuring input from commanders, families, and state agencies, with about 250 people offering ideas, Zekert said. The result was long-term agreement on an installation plan for the next 30 to 40 years. “We know there will be periods of growth and periods of contraction,” he said. Yet the plan is for smarter growth with new facilities that reflect mixed-use development and efficient heating and cooling systems. “It’s a nimble plan with a long-range planning strategy.” Across the military, installation development plans are beginning to reflect both short- and long-term growth, he said. As a result, there will be greater consistency across the Department of Defense since master plans will include a vision, installation planning standards, an installation development plan, investment strategy, and a summary plan. “It’s a transformation in base development,” he said. “We’re getting away from our stovepipes and bringing stakeholders together to develop integrated solutions.” One of Zekert and Kuhn’s main tasks is to work with military installations to ensure they are updating their master plans to reflect these goals. “It’s about implementing our policies and educating people about them,” Kuhn said. Both work to offer to the broad master planning community a unique master planning continuing education and training program that offers training in advanced master planning techniques, and sustainability and resiliency. All courses are accredited by the American Institute of Certified Planners and the American Institute of Architects, thereby “raising the bar of competency,” Zekert said.

(Left to right) David Williams, chief, energy programs integration for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Albert "Chip" Marin, Huntsville Center installation support and programs management director; Maj. Gen. Ted Harrison, director of operations, assistant chief of staff for Installation Management Command; Bill Kelly, SunPower vice president; Richard Kidd, deputy assistant secretary of the Army, energy and sustainability; Col. Bill Marks, Redstone Garrison commander; and Michael McGhee, executive director, Army Office of Energy Initiatives symbolically break ground on Redstone Arsenal’s solar project June 3, 2016. The 10-megawatt solar power system, which will be located on approximately 66 acres off Redstone Road, is expected to be operational by December.

This master planning work has not gone unnoticed outside USACE. For example, the Army won 10 planning awards at this year’s American Planning Association (APA) conference in Phoenix. One award was for the area development plan for a consolidated town center at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico. This effort involved a collaborative, stakeholder-engaged process that provided a reduced installation/community footprint while promoting sustainable, compact development with distinct green spaces and while respecting the unique tropical architecture. Fort Knox, Kentucky, also won an award for a “reimagined configuration” of the installation, APA noted. Driven by USACE involvement, the project promotes walkability with a town center concept. Again, the Army conducted multiday planning activities with stakeholders. Such awards are not new. Within the federal government, Zekert and Kuhn also were part of a team that received the 2009 Outstanding Federal Planning Program award. 55

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Planning is the foundation for how we work as stewards of our land and installations. We help through technical guidance and improving the professional competency of planners in the field, and building a worldwide planning support capability. We embed these issues of energy and sustainability factors into projects before we build. If you plan first, it’s more efficient than retrofitting something later.

Another Army requirement is construction that meets Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) criteria at the Silver level. To attain LEED, military installations must receive independent verification that a building, home, or community is built in a way that promotes energy efficiency, water savings, sustainable site development, and indoor environmental quality. “Planning is the foundation for how we work as stewards of our land and installations,” Zekert added. “We help through technical guidance and improving the professional competency of planners in the field, and building a worldwide planning support capability. We embed these issues of energy and sustainability factors into projects before we build. If you plan first, it’s more efficient than retrofitting something later.”

PROMOTING ENERGY EFFICIENCY Aside from master planning, another high priority in USACE is energy efficiency, where David Williams is a major player. As chief of energy programs integration at USACE Headquarters, his job is to integrate energy efficiency goals across USACE – a significant task for an organization with nine divisions, 43 district offices, and nine centers and labs. Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, federal agencies must meter all facilities where economically feasible. The Army has determined that criterion to be facilities that are 29,000 square feet or more, or have an annual utility bill of $35,000 or more. With goals to reduce energy consumption by 30 percent or more, USACE is leading the Army’s energy-reduction effort, which focuses not only on metering, but also on promoting more efficient heating, air conditioning, and lighting. “The subtle things we do in our jobs can make a major impact on energy use down the road,” Williams said. Yet perhaps the most significant step requires cultural change within every military organization. “To work most effectively, energy reduction must become second nature.”

”

To help guide these efforts, USACE’s CERL published a study identifying at least 20 factors to consider when undertaking renewable-energy projects. These include water resources, seismic activity, soil, air quality, air space, cultural resources, waste management, and recreation issues. Solar energy, which has become more cost-effective and more prevalent on installations, along with wind power are being installed at appropriate Army locations as effective renewable energy sources. The Army also is engaging in net zero energy, water, and waste, endeavoring to achieve net zero by 2020 or 2030, depending on the project. “As a support agency, we don’t set policy,” he said. “We execute policies for the Army. As an engineering command, we will also look at how we can make it better.” Another priority is energy-savings performance contracts, or ESPCs, in which energy service companies are paid from the savings achieved from energy improvements and enhancements. One top example is at the Rock Island Arsenal Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Illinois, where a 20-year energy-savings performance contract managed by the U.S. Army’s Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, in Alabama, is leading the way toward energy efficiency. There, in partnership with Honeywell, improvements are being made, including high-efficiency heating and air conditioning and natural gas heating on site, that allow the facility to disconnect from the garrison’s coal-fired steam plant. The Huntsville Center is the Army’s Center of Excellence in ESPCs, providing guidance that assists installations in meeting the Army’s 30 percent energy reduction goals with minimal capital outlays. Communication is key to these efforts. There are monthly meetings involving USACE Headquarters, the Huntsville Center, and Army commands. Each installation is to perform an inventory to identify energy-efficient projects. Through these projects, USACE is promoting savings within the Army as well as greater awareness nationwide. As Williams said, “What we do in the Army and in government can drive what the nation does in energy efficiency.” n 57

CIVIL WORKS BY SCOT T R. GOURLE Y

Among the project benefits, Norris highlighted “contributions to the sustainability of unique cultures in Alaska. There is literally no other place on Earth like this: the mix of native and non-native cultures; the subsistence users, both native and non-native; a city that sustains itself from the back of the commercial fishing industry and supports it whole-heartedly. That’s a unique culture, and it’s something that should be celebrated and supported. I think that’s the importance of this project.” “Alaska is a very unique place with unique challenges,” Townsend echoed. “But in this case, I think the passion, vocal support and involvement by the city of Craig made a huge difference in gathering support and approval for this study. I’m going to stress that active involvement for other studies because I think it’s huge.”

Jason Norris stands on the docks at Craig Harbor in Craig, Alaska. Norris is a plan formulator in the Alaska District’s Civil Works Branch and is working on the Craig Harbor expansion project. Findings from USACE’s feasibility study recommend constructing 1,900 feet of rock breakwater, which will create a 10-acre mooring basin capable of housing 145 additional vessels – the majority being commercial fishing vessels.

COURTESY PHOTO USACE ALASKA DISTRICT

U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Civil Works programs span a wide range of water resource development activities, including navigation, recreation, infrastructure and environmental stewardship, flood risk management, and emergency response. One recent project addition to that impressive portfolio is Alaska District’s Craig Harbor project. As outlined by Jason Norris, a plan formulator in the Civil Works Branch, the city of Craig is the largest community on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska. Lacking external road connections, the community relies on its harbors as its highways. Unfortunately, Craig’s existing harbors are completely full and lack adequate space for regional fishing fleets. Norris said he grew up in Morgan City, Louisiana, “where you hear ‘the Corps’ a lot,” eventually joining the Alaska District as a program economist in the Student Temporary Employment Program, or STEP, before migrating into civil works planning. “I’m still in planning today and really enjoying it,” he said. Norris explained the Craig Harbor project began with a request from the city of Craig to conduct a feasibility study for expanded moorage and harbor capacity. The resulting study findings recommended constructing 1,900 feet of rock breakwater, which will create a 10-acre mooring basin capable of housing 145 additional vessels – the majority being commercial fishing vessels. He said unique project challenges range from the simple logistics of a four-flight requirement each way to minimizing environmental and lifestyle impacts to the surrounding Tongass National Forest and local Alaska Native tribes. “We also have five species of Pacific salmon and lots of marine mammals, including multiple species of whales,” he added. “We have 222 acres of eelgrass in the area that has been mapped, which is obviously a high-value subaquatic vegetation. At the site, we also have a historical district with a cannery that has been there since the early 1900s. So there are many, many unique challenges to deal with.” “The area is also a migration corridor for all of those salmon species,” added Kim Townsend, project manager in Alaska District’s Civil Works Branch. “So the team ended up designing a fish passage opening, which allowed there to be no significant impact to that migration.” Townsend, who has been with USACE for five years, started as a U.S. Army intern, then worked in the Hydraulics and Hydrology Branch of the Galveston District before coming to Alaska District as a project manager in October 2015. Both emphasized that the Craig Harbor breakwater design, which balances fish passage with safe mooring inside the harbor, reflects extensive cooperation between USACE, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Construction continues at the Valdez project site for a new harbor, which will provide space for some 160 new slips.

COURTESY PHOTO BY USACE ALASKA DISTRICT

Several hundred miles to the north of Craig, Ronnie Barcak and Ze Jong are respectively working as project manager and resident engineer for another harbor project at Valdez, Alaska. Describing the Valdez project as “a brand-new harbor,” Barcak traced the project origins to a 2011 feasibility study that highlighted the need for expanded commercial and recreational boating facilities at Valdez. The new harbor is creating three breakwaters in a 700- by 1,500-foot area currently walkable at low tide, with subsequent dredging of the newly enclosed harbor to a depth of 14 to 19 feet. The construction contract was awarded to Western Marine in late 2014. “In 2015, they produced the rock,” Barcak said. “And this year, they start actual construction, which includes dredging into the entrance channel and into the boat harbor, and starting to place the rock to build the breakwaters.” Barcak estimated the construction effort will run two years and the new harbor will provide the city of Valdez with space for approximately 160 new slips.

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Noting his USACE career included 16 years in the Galveston District before he moved to Alaska “for a change of pace,” he said that one of the biggest surprises in Valdez is “the amount of snow that can cover up a lot of stuff.” Jong started with USACE in 1992 in the Los Angeles District. He later served in the Japan and Korea districts before coming to the Alaska District in 2006. He pointed to “the local soils” as a unique part of the Valdez project, explaining, “We have to work very closely with our geotechnical engineers because the soil is weak. So the breakwater has to be built in phases,” he continued. “The contractor places a thickness of rock and then has to wait about 21 days to let the soil consolidate before they can put the next layer of rock on. That’s just due to the strength of the soil in that area.” The contractor also has to install drains 50 feet into the soil to allow the water to seep out and the soil to strengthen. “There’s a deep drop-off in the area we’re building on,” Jong added. “It’s about 150 to 200 feet. And if this isn’t done to the

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soil, you will get a slope failure and just fall into the ocean. And that’s a steep fall.” Barcak identified economic and environmental project benefits at local, regional, and national levels. “That’s where the Corps of Engineers puts projects in place – where they are most beneficial to the most people,” he said. Other USACE civil works projects help communities recover following natural disasters. And Hurricane Sandy provided the impetus for several of these efforts. Mike Mohr, a coastal engineer in the Buffalo District since 1977, explained, “After Hurricane Sandy came through up the coast, it turned around and we got the back end of it in the Great Lakes. We had some very unusually strong winds out of the north, which caused some very rare waves in Cleveland, Ohio.” The “long and narrow” wave sets damaged nearly a mile of Cleveland’s waterfront protective barrier, which had been repaired in 1979-80. Mohr said that the repair solution involved the application of massive concrete “dolosse” (plural of dolos, a geometrically shaped concrete block) that have been in use since the 1960s. “Whenever you work with a breakwater, it’s like working with an iceberg,” he explained. “What you see above water is a very small portion of it. When you’re dealing with a breakwater, most of it is underwater. And it’s important to place these dolosse to get good density and good interlocking.” Mohr said that the Cleveland waterfront repair includes placement of almost 16,000 dolosse. “Our construction contractor, Great Lakes Dock and Materials, selected the French company, MESURIS, which created the software and hardware that allows real-time 3-D visualization of each dolos placement. The dolosse arrive on-site by barge, with a special GPS tracking unit placed at the same location on each block.” Mohr described the placement visualization system as “like a video game,” explaining, “the operator sees a dolos being picked up, going through the air, and getting placed underwater adjacent to the last one. He sees the full orientation and how it’s interlocking. As it begins approaching position, the dolos is depicted in blue. Then, as it gets closer to the proper location it turns yellow, then to green when it’s at the proper location. “It’s working great with Cleveland,” he offered. “It seems that they are getting much faster placement than we had originally anticipated and this system is really helping them.” Other little-known civil works activities support a surprising array of both USACE and non-USACE customers. Several examples of this can be found at the USACE Marine Design Center (MDC), which is collocated with the Philadelphia District. “Whether it involves repair, repowering, vessel surveys, or brand-new vessel acquisitions within USACE or other government agencies, customers can come to the Marine Design Center for engineering, design, and procurement,” observed Nick Hirannet, a project manager at the center. “We’ve been doing work for many other organizations, such as the Coast Guard, National Park Service, and even NASA. And, as a project manager, I would be the main point of contact in handling all the finance, scheduling, and coordination for any given project.”

Mike Mohr, a coastal engineer in the Buffalo District, stands near 16-ton dolosse. Smaller 8-ton dolosse are being used to repair a section of the Cleveland, Ohio, harbor breakwater, damaged during Hurricane Sandy.

Hirannet offered some representative examples of recent MDC projects. The first example involved NASA’s Pegasus barge, which was originally used to transport external fuel tanks during the space shuttle missions. “NASA came to us and basically said, ‘For the new Space Launch System program, we have to transport a core stage rocket that is significantly larger and heavier and has different aspects than the external tanks that we were previously transporting,” Hirannet explained. “Essentially, we needed to add 50 feet of length to their existing vessel, strengthen the hull over a 165-foot section, upgrade the electrical systems to be able to support the new rocket, and bring the vessel back to working order, because it was out of service for some time.” In another example, he pointed to the Olmsted Locks and Dam, a $3.5 billion project underway in the USACE Louisville District. MDC’s role included development of a “wicket lifter barge” for dam maintenance as well as raising and lowering the wickets to create larger upstream pools when necessary. “We recently completed the design and actually just held the bid opening last week,” he said. “So now we’re waiting to find out what shipyard is going to build the vessel.” n 61

PROVIDING THE PERSONAL TOUCH TO USACE RECREATION BY DAVID A. BROWN

– Coulombe said USACE’s recreational component lacks a strong brand identity. The front lines for attacking such misconceptions are the daily interactions project staff have with guests enjoying what they may be pleasantly surprised to find within a USACE project. From welcoming smiles, to insightful fishing tips, to advice on where to get that perfect sunset photo, those tasked with managing and maintaining USACE properties are also best suited to communicate what these treasures offer. There are many examples of dedicated, enthusiastic USACE recreation professionals, but these snapshots do justice to their many committed comrades.

DIANE STRATTON Project Manager, Rough River Lake Project, Kentucky Background: Her 30-plus years of USACE service traces back to her youth in southeastern Missouri. Growing up near Lake Wappapello, she had no idea this St. Francis River reservoir was a USACE project until a community college professor, who worked as a summer ranger at Wappapello, introduced her to USACE’s student program. Stratton served on the Wappapello student team throughout her college years and earned a full-time position upon graduation. She worked at Wappapello until 1993, spent the next five years at Clarence Cannon Dam and Mark Twain Lake, returned to Wappapello for 11 years and, in 2009, planted her roots at Rough River. Notables: In 2009, Stratton launched one of USACE’s first Facebook pages and has since tallied more than 25,000 followers. Since then, she has immersed herself in social media as a tool for reaching the general public on lake conditions, flood events, and various park-related news. Overall, the plan has been successful, but Stratton has found her use of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube particularly effective in reaching the younger demographic. One of Stratton’s most impressive achievements was producing a series of water safety videos that has received more than 655,000 combined views on YouTube. This work even caught the attention of the local news market, whose coverage contributed to her videos’ viral ascent.

Kayakers on Lake Okeechobee in South Florida.

Focused On: In addition to general water safety messaging conducted through on-the-water patrols, school/community outreach, and social media campaigns, Stratton said she’s committed to confronting the ongoing concern over cliff jumping. A popular activity among mostly young males, this risky feat has claimed a couple of lives during Stratton’s time at Rough River Lake.

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PHOTO

ith 360 million visits each year, it’s hard to imagine that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) projects suffer any identity crisis. Yet, despite the fact that 90 percent of USACE lakes/rivers with recreation sites are located within 50 miles of a metropolitan area, these stats are often lost on the general public. “Many people who recreate at Corps lakes don’t realize they’re on a Corps lake,” said Mary Coulombe, chief of natural resource management. “The proximity to metropolitan areas is a little-known fact, but it’s so important in terms of providing recreation, particularly [daytime] recreation, to millions of people. “They don’t have to drive three days to get to a national park or a national forest. They can just go and enjoy water-based recreation and land-based recreation like hiking, mountain biking, and camping. Eighty percent of those 360 million visits we get are [for] day use.” As Coulombe noted, proximity to metro areas fosters interaction between USACE projects and various groups such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, church organizations, and local schools, which often visit USACE properties to conduct environmental education and water safety classes, along with public service events, such as shore cleanups. “These projects provide opportunities for folks to do all sorts of things that are not expensive and gets them outdoors,” Coulombe said. Nevertheless, with power generation, flood control, and water storage – the more common assumptions for a dam’s purpose

“There is no greater joy than to see people come out and camp and enjoy themselves.”

TOP PHOTO: JACQUELINE TATE, GREAT LAKES & OHIO RIVER DIVISION, USACE/BOTTOM PHOTO: ERIC HAMILTON

Rough River Lake Project Manager Diane Stratton poses for a photo during a visit to Montgomery Locks and Dam.

Stressing that what youths see in movies and video games differs dangerously from the reality of cliff jumping in even such a pristine natural setting, Stratton’s safety videos reference currentborne logs and debris with this compelling question: “Do you know what lies beneath?” In 2015, the mock cliff jumping and body-recovery video Stratton posted garnered 25,000 views in the first hour and 500,000 by the next day. Despite her best efforts, Stratton realizes the endless challenge she faces; still, she soldiers on – because the effort is both noble and necessary. “You’re never going to be able to convince everybody, but we’re doing our best to get the message out there,” she said. “It’s very rewarding when you see how just a little education can change someone’s action. And it’s good, knowing that you’ll never have to do a body recovery.”

“There is no greater joy than to see people come out and camp and enjoy themselves. I’m an avid outdoorsman. I camp, I horseback ride, I mountain bike, I canoe and I kayak, and I fish. So, working for the Corps of Engineers at a lake project fits right into my lifestyle. It feeds my passion.” Ultimately, Stratton encourages visitors to engage the natural recreation opportunities at Rough River Lake Park and all USACE properties with a blend of adventure, leisure, and appreciation. Tempering all this with a sensible approach ensures everyone leaves as happy as they arrive. Her parting thought: “We like to say, ‘Play, but play safely.’”

GREG VOLKMAN Park Ranger, John Day Lock and Dam/Willow Creek Project, near Rufus, Oregon Background: Following a 10-year run as an interpretive park ranger for the National Park Service, Volkman has worked at this scenic north-central Oregon park since November 1999. His educational background – an English language arts teaching certificate, along with his affinity for the natural world – has proven an effective fit. “Ninety percent of what we do is educate the visiting public,” Volkman said. “I try to share the wonders our natural world has to offer, as well as the amazing man-made innovations we’ve created such as the dam structures on the Columbia River.”

Motivation: Naming public service as her inspiration, Stratton said this of her commitment: “Especially in today’s world, our kids are not getting outdoors. I am on a mission to promote all of the outdoor opportunities with the Corps of Engineers. There’s so much you can’t learn from a video game; you have to get outdoors and experience what it has to offer.

Park ranger Megan Christianson shows a young visitor to Lepage Park how to fit a life jacket properly. The boat ramp at the park has a life jacket loaner station that provides life jackets for visitors who want to enjoy water recreation there.

“

Corps projects provide an opportunity to introduce folks to outdoor recreation and to introduce federal lands as an opportunity to recreate.

” Park ranger Alicia Palmer, Baltimore District, speaks to fourthgrade students from Southern Huntingdon School District during their visit to Raystown Lake in part of the White House's Every Kid in a Park youth initiative, May 10-11, 2016. The lesson is only one portion of a new water education program, “Raystown Lake: Protecting your Future, One Drop at a Time!,” that aims to provide students an understanding of the value of water resources in their community, as well as general knowledge regarding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ mission in providing water-based needs to the Raystown Lake area and surrounding communities.

Focused On: Improving awareness among user groups ranks high among Volkman’s priorities for recreational safety. In addition to its world-class salmon, catfish, and smallmouth bass fisheries, John Day Lock and Dam/Willow Creek Project boasts an equally renowned wind surfing/kite boarding destination that attracts visitors from California to British Columbia. “Because of the sheer numbers that descend on the area, it does offer some user challenges,” Volkman said. “We sometimes have swimmers in one of the beach areas and kite boarders who try to launch alongside them, which can be very dangerous. “My main goal is seeing everybody go home at the end of the day unharmed.”

John Day Lock and Dam park ranger Greg Volkman receives an award for exceptional service to USACE and the Portland District. Col. Jose Aguilar, Portland District commander, left, Kevin Brice, deputy district commander for programs and project management, and Deputy Commander Daniel Robledo present the award at an annual awards ceremony.

Motivation: The sense of mission, Volkman said, fuels his daily efforts. His is a deeply rooted appreciation for nature and USACE recreation – two topics he’s passionate about sharing. “We have these wonderful resources that are available to the public and what I do as a park ranger can really affect how someone’s weekend goes,” he said. “I want to give the taxpayers a good value for their dollar, I want to protect the resource and, at the same time, help public access.”

TOP PHOTO: DAVID GRAY; BOTTOM PHOTO: U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PHOTO BY BILLIE JOHNSON

Notables: Emphasizing the value of interacting with visitors before and during their visits, Volkman said the single most important and intangible thing a USACE park ranger does is water safety education. From school programs, to direct contact on the water, to the presence of rangers on a busy weekend, promoting awareness of potential water hazards and keeping everyone mindful ensures pleasant memories. “You can’t really say how many lives you might save during our career by making this knowledge available,” Volkman said. “But I do feel it has a significant impact. “You’ll give a water safety presentation in a school and a couple years later, a student visiting the park can recite back what you told them about water safety. That’s good because you’ve made that connection and you know they’ve learned something.” Expanding that thought, Volkman said a lot of education targets school-aged children, but adult family members will also absorb the safety messages. Equipping multiple generations, even indirectly, fortifies the barrier between recreational fun and the potential hazards inherent to water sports.

EQUIPPING OTHERS

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS HUNTINGTON DISTRICT PHOTO

MAKING IT MATTER Coulombe said proactivity also abounds with various community outreach programs such as “Every Kid in a Park.” An initiative created by President Barack Obama, it seeks to get every fourth-grade student to enjoy outdoor recreation on public properties. The incentive? Free admission. Taking an online quiz about outdoor recreation earns fourth-graders a one-year pass that waives day-use fees for them and their families in national parks, national forests, and USACE projects. “We are working very hard in this initiative because of the access that our projects provide for schools and metro areas,” Coulombe said. “Corps projects provide an opportunity to introduce folks to outdoor recreation and to introduce federal lands as an opportunity to recreate.” For visitors of any age group, one of the most significant factors in the quality of their experience is the human element. Across the board, those who get to know USACE projects and the many engaging activities therein will owe much of their recreational enjoyment to the dedicated individuals who proudly promote, protect, and perpetuate these unrivaled resources. n

t takes a huge effort to oversee the Burnsville Lake project, but Resource Manager Richard Pingley wouldn’t have it any other way. He takes great pride in this central West Virginia project so highly regarded for its well-maintained camping facilities, abundant water-based recreation, and its Bulltown Historic Area – the site of a famous Civil War battle listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Pingley’s work has not gone unnoticed, and after 37 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Huntington District, Pingley was named 2015 Chief of Engineers Recreation Employee of the Year for USACE. Modest and straightforward, Pingley said he appreciates that the award recognizes what he deeply values. “It was quite an honor because I’ve worked hard to excel in the recreation program and I have a wonderful team,” Pingley said. Among the many exemplary points of Pingley’s award-worthy performance has been the elaborate volunteer program he has developed and managed. Through Pingley’s leadership, the Burnsville Lake’s volunteer staff, which numbered 106 in 2014, provided 13,179 hours of service at the project. This is equivalent to more than six full-time employees, valued at nearly $300,000. With 46 consecutive recreation seasons working for the Corps of Engineers, Pingley invests significant effort into recruiting and training quality individuals who share his passion for the outdoors and his

commitment to providing superlative visitor experiences. Pingley stresses safety and professionalism when training volunteers, but he’s also careful to match the right individual to each job. “We have several different types of volunteers and the ones who will be working as interpreters in the historic area are totally different from the ones who would be performing maintenance,” he said. “You try to match the person to the necessary skills.” In some cases, those individuals go on to pursue careers with USACE. For example, one of his former high school volunteers worked her way into a park ranger position and now she runs her own recreational program at another USACE property. Ever the humble leader, Pingley said his motivation comes from a simple, yet deeply rooted perspective: “I enjoy the recreational aspect of what we do and I like seeing people have fun. We are a flood-control dam and that is a very important aspect, but the recreational aspect of my job is what’s interesting to me – it’s what makes me tick.” This is a key point, as volunteers in whom Pingley instills this sentiment account for much of the visitor interaction. Best of all, these folks are often the first and last impressions visitors have of USACE recreation. “Our volunteers are our best ambassadors,” said Coulombe, chief of natural resource management. “We have people who return year after year to participate in [USACE recreation]. I don’t know how we could do it all without our volunteers.”

Rick Pingley, USACE Resource Employee of the Year.

DREDGING BY SCOT T R. GOURLE Y

he U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) dredges more than 200 million cubic yards of materials each year – in addition to maintaining approximately 25,000 miles of existing navigation channels and dredging new construction projects. USACE dredging operations encompass state-of-theart survey activities and other efforts that, taken together, contribute to America’s economic well-being. Christopher Frabotta, chief of the Navigation Branch for USACE’s Galveston District, oversees the operations and maintenance dredging across an impressive swath of coastal Texas. “We monitor and maintain six deep-draft jettied inlets – or navigation complexes – along the Texas coast,” he explained. “And we also monitor and maintain the 379-mile Texas portion of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.” The area of responsibility includes the Houston-Galveston Navigation Complex, where ships navigate through one inlet and then call on three different port facilities: the Houston Ship Channel or the Port of Houston; the Port of Texas City; and the Port of Galveston. Frabotta said that the total area encompasses “over a thousand miles of channels” in which USACE performs “about 20 million cubic yards” of maintenance dredging every year. “We do that through about 15 large-scale maintenance dredging contracts every year,” he added, pointing to another five to 10 “largescale material placement” and other improvement contracts each year. “All of the projects are unique,” he emphasized. “Because of environmental considerations, some of the dredging projects have different time windows, whether it’s a dredging window or disposal window. In some cases, we might have material placement onto a beach and in those cases, we will restrict it during sea turtle nesting periods. Or with some types of dredges, we’ll have restriction windows for swimming sea turtles. For some other projects, we might have placement in other endangered species habitats. As an example, down in the channel to Victoria, we have a whooping crane window where we can only work between Oct. 15 and March 1 in certain areas.” In addition to the environmental considerations, Frabotta expressed pride in the contributions that the Galveston District’s dredging operations make to U.S. commerce.

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Referencing calendar year 2014 statistics, he noted that the top 150 ports in the country had a total tonnage – including import, export, and domestic shipment – of 2.6 billion tons of cargo. “The ports that are within the Galveston District moved 550 million tons of cargo,” he said. “That’s 21 percent of the [nation’s total]tonnage going through Texas ports.” He went on to note that the three ports in the Houston-Galveston Navigation Complex had a combined total of 292 million tons of cargo. “That’s about 11 percent of the nation’s total tonnage coming through one single inlet,” he said, quickly acknowledging that “the majority of that tonnage is imported crude oil.” “But it’s important to realize that the refineries aren’t going to be relocated,” he concluded. “They are where they are. They’re permitted. They’re here. And there are not many states out there that really are looking to build new refineries.” In parallel with maintenance dredging operations, other USACE representatives are focusing on new projects – either through early feasibility studies or design management and construction. Sharon Tirpak is involved with many of those activities in Galveston District. Summarizing her 22 years in USACE, she outlines nine years working regulatory issues, five years in planning, and eight years in project management. “About a year ago, I was promoted to the deputy chief of project management as program manager,” she said. “Now I oversee projects that could involve deep-draft navigation, flood risk management, personal storm risk management, or ecosystem restoration projects.” Tirpak explained, “We’ve always had flood risk management projects. Recently, we have had a couple of large coastal storm risk management projects, which focus more on storm surge-type flooding. And then we have the deep- and shallow-draft navigation. The ecosystem restoration is probably the one that we have the least amount of work in. We do them, but I would say out of the three, that would rank No. 3. We have so many channels, both shallow and deep draft, but we also have a lot of bayous. We work with Harris County Flood Control District in the Houston area, and just about everybody’s system up there has a project on it.”

Because of environmental considerations, some of the dredging projects have different time windows, whether it’s a dredging window or disposal window. In some cases, we might have material placement onto a beach and in those cases, we will restrict it during sea turtle nesting periods.

”

PHOTO BY SARA CORBETT

Jennifer Kist, survey technician, lowers the conductivity temperature depth (CTD) sensor into the water. The CTD measures conductivity and temperature, which is integral in the creation of sea floor maps.

She acknowledged the coordination between those projects and ongoing operations and maintenance dredging, offering the notional example of deepening an existing channel from 40 to 45 feet and the cost savings and value of coordinating that effort with the periodic maintenance cycle on the 40-foot-deep channel. In terms of current efforts, Tirpak highlighted what she described as “two of the largest general investigation studies possibly in the Corps.” The first involves improvements to the Houston ship channel and the other is a “Coastal Texas Storm Risk Management Study.” Because of their size and scope, both studies required waivers to USACE policy, with completion of the ship channel study projected for 4 ½ years and $10 million and the coastal study at 5 ½ years and $19.8 million. “After each study is done, it has to be authorized by Congress,” she added. “Then we can go to pre-construction, engineering and design, and construction phases, with each of those phases requiring appropriations on an annual basis.” One critical element of USACE dredging activities – both maintenance and new construction – involves the timeliness and accuracy of the underlying survey data. Roman Figler drew on his own 33 years in the engineering consulting business when he applied for his current job as USACE Buffalo District survey section chief. “I’m a professional land surveyor licensed in New York and New Jersey,” he began. “From 1988 to 2009, the consulting firm that I worked for was doing Corps of Engineers survey and mapping contracts. I was very familiar with the type of work they

do and it made it an easy transition for me to come over to the government side.” When he arrived in the new job, Figler found a fleet of survey craft that he describes as “aged.” “The boats we had at the time were 25 to 30 years old,” he said. “They certainly didn’t owe the government a nickel. They had been worked hard and worked often.” Noting that Buffalo District has 35 harbors – from Toledo, Ohio, to Massena, New York – where it is responsible for generating project condition surveys for federal navigation channels within the district, he said that the aged equipment created challenges in “trying to keep up with the workload to generate the product that we needed to.” He continued, “What we ended up doing is going out and getting new boats and updating and upgrading our equipment. Now we’re more efficient. We’re more productive. We’re taking advantage of the technology that’s presented to us and, through that, we’re able to generate more work with [fewer] people. My section itself is down three full-time employees since I’ve started here, but we’re doing 30 to 35 percent more work.” Figler observed that the Buffalo District includes 38 miles of jetties and breakwaters, and that historical survey methods on just a 5,000foot section of breakwaters required “a three-person crew walking on algae-covered rocks or large stones five to seven days in the field.” “But with the vessel mounted LiDAR [light detection ranging] system now on our boat, for the above-water portion, we’re now completing that work in eight hours,” he said.

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USACE BUFFALO DISTRICT PHOTO

USACE Buffalo District survey section chief Roman Figler aboard the high-tech hydrographic survey boat Buxbaum, named in honor of Command Sgt. Maj. Micheal L. Buxbaum, U.S. Army.

In another example, Figler credited the use of a new multi-beam, high-resolution sonar system that now offers “a complete picture for underwater dredging operations.” “When you have a multi-beam system, it’s generating a complete picture, so when it comes to quantity generation for dredge material available or dredge material removed, our system utilizes a multi-beam and it’s much more accurate. It’s a better use of the taxpayers’ dollars and it’s fair to the contractors because they’re going to get paid for what they remove,” he said. Other new technologies include the addition of a radio-controlled boat to the survey toolbox as well as early experimentation on the use of drones to conduct small topographic surveys. “It’s a funny thing,” Figler offered. “When I started surveying, we used transits and throw chains. Now we’ve got robotic control stations and you can’t run fast enough for the instrument to lose you.” He concluded, “We’re fortunate here to have the senior leadership support that allows us to look into this stuff that allows us to be more efficient and more productive. But there are a number of districts across the country that are also doing great things. It’s a great team.” Charleston District is one of those areas also embracing new survey technologies to support dredging operations. According to Jennifer Kist, a survey technician in the district and one of eight female survey technicians in USACE, the focus of the district’s survey efforts is directed toward dredging projects around Charleston Harbor. Following college graduation, Kist worked on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration survey boat before joining USACE around the end of 2014. “Our survey department actually is pretty advanced with our technologies, which is kind of where I come in, because I’m more of a

computer person,” she said. “And a young person can get kind of far really quickly here, in survey specifically.” In much the same way as Figler in Buffalo District, Kist compared methods for conducting surveys “back in the day” with new multibeam sonar systems that can collect 3,000 data points per second while moving along at 8 knots. Kist said that the availability of new technologies not only enhances the collection of survey data but also the subsequent recording, processing, and presentation of that information. “I do a lot of computer programming and scripting, as well as a lot of software stuff,” she explained. “And one of the things I’ve taken on here is creating imagery and producing something that people can look at and use. “It’s definitely a developing field,” she added. “And into the future, I think that computers will get faster and faster, and larger and larger, extracting even more information than we are currently collecting.” As an example, she highlighted one study that explored returning sonar pings to ascertain “theoretical grain-size analysis” and actually identify the types of materials on the ocean floor in dredging areas. “That’s a big thing for Charleston, because we’re always re-nourishing beaches, and we would like to know where there’s really good quality beach sand, because everybody wants perfect sand to squish their toes in,” she said. “As far as in the future there are things like that,” she summarized. “There are also autonomous underwater vehicles now that you can send out and collect data. You don’t even have to send a boat out. It’s all about getting more information in less time, with [fewer] man hours.” n 69

UNSUNG HEROES OF USACE’S HYDROPOWER OPERATION BY CHARLES DERVARICS

Washington, hydro-generator units three and six experienced equipment failures, shutting both generators down. Cotner provided on-site technical direction and support over four months while the USACE staff repaired one of the generators. He successfully managed the in-house repair of one generator while recommending that an outside firm address the other, which had sustained greater damage. “One of my responsibilities is to help USACE do the repairs themselves. Unfortunately, we have less institutional knowledge than in years past as a result of retirements. One of my jobs is to try to help rebuild that expertise within the Corps.”

KEY ROLE OF HDC A 15-year USACE veteran with experience in the utility industry, Cotner is one of 45 electrical engineers at HDC, created in 1948 to support hydroelectric development on the Columbia River. Located at Portland District, HDC serves as USACE’s National Center for Expertise in hydroelectric and large pumping plant engineering services.

PHOTO BY DAVID RIGG

hen the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) wants to talk hydropower, it looks to its Portland District, where many of the nation’s power-generating operations are linked to navigable water. And when the Portland District gets an unusual request or a call for help, it often assigns the case to Scott Cotner. A senior engineer at the Hydropower Design Center (HDC), a USACE center of expertise at Portland District, Cotner fields calls from across the nation. Often he is the last line of defense before USACE offices decide to bring in outside experts for the most challenging problems. “By the time I get involved, it’s usually something that’s out of the ordinary,” he said. “We have lots of smart people to address the usual problems. When a wrench gets in the works, they tend to call me.” Cotner is often HDC’s resource for electrical challenges at sites across the country, like those in Idaho and Georgia, where he recently helped local USACE staff repair generator stator windings in hydropower facilities. In both cases, the Army Corps was able to avoid calling in costly contractors by having Cotner provide technical support to USACE staff as they made the repairs. At the John Day Lock and Dam, located on the Columbia River between Oregon and

Powerhouse one at Bonneville Lock and Dam was completed in 1938. When President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the facility, Bonneville Dam was the first federal hydropower dam constructed on the Columbia River.

USACE PHOTO BY DENNIS SCHWARTZ

The Dalles Lock and Dam is located 192 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River. The spillwall was constructed in 2010 to help guide juvenile fish away from shallow areas, where predators waited, and into the deeper part of the river.

USACE’s involvement in hydropower dates back to 1909, when it acquired the St. Marys River hydropower facility on the Sault Ste. Marie Lock and Dam in Michigan. The River and Harbor Act of 1925 gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the authority to identify the costs and feasibility of generating hydropower on the nation’s navigable rivers. Based on that effort, USACE identified 10 federal waterways, including the Columbia River, as potential sites for hydropower operations. Today, USACE operates 353 hydroelectric generating units across 75 reservoirs, producing about one-fourth of the nation’s hydroelectricity. Another 60 non-federal hydropower plants are licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to operate at USACE dams. Overall, hydropower generates about 6 percent of U.S. electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Most of the nation’s hydropower dams were constructed more than 60 years ago and suffer from aging infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers’ “2013 Report Card” awarded a D+ overall to U.S. infrastructure and estimated $3.6 trillion in repairs were needed by 2020 to upgrade parks, levees, bridges, and other systems, which include USACE dams. Army Corps engineers continually monitor the infrastructure, Cotner said. “The first step in managing assets is to do inventory and probability of failure. We need to know where to invest.” When problems do arise, there is a significant cost-saving incentive in having USACE experts perform the work. “Often staff on-site want to do the repairs, but they don’t have the expertise. I can be there to direct the work. I can provide remote advice by viewing pictures or video and asking on-site staff to take tests and

measurements.” Whether evaluations are done on-site or remotely, Cotner can be anywhere in one day by plane or car. “We can do repairs in about a third of the time that it takes to contract out,” Cotner said. “That’s mainly because contracts must be competitively bid, with USACE writing the project specifications, advertising and publishing the bid notices, evaluating bids, and awarding contracts.” At Harry S. Truman Dam in Missouri, the hydropower staff wanted to call a parts manufacturer and request a site visit, which may have cost both time and money. Instead, Cotner went on-site and found the problem in a few days. He and a junior engineer spent another few days on-site fixing the problem and bringing the power station back into use. Aside from the cost of bringing in outside experts, the hydropower station would have been out of service until the private company was available to explore and fix the problem.

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The first step in managing assets is to do inventory and probability of failure. We need to know where to invest.

”

“We let internal customers know they can call us for anything else they need. If we can’t fix it ourselves, we’ll help them work with the manufacturer,” he said. Cotner played a major role in the development of the Hydropower Asset Management Partnership (hydroAMP) “Consolidated Equipment Condition Guide.” The guide includes 13 condition assessment guides for unique equipment to help hydropower staff perform equipment condition assessments that are used for planning equipment replacement or refurbishments. He wrote or contributed to five of the guides on topics like generators and transformers, which include recommended routine and special testing plans and advice on equipment expected service lives. Cotner was named the Portland District Federal Engineer of the Year in 2009 for delivering exceptional technical expertise in the testing and maintenance of electrical equipment in federal hydroelectric plants. When asked about the honor, Cotner said he appreciates it, but he was just doing a job he loves. Another passion for Cotner is participating in hydropower research and development. During one recent project, he tested coatings on turbine blades to determine the effectiveness of specific coatings to prevent pitting. “There are many companies that tell you their coating does the job, but we tested them. Out of seven different coatings, we found three that were effective,” he noted. Afterward he shared his findings with colleagues. “Engineers have enough on their plate [without having] to find time to try to solve some of these problems,” he added. USACE knows it can rely on HDC to tackle some of its biggest hydropower challenges – and Cotner is often first on HDC’s list when those challenges need innovative solutions. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather be than an electrical engineer,” Cotner said. “It’s very satisfying to know my work is important to HDC and the Corps of Engineers.”

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PHOTO

OTHER USACE EXPERTS Nationwide, about 1,500 federal workers – many of them electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical engineers – staff USACE hydropower facilities where they monitor, analyze, maintain, and repair stations and equipment. Technicians provide 24/7 support to monitor energy production as hydropower stations capture water and release it through turbines to produce electricity. Success also relies on other critical elements like cranes, and for this work, USACE relies on staff such as Catherine Campbell. A senior mechanical engineer in HDC who has worked for USACE since 2003, Campbell takes pride in her particular sub-specialty within hydropower that is essential for long-term output. “Cranes are the unsung heroes of powerhouses,” said Campbell, as she explains how they lift gates and house turbines that do some of the most important work. Other cranes are needed to cut off power or dewater a unit in order to perform maintenance work. “Many units are near the end of their 50-year design life and require more dedication to maintenance and rehab.” Campbell’s story is somewhat unusual, as she was a liberal arts college graduate working in an office before deciding to make the switch to mechanical engineering. “Nothing about how I wound up an engineer was normal,” she said, explaining how she returned

The John Day Lock and Dam Project is 216 miles upriver from the mouth of the Columbia River near the city of Rufus, Oregon. Construction of the project was completed in 1971. The authorized primary project purposes are navigation and power generation.

to school for an engineering degree. “As a USACE engineer, it’s a privilege to know that my work supports the critical infrastructure of our nation.” She enjoys crane work because of the diverse challenges, including projects that typically take a year or more. For new cranes, there’s often a year devoted to planning and specifications, followed by a year of construction by a private firm to USACE expectations. Most cranes are custom made and can lift 20 to 30 tons. “Crane rehab projects don’t come along often enough for other USACE districts to develop the expertise,” Campbell said. Given her location near the Columbia River, many powerhouses are in her region, but she and team members fly to other locations for consultations. “If we can, we want to make it easy for the operator to live with the machinery and use it every day.” Campbell received the HDC Customer Service Award in 2014 for providing exceptional support for the Albeni Falls Dam Intake and Spillway Crane rehabilitation in Oldtown, Idaho. “It was one of those jobs that was very difficult, but the team worked so well together,” she said. The rehab included new guard rails, access ladders and gates, new platform, new generator set, and main cab for this multiyear project. Aside from working on infrastructure issues of national importance, she values the chance to promote America’s energy efficiency. “Given the need for diverse energy sources, we want to keep hydropower competitive with natural gas and coal,” she added. n 73

PROTECTING ENDANGERED SPECIES AND THEIR HABITAT BY SCOT T R. GOURLE Y

t’s not everyone who can literally claim to hold the future of an endangered species in their own hands. But for San Francisco District’s Ben White, that’s a statement of fact. White, a fish biologist at Warm Springs Dam/Lake Sonoma, California, oversees the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Coho Broodstock Program for the last viable population of the central California coast coho salmon. He’s been working on the program for almost 12 years – the first seven working as a subcontractor through the state of California and the last five working directly for USACE. The broodstock program reflects a multi-faceted response to the general impacts of various industries across most California rivers and streams as well as more targeted actions following the creation of Warm Springs Dam across Dry Creek in 1982. “When we built the dam in the early ’80s, it stopped a lot of the coho from going back into traditional spawning areas,” said J.D. Hardesty, public affairs chief, San Francisco District. “What we’re doing with part of this broodstock program is in response to the biological opinion from the National Marine Fisheries Service. And, along with that, it is also creating habitat restoration on a 6-mile strip downstream of the dam along Dry Creek. We’re doing that so we’re creating places not only for the fish to spawn, but also when you have heavy rains and different things, there are back pools where they can sit and rest and relax and grow. They’re not likely to be eaten downstream; it increases their survivability.” White pointed to the existence of “an original coho program” two decades ago, noting that it relied on “traditional hatchery techniques” that were unsuccessful over the long run. “With this go-around, we sort of took the mitigation requirements, but we applied more of the conservation approach to the hatchery program,” he said. White said that the program has three specific goals: preventing local extinction of coho salmon in the Russian River watershed;

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preserving the genetic integrity of the Russian River stock of coho in the watershed; and re-establishing natural runs of coho salmon back into a historical habitat. The current program began with the collection of some of the last wild Russian River coho salmon as juveniles and bringing them into captivity. “Between 2001 and 2003, we were able to collect between two and three hundred juvenile coho per year, to coincide with their three-year life cycle,” White said. “We brought those fish into captivity, where we can increase their survival by providing them with plenty of cold water, plenty of food, and eliminating predation. We then use those initial broodstock collections as our source population.” He said that the fish were raised in large circular tanks at the hatchery and spawned, “according to a genetics breeding matrix to avoid inbreeding and maximize genetic diversity.” “We take all of the offspring that we produce from these spawning efforts, and those are the fish that we re-introduce back into native habitat with the goal of them eventually spawning on their own,” he added. On average, the program is releasing between 150,000 to 200,000 juvenile coho salmon a year – done at different life stages – into approximately 20 different tributaries of the Russian River that historically had wild runs of coho. Moreover, approximately 15 percent of those releases are tagged with an innovative passive integrated transponder (PIT) system. When combined with more than 80 antenna arrays stationed throughout the watershed, the complete system represents one of the most sophisticated monitoring efforts in the country. White said that ongoing program accomplishments reflect positive partnerships across a range of organizations, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, National Marine Fisheries Service, University of California Cooperative Extension,

... we’re creating places not only for the fish to spawn, but also when you have heavy rains and different things, there are back pools where they can sit and rest and relax and grow. They’re not likely to be eaten downstream; it increases their survivability.

”

LEFT PHOTO: J.C. DELGADILLO, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT; RIGHT PHOTO: USACE PHOTO BY MICHELLE HELMS

LEFT: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fisheries biologist Ben White hands a net filled with coho salmon to an assistant who will race down the banks of Salmon Creek to deposit the fish into the water. A series of natural and human-induced factors have contributed to decline in the coho population in the Russian River and recovery efforts included a captive broodstock program with eventual release into the wild. BELOW: Ken Duncan, USACE Portland District Environmental Compliance Energy and Sustainability program manager, monitors the district’s hydropower operations for unwanted oil leaks. “The district uses environmentally friendly hydraulic fluids in their hydropower plants,” he said. “Nevertheless, our goal is zero fluids reaching the Columbia River.”

the local Sonoma County Water Agency, other regional agencies, and even educational outreach and volunteer work efforts with local high schools and junior colleges. “There are so many reasons why this is important,” he concluded. “Obviously, there’s the cultural significance. This is part of California’s fish and wildlife resources, so there’s definitely a cultural value to these fish. There’s also an economic value to these fish, whether it be part of the commercial or recreational fishery, and all the jobs that provides. But I think probably most importantly is the ecological significance of these fish and what this means for the health of our watersheds. Coho salmon are widely viewed as an indicator species as to the health of our environment and our watersheds.” Species protection is also enhanced through the clear and consistent application of existing environmental and sustainability requirements. As the Portland District Environmental Compliance Energy and Sustainability program manager, Ken Duncan monitors those requirements for hydropower facilities on the Columbia and Willamette rivers as well as regional channels, harbors, and recreational facilities.

Additionally, team members also run the district’s Oil Spill Response Program, through which they responded to an early June 2016 oil train fire in Mosier, Oregon. “We responded to that because the location of that event could have significantly impacted Corps of Engineersmanaged lands,” Duncan said. “And we did play a role in that response, by adjusting river levels, to support the cleanup. That’s the sort of thing we do as well. We’re really focused on the whole river system.” Duncan joined USACE right out of school as a GS-5, which is an entry-level position on the General Schedule payscale. Over the next 16 years, he worked as a line coordinator before moving into project-level environmental compliance and coordination. He moved up to the district level about 10 years ago and is currently wrapping up a rotation at the division level. “My job is to ensure that we stay in compliance with environmental rules and regulations, and meet sustainability requirements,” he explained. “Basically, I work with a team of folks to make sure that our day-to-day operations meet all the requirements of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and other laws. Basically, I’ve got one or two people at each one of those projects and we work closely together to plan and establish policy 75

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USACE PHOTOS

LEFT: Horseshoe crabs. RIGHT: A red knot being tagged. The Corps of Engineers is contributing to efforts meant to benefit both species.

and procedures and to maintain environmentally compliant facilities throughout the district.” One representative example of Duncan’s work can be found in the August 2014 settlement with the environmental organization Columbia Riverkeeper over a lawsuit regarding accusations of non-permitted discharge of oil lubricating products into the environment. Duncan, who spent more than 1,000 hours working on that effort in 2014 alone, explained that, in spite of previous court rulings expressing that USACE was in compliance regarding discharge, the lawsuit asserted that it lacked the proper permits. “We went through a long process with our attorneys and recognized that we would be settling with the Columbia Riverkeeper,” he said. “After that, as part of that settlement, we were required to go get our complete permit applications, implement oil accountability plans, and implement environmentally acceptable lubricants at our projects.” For example, he characterized the environmentally acceptable lubricant grease – for use on power stations and support equipment – now being explored as breaking down faster in the environment and as less toxic than normal greases. He added that the identification of the new grease involved close cooperation with both the Engineering Research and Development Center and Hydroelectric Design Center. “We’re doing a lot of research,” Duncan said. “We’ve got [a] procedure where we’re installing it on several units and measuring them very closely. Based on our research, we think this alternate grease is going to work, but we’re testing it on a small set of hydropower units initially to verify that before we implement it throughout the powerhouses.” In addition to the powerhouses, the new grease will be used throughout USACE projects, on things like cranes and crane blocks, wheels, wire rope, and fishway weirs. Although the district had implemented an Oil Accountability Program in 2010 to closely measure all of the oil and lubricants used at USACE projects, the 2014 settlement also required some “tweaking” of that program. Duncan said that some of the challenges in implementing the settlement are because many of the facilities are based on technology from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, but “just establishing very, very tight, regularly recurring procedures to measure the oil in the system has been a real step in the right direction.”

Across the country, Jim Boyer, a senior staff biologist in Philadelphia District’s Regulatory Branch, is involved with Endangered Species Act consultation for activities across Delaware Bay in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. He has been involved “on the regulatory side” since he joined USACE in 1989. Explaining that USACE has its own environmental staff to ensure compliance with all environmental laws, Boyer said, “We deal with outside, non-Corps projects, applications from private individuals, from municipalities, from states, and from other organizations.” In the recovery efforts following Hurricane Sandy, Boyer pointed to several “efforts to restore the back bay areas of New Jersey, primarily through dredging because of the over wash over the barrier islands that the storm had dumped – not only sand and sediments but debris as well.” In addition to Sandy recovery-related efforts, he pointed to other general environmental restoration projects and environmental enhancement projects. One noteworthy effort involves Delaware Bay’s horseshoe crabs and their relationship to the threatened rufa subspecies of the bird commonly known as the red knot. “The red knots start out their annual migration from the tip of South America and they fly nonstop from there to the shore of Delaware Bay in New Jersey and some other spots around the area,” Boyer said. “They don’t stop until they get here. And they lose about half their weight flying nonstop. But they time their arrival at the exact moment that these horseshoe crabs are coming up onto the shore to lay their eggs in the sand on the shore. Then they just gorge themselves for about two weeks, get their weight back, and then fly up to the Arctic. They basically can fly almost pole to pole. If they don’t put all their weight back on in this limited amount of time, they can’t make it up to the Arctic to do their breeding and keep the population going.” He said that several organizations are trying to restore and enhance the traditional horseshoe crab habitat around Delaware Bay to facilitate that process. “We’re certainly reviewing more environmental restoration-type projects, especially trying to improve marsh habitat and other things,” he concluded. “We keep losing that kind of habitat from storms and from rising sea level and so forth, and we’re working hard on the permit process for those projects.” n 77

USACE ARCHAEOLOGY USACE’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROFESSIONALS DO IT ALL: PRESERVING THE NATION’S CULTURAL HERITAGE, DOCUMENTING WAR CRIMES, AIDING THE TRANSITION OF VETERANS TO CIVILIAN LIFE, AND HELPING BRING CLOSURE TO THE FAMILIES OF POWs/MIAs. BY CR AIG COLLINS

Trimble and his team have overseen the loan and transfer of one of the world’s largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons, discovered in the 1980s near Montana’s Fort Peck Reservoir, to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. USACE archaeologists have helped to conserve and curate the 9,600-year-old remains of a Paleoamerican man, known as Kennewick Man, found on the bank of the Columbia River in 1996. St. Louis District, with the assistance of the New York District archaeologists, has also been instrumental in the completion of the scientific report and reburial ceremony of what has become known as the African Burial Ground National Monument, discovered in 1991 during site work for a proposed federal office building in lower Manhattan. In addition, for a period of six years in the 1990s, Trimble’s St. Louis District archaeologists went to work for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), identifying and recovering the remains of American service members in Southeast Asia. From 2004 to 2007, USACE’s St. Louis District expertise in forensic archaeology

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PHOTO

bout 30 years ago, armed with a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Missouri, Michael “Sonny” Trimble was a young, ambitious explorer, set to launch his career – but the academic job market seemed a little dull. He’d grown up traveling the world with adventurous parents: His father was a U.S. Public Health Service officer who set up health centers around the globe, and his mother was a World War II codebreaker who once took the family for a summer cruise on a tramp steamer, visiting ports from the Arabian Sea to Japan. He didn’t know much about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) archaeology program, but when a friend who worked for the agency invited him to come aboard, Trimble thought he’d work for a couple of years, pay off a few debts, and move on. It didn’t take long for him to discover what most Americans don’t realize: “The Corps just had this huge, robust archaeology program,” he said. “When your work involves lots of digging and dredging, you’re likely to uncover more than a few surprises – but it still may surprise some to learn that the nation’s second-largest archaeological collection belongs to the Corps of Engineers. Only the Smithsonian Institution cares for more archaeological artifacts.” Trimble also discovered that because of the variety of challenges confronted by USACE archaeologists around the country, it had developed one of the most comprehensive skill sets of any federal agency. “And then you realize,” he said, “that you can use your expertise to support other agencies. You serve the Corps and the Army first, and the other service branches, but you could also work for any agency – say, the Park Service – that needed you and would pay for your expertise.” Three years in, he was hooked: He had a much more interesting job, he thought, than many of the world’s most renowned archaeologists. When USACE began excavating its civil works projects after World War II, it also began amassing a collection of millions of artifacts, stored at sites around the country – but Trimble found the agency didn’t have a clear understanding of what was in its possession. “I was able,” Trimble said, “to talk a very tough-minded general into giving me a chance to open a Center of Expertise.” USACE’s Mandatory Center of Expertise for Archaeological Curation and Collections Management (MCX-CMAC), located in its St. Louis District, was opened in 1994 with Trimble as its director. Today, his official title is chief, Curation and Archives Analysis Branch. “Now,” says Trimble, “we get the jobs that other people can’t do, some really fascinating jobs. We’ve kind of been in the middle of some of the great archaeological projects of the last 20 years.”

Michael “Sonny” Trimble, Ph.D., leading a team of investigators in Iraq to excavate mass graves that would ultimately help convict Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity.

Joe Griffin (top left), senior archaeologist for the USACE Sacramento District, observes as members of his team from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) collect soil samples to be examined during site excavation in the Xiangkhoang Province, Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Members of the DPAA deployed to the area in hopes of recovering the remains of a pilot unaccounted for since the Vietnam War era.

DOD PHOTO BY STAFF SGT. JOCELYN FORD, USAF

enabled one of the most dramatic adventures in the program’s history: At the request of the U.S. departments of Justice and State, Trimble was sent to Iraq, to lead a team of archaeologists in the excavation of nine mass graves that helped to document Saddam Hussein’s role in genocide and crimes against humanity. In the middle of an active war zone, in temperatures as hot as 120 degrees Fahrenheit, Trimble and his team exhumed hundreds of bodies, mostly women and children, identified as Kurdish and Shia people who had been marched out into the desert, machinegunned, and dumped into trenches. In 2006, Trimble recounted his team’s findings in court, during six hours of testimony in which he sat directly across from Hussein. Ultimately, Hussein and his co-defendants were convicted of crimes against humanity.

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HELP FOR VETERANS, SERVICE MEMBERS, AND THEIR FAMILIES It was an exhausting trip for Trimble and his team. Upon his return to the United States, he settled into the relatively routine work of inventorying and maintaining the collections for USACE – mostly consisting of prehistoric objects from Native American cultures, some of them as much as 6,000 years old, residing in more than 160 universities, repositories, and visitor centers nationwide. When Trimble and his team returned from Iraq, the millions of items in USACE’s collection had been identified nationwide, but still hadn’t been catalogued. The team members thought often of the Soldiers and Marines who had protected them in Iraq. Thousands were returning from the Middle East and transitioning to civilian

Now we get the jobs that other people can’t do, some really fascinating jobs. We’ve kind of been in the middle of some of the great archaeological projects of the last 20 years.

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life, and Trimble and his colleagues figured they could train some of them in a range of skills needed to document the USACE collections, such as forensic photography, cataloguing, and inventory, and at the same time, introduce the basics of the civilian workplace: how to prepare a résumé, how to use a spreadsheet, how to dress for a civilian workplace, and, Trimble said, quirky things like how to speak to co-workers without shouting, which he found himself doing often in Iraq. “You’re always shouting over there,” he said. “You have to. It’s noisy.” The Veterans Curation Program (VCP), launched at the MCX-CMAC in 2009, has had a total of 323 participants working at three laboratories in Alexandria, Virginia; Augusta, Georgia; and St. Louis, Missouri. According to Trimble, about 90 percent of past participants have obtained permanent employment or returned to school to continue their education. And just as the veteran participants have helped to expand the online database of USACE’s archaeological collections, Trimble said, their experience as lab technicians has taught them a number of skills they can use in their transition into the civilian workforce. The program’s success has led the MCX-CMAC to plan future expansion to a new laboratory. “The Colville Indian reservation up in eastern Washington has a huge Corps of Engineers collection they’ve been taking care of for years,” Trimble said. “So we’re going to start a two-person VCP up there. It’s really an outstanding lab, run by Colville Indian professionals with degrees in archaeology.” The VCP is also training a pair of veterans on how to move USACE’s collection information onto the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR), an international repository of archaeological data. “We’ve taken thousands of pictures of all the artifacts,” Trimble said. “The veterans have written up summaries of each archaeological site, so people can go on the internet, whether they are teachers or researchers, and scan through this information and see what they’re interested in and maybe borrow the collections for research or educational purposes.” In the meantime, the everyday work of USACE archaeologists continues at its civil works projects; in each district, two or three archaeologists are on staff to assure compliance with the laws and regulations requiring careful stewardship of the nation’s cultural heritage. Joe Griffin, an archaeologist with USACE’s Sacramento District, puts it this way: “What we do here in our normal life is essentially make sure Corps projects are in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act. We’re here to identify significant historic resources that might be impacted by actions the Corps takes, and attempt to mitigate, avoid, or minimize the impacts to those resources.” Not that Griffin would claim there was anything “normal” about his work. In the past year, he and several other USACE archaeologists have answered the call of the St. Louis District MCX to help the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), successor to the JPAC, in investigating sites in Southeast Asia where the remains of American service members are suspected to exist. Griffin led a team in its recovery excavation of a site in Laos; the stateside analysis of the materials his team unearthed, he said, will probably take several years to conclude. For Griffin, a USACE veteran, the expedition to Laos is a reminder of his early career with the agency, when he worked on several

Joe Griffin (right), senior archaeologist for USACE’s Sacramento District, talks with colleague Stefanie Adams on June 22, 2016. Each district has archaeologists on staff to ensure laws and regulations are in compliance to protect the nation’s cultural heritage.

overseas investigations. These days, he mostly stays closer to home, where the work continues to excite him. “The Sacramento District covers a big chunk of the western United States,” he said, “so I get access to a huge variety and depth of archaeological work out here.” Another archaeologist who led a DPAA excavation was John Campbell of the Fort Worth District, who led a team at a site in Vietnam. After earning a master’s degree from Texas State University, Campbell spent 15 years as a private consultant before going to work for USACE. “I was a military brat,” he said, “so I like the structure, and I like the Civil Works mission, just seeing what the Corps builds and how we affect communities.” For Campbell, the forensic work in support of DPAA perfectly illustrates what’s special about USACE’s archaeology program: He gets to use his skills to serve not only the Army, and the military, and other federal agencies, but to solve problems so important, they’re sometimes difficult to put into words. “It’s nice to be able to use your training to do something so worthwhile,” he said. “Archaeology is sort of an esoteric pursuit – it’s obviously important, and we have laws that say so – but you know, you’re not out there curing cancer or feeding starving children. So it’s nice to be able to bring closure to these families of service members if you can. It’s a really important mission.” n 81

FACES OF USACE: EMERGENCY OPERATIONS BY CR AIG COLLINS

Dennis Norris greets Elbert “Yogi” Williams, member of the Mattress Sinking Unit. The unit’s personnel conduct a river operation that protects the banks of the Mississippi River from erosion with concrete blocks that are tied together and placed in areas that sustain damage from high river currents. The mattresses also protect against damage to the flood control system in the Lower River Valley.

river for 35 years, my whole career. And I’ve learned the river never takes a day off.” From its headquarters in Vicksburg, Mississippi, the MVD follows the length of the nation’s largest river, from the Canadian border to New Orleans. When the St. Louis area was hammered with rain on Dec. 26 – 2 to 6 inches in spots, with more heavy rainfall in the forecast – Norris knew many people, including USACE personnel, were on vacation. “I knew the flood stages were going to go up,” he said. “I knew the majority of the staff was enjoying leave with their family like I was, but I knew this could be a major flood. So I started calling folks, and we got things moving.” Within a few days, flood fighting and emergency response had been fully activated within USACE’s Rock Island, St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans districts. While the river stage at Cairo,

USACE MVD PHOTO

sually, in December or January, when the U.S. Coast Guard closes a river to surface traffic, the hazard is ice. So when the agency announced, on the night of Dec. 28, 2015, that a portion of the Mississippi River near the St. Louis riverfront would be closed due to high water and fast currents, news of the floods caught many Americans by surprise. By then the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) had already taken action, closing several locks on the river and mobilizing flood fighting efforts in response to a historic flooding event that rivaled the great Midwestern floods of summer 1993. Even before he and most of his co-workers had left their offices for the holidays, Dennis Norris, chief of operations for USACE’s Mississippi Valley Division (MVD), had been tracking the weather. “I knew it wasn’t going to be a normal holiday season,” he said. “I’ve been connected to the

LEFT: PHOTO BY CLAY CHURCH; RIGHT: USACE PHOTO

LEFT: Jerry Cotter, chief of Water Management Branch for the Fort Worth District, is interviewed by a local TV station concerning flood operations at USACE flood risk management reservoirs in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in May 2015. RIGHT: Russell Errett, a hydraulic engineer with the St. Louis District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Illinois, crested at 56 feet on Jan. 3, USACE personnel were monitoring federal flood control works including levees, flood walls, and pumping stations. It was a historic flood – the highest river levels ever recorded for January, and the highest in recorded history at the town of Cape Girardeau, Missouri; in Alexander County, Illinois; and at several places along Missouri’s Meramec River. Norris would have preferred to spend the week after Christmas at home with his family, but he’s always loved being on the river. “Once I started in ops [operations], I’ve never left it. I began my career on dredges and boats, and I love the tactical, hands-on work of river navigation and flood control.” About 600 USACE employees battled the floods up close, supported by another 400 USACE personnel. The winter flooding of 2015-2016 was incredibly destructive. From Dec. 26 to Dec. 30, between 9 and 14 inches of rain fell on the Southern Plains and Midwestern states, causing more than $1 billion in estimated damages. But the components of the Mississippi River and Tributaries project performed as designed. On Jan. 10, as floodwaters continued south, USACE opened the Bonnet Carré spillway, about 12 miles upriver from New Orleans, preventing the flooding of the city and relieving pressure on the levee systems upstream. Russell Errett, a hydraulic engineer with the St. Louis District, was another who understood, early on, that he wouldn’t have much of a vacation. Part of his job is to forecast water levels on waterways and in reservoirs, and his forecasts led him to cancel his holiday travel and plan to be in the office until well after the first of the year. “I’d worked several floods previously, so I kind of knew what the battle rhythm was,” he said.

Errett began his career with USACE when he was a student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville – he was a USACE park ranger at the Melvin Price Locks and Dam and the National Great Rivers Museum at East Alton, Illinois, where he guided tours. “I loved it,” he said. “I loved taking people out on top of the dam and explaining the structure, the engineering of it, the nuances of how it was operated, and watching with them as the barges went through the locks.” After he graduated, Errett found himself drawn to the problems posed by hydraulics: forecasting and operating structures to minimize flood damage. “When people talk about flood operations,” he said, “they tend to think of levees and sandbags. We typically start our flood operations by trying to do everything we can at the reservoirs.” While he misses the everyday interactions he had as a park ranger, Errett said he loves solving problems posed by the complex dynamics of the Mississippi River Basin. It’s allowed him to be more creative than he ever thought he’d be as an engineer. “The engineering aspect of this is unique,” he said. “You have to be very good on your feet to make these decisions in real time. No flood is the same. No drought is the same. There’s nothing about this work that I would say is normal.”

CLOSE TO HOME 2015’s most extreme flooding – an event that went so far beyond normal that it’s difficult to convey – occurred across Oklahoma and Texas, in USACE’s Southwestern Division (SWD), in the aftermath of unprecedented flooding throughout the month of May. After several years of historic drought, the region was inundated with rainfall that 83

broke records across both states by outlandish amounts. The highest amount recorded for the month, just over 28 inches, occurred in Atoka County, Oklahoma – more rainfall than had fallen in the previous four years combined. The National Weather Service estimated that more than 35 trillion gallons of water fell over the region – enough to cover the entire state of Texas to a depth of 8 inches. According to The Washington Post, the amount of water that flowed into Texas reservoirs alone, 8 million acre-feet, would be enough to meet New York City’s water needs for seven years. Headquartered in Dallas, the SWD includes all of Oklahoma, most of Texas, and parts of Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas. After the May storms, much of this region was under water. Bill Smiley, chief of emergency management for the Tulsa District, explained that among the four phases of emergency management – mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery – response mode typically accounts for about 10 to 15 percent of his district’s annual workload. “But last year,” he said, “we spent around 50 percent of our time in response.” 84

Smiley, who spent 24 years as a disaster preparedness/incident management expert in the Air Force, joined USACE in 2009 – drawn to the agency, he said, by its “long history of excellence, and its ability to impact both the military and the civil works [of] our country.” Born in Ohio, he married an Oklahoman and is now firmly planted in the Tulsa area, surrounded by four generations of his extended family. Many people, he said, mistakenly assume that in an emergency such as a flood, decisions are made by faraway bureaucrats, disconnected from the people most likely to be affected. But everywhere he went during the flood response – and he was all over the place – Smiley saw dedicated USACE people on the front lines, directing and supporting the flood fight. Many of them were, like him, directly affected by flooding in their own communities; amid the response, Smiley was forced to move some family camping trailers out of the flood zone and onto land he owns about 75 miles southeast of Tulsa. “We look at ourselves as Oklahomans,” he said. “And we respond by trying to do as much as we possibly can for our neighbors, to

U.S. ARMY PHOTOS BY DAVE PALMER

2015 flood of Lake Texoma, Texas and Oklahoma. In the rainfall record-setting month of May in Atoka County, Oklahoma, an estimated 35 trillion gallons fell over the region.

help each other out. We’re operating within our authority, no doubt. But we’re definitely looking at each other as neighbors.” Early in the response to the 2015 spring floods, Jerry Cotter, chief of water resources for USACE’s Fort Worth District, discovered just how personal his agency’s work can be: “We were in a meeting one morning,” he said, “and there were some issues with one of the projects where we needed to bring in a contractor for some work. And I turned to our contracting representative and said: ‘Tim, when is that contract going to be done?’ and he said, ‘Well, as soon as I get moved out of my flooded apartment and into a new one.” Cotter, who went to work for USACE immediately after earning his engineering degree from the University of Texas at Arlington, is a lifelong Texan whose ancestors first settled in the state around 1850. He lives near the home stadiums of the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers. “I definitely didn’t make it far from home,” he said. While his primary job is to manage and operate the district’s water resources – and during a flood fight, to lead the timely modeling and analysis of the situation – Cotter found himself unexpectedly nudged into the limelight during the flood response, when he

U.S. ARMY PHOTO BY EDWARD N. JOHNSON

“

We were in a meeting one morning, and there were some issues with one of the projects where we needed to bring in a contractor for some work. And I turned to our contracting representative and said: ‘Tim, when is that contract going to be done?’ and he said, ‘Well, as soon as I get moved out of my flooded apartment and into a new one.’

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Tulsa District Emergency Operations Chief Bill Smiley (left) takes notes as former District Commander Col. Richard A. Pratt (center) speaks with district leadership May 19, 2015, during a high water event that caused flooding throughout much of Oklahoma. Heavy, sustained rains fell across much of the district’s two primary watersheds in May and June 2015, causing several of the district’s projects to reach a pool of record.

became the district’s unofficial spokesperson to numerous media outlets seeking information about the floods. For his work in keeping the public informed about the status of the flood fight, Cotter, in March 2016, earned USACE’s Ronald J. Ruffennach Communicator of the Year Award. Cotter has always had a knack for communicating the often arcane and technical information in a way that’s understandable and avoids jargon – but he certainly never imagined becoming a television personality. “When I was in my 20s and 30s,” he said, “I couldn’t even stand up before a group. I would shake in my boots. But all I was doing was speaking for this district, and when you’ve got a great team, that’s doing such a fabulous job messaging themselves, the work you’re doing is easy.” USACE flood risk reduction projects prevented an estimated $15 billion in damages to local communities during the May-June floods of 2015. Over the 60-year lifetime of these projects – 74 lakes and reservoirs, with more than 33.22 million acre-feet of storage – they’ve prevented a total of $100 billion in flood damage by the end of the May-June flooding, and $112 billion by the end of 2015. Cotter still speaks to groups almost weekly about the district’s water resources – and he doesn’t get nervous anymore. “Development of these reservoirs, these floodways, is what’s enabled the state of Texas to prosper like it has,” Cotter said. “Without these reservoirs, we wouldn’t be able to supply water to the population we have in the area. And there were huge floods in the early part of the century that killed people and damaged thousands of homes – and that kind of damage just doesn’t occur anymore, anywhere near that magnitude. It’s a great story to tell, which makes those nerves kind of go away.” n 85

USACE DIRECTORY: DIVISIONS, DISTRICTS, CENTERS, AND COMMANDS The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is a dynamic organization with approximately 32,000 civilian and 700 military employees located throughout the United States, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. This diverse workforce provides vital public engineering services in peace and war to strengthen the nation’s security, energize the economy, and reduce risks from disasters. To successfully meet its broad mission areas, USACE comprises a Washington, D.C., headquarters office, nine division offices and 43 district offices; six main engineering, research and development, finance, and technical centers; the 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power); and the 412th and 416th Theater Engineer Commands. In fall 2009, USACE created the new Transatlantic Division to manage all overseas contingency operations, including reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. The missions of all these offices and centers are as varied as the locations and customers they serve. Brief summaries of each are provided here.

DIVISIONS AND DISTRICTS GREAT LAKES AND OHIO RIVER DIVISION 550 Main Street • Cincinnati, OH 45202 Tel: (513) 684-3010 The history of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can be traced to June 1775, when the Continental Congress organized an Army and appointed Col. Richard Gridley as Gen. George Washington’s first chief engineer. Army engineers were instrumental in some of the major battles of the Revolutionary War. In 1794, Congress organized a Corps of Artillerists and Engineers but it was not until 1802 that it re-established a separate Corps of Engineers. In that same year, Congress established a military academy at West Point, New York. Its first superintendent, Jonathan Williams, was also the chief engineer of USACE. From its inception, many politicians wanted USACE to contribute to both military construction and works “of a civil nature.” Throughout the 19th century, USACE supervised the construction of coastal fortifications and mapped much of the American West, constructed lighthouses, helped develop jetties and piers for harbors, and surveyed and mapped the channels of many rivers for navigation improvements. With the organizational evolution of USACE, district offices began forming in the 1860s. Division offices were created by general orders in 1888. The North Central Division, located in Chicago, Illinois, included the three Great Lakes districts, Buffalo, Chicago, and Detroit, along with Rock Island and St. Paul districts on the Upper Mississippi River. In 1901, the Central Division office, in Cincinnati, Ohio was established to manage the Civil Works program. In 1933, it was renamed the Ohio River Division with responsibility for USACE civil works and defense missions in the basin. 86

In 1997, USACE began restructuring several of its divisions, which led to combining the North Central and Ohio River divisions to form the Great Lakes and Ohio River Division (LRD). LRD consists of the Great Lakes (which include the U.S. portion of the St. Lawrence River) and the Ohio River watersheds. It encompasses 335,300 square miles – all or portions of 17 states – that contain a population of more than 70 million people. Stretching from the Great Lakes south to Alabama, from the Mississippi River east to Virginia’s Old Dominion, the division and its seven districts carry out rich and diverse missions. Buffalo, Chicago, and Detroit districts carry out missions along the Great Lakes while Huntington, Louisville, Nashville and Pittsburgh districts work in the Ohio River’s watershed. The Louisville District also executes military missions that support 20 Department of Defense (DOD) organizations in its five-state area – Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. The division has a robust navigation mission. In the division’s northern area, the Great Lakes transport vital commodities to and from the nation’s heartland. Total annual commerce on the Great Lakes averages 175 million tons. Assigned the responsibility of keeping the Ohio River system navigable, the division performs work along the Ohio River’s mainstem and its seven tributaries. The basin’s 2,582 miles of waterways carry 35 percent of the country’s waterborne commerce. The division office supports even more than the 70 million people within its boundaries. As a representative to the International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes, the division works hand in hand with the Canadian government and industry on matters of international shipping and protection of the Great Lakes ecosystem. More than 300 division employees have deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 in support of USACE’s Global War on Terrorism mission.

Buffalo District

The Great Lakes and Ohio River Division enhances and protects the region’s waterways and its citizens, facilitates national and international commerce, supports the Army and Air Force with quality facility construction, and helps defend the nation and its allies. It performs vital public engineering services and is committed to all of its customers.

PHOTO BY ANDREW KORNACKI

BUFFALO DISTRICT 1776 Niagara Street • Buffalo, NY 14207-3199 Tel: (716) 879-4410 The Buffalo District traces its roots to Capt. Theodore Maurice, first assigned to the territory in 1824 to supervise federal engineer operations on Lake Erie. The first permanent USACE office opened in Buffalo, New York in 1857. Today, the district serves 38,000 square miles from Massena, New York, to the Indiana state line. It encompasses the United States’ drainage basins for both the Lower Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River and a significant portion of the nation’s industrial heartland. There are approximately 300 employees in the district, which includes seven field offices covering portions of New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The district’s workload ranges from $80 million to $100 million annually, not including a robust International and Interagency Services (IIS) program. Major areas of effort include the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program; maintenance of five of the top 100 U.S. ports and 110 miles of federal navigation channels; and 38 miles of dikes, piers, and breakwalls. The Buffalo District was responsible for the design and construction of the U.S. portion of the St. Lawrence Seaway, including the Eisenhower and Snell locks. It operates and maintains Mount Morris Dam – the largest concrete gravity “dry” dam east of the Mississippi River.

District employees plan, design, construct, and operate water resources projects to maintain navigation, flood and storm damage reduction, stream bank and shoreline protection, and ecosystem restoration. Its substantial expertise in water resources management supports ongoing programs related to wetland planning and management, water quality, and water supply. The Buffalo District also has regulatory authority over work impacting navigable waters and discharge of fill material into waters of the United States, including wetlands. It partners with other federal agencies and nongovernmental organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service, and Buffalo Niagara RIVERKEEPER, the only science-based, community-focused advocacy organization in western New York dedicated to protecting and restoring the quality and quantity of water.

CHICAGO DISTRICT 231 S. LaSalle Street, Suite 1500 • Chicago, IL 60604 Tel: (312) 846-5330 The Chicago District’s mission is to provide valued, world-class leadership, engineering services, and management capabilities to the diverse stakeholders and partners within the Greater Chicago and metropolitan area, a region of about 5,000 square miles with a population of about 9 million, and the nation. In 1833, Army engineers began improvements to the harbor at the mouth of the Chicago River, creating an important shipping center. From 1844 to 1915, USACE constructed and improved harbors along the Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin shorelines. From the 1940s through the 1970s, the district was involved in a variety of military 87

and civil construction projects including Nike missile bases, the military facility at O’Hare, widening the Cal-Sag navigation channel and constructing Burns Harbor. In the 1980s, the Chicago District took over operation and maintenance of the Chicago Harbor Lock and expanded its interagency support to include providing construction assistance to the EPA’s wastewater treatment Construction Grants Program and Superfund. In the 1990s, the Chicago District began several major flood risk management projects in Illinois and northwest Indiana, directed the emergency relief effort for the Great Chicago Tunnel Flood, developed an enhanced aquatic ecosystem restoration program, and started addressing aquatic nuisance species issues. Today, the Chicago District is responsible for water resources development in the Chicago metropolitan area through a variety of projects ranging from protecting the Chicago shoreline from erosion to restoring ecosystems along area waterways. The Chicago District maintains seven major harbors on the Illinois and Indiana shores of Lake Michigan and operates and maintains the Chicago Lock, one of the busiest in the nation. Major projects include the McCook Reservoir Project, which is a 10-billion-gallon reservoir that will capture combined sewer overflows that cause flooding and watercourse contamination, benefiting Chicago and 36 suburbs, including 1.5 million structures and 3 million people and the Electric Dispersal Barriers, which deter the inter-basin passage of Asian carp and other aquatic nuisance species via the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal through the use of pulsed direct current in the water.

DETROIT DISTRICT 477 Michigan Avenue • Detroit, MI 48226 Tel: (888) 694-8313 www.lre.usace.army.mil Established in 1841, the Detroit District covers 82,000 square miles of land inhabited by about 14 million people and includes the portions of the states of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota within the Great Lakes drainage basin, encompassing 3,200 miles of Great Lakes shoreline. It employs approximately 400 employees with the headquarters office in downtown Detroit and area offices in Detroit, Michigan; Duluth, Minnesota; Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; and the Lake Michigan Area Office with locations in Grand Haven, Michigan and Kewaunee and Appleton, Wisconsin. The district takes an ongoing regional approach to Great Lakes navigation projects. The Great Lakes Navigation System is a complex deep-water network, stretching 1,600 miles through all five Great Lakes and connecting channels that facilitate the transport of vital commodities to and from the nation’s heartland. Maintenance of this system includes dredging of commercial and recreational harbors, and connecting channels; operation and maintenance of the economically vital Soo Locks; development and maintenance of dredged material disposal facilities; and structural repairs to breakwaters, piers and revetments. Around 8,000 vessels traverse the Soo Locks each year, carrying more than 80 million tons of cargo – mostly iron ore, coal, grain and stone.

PHOTO BY MICHELLE BRIGGS

Detroit District

In addition to managing navigation maintenance throughout the Great Lakes, the Detroit District designs and constructs navigational structures and flood protection projects. These structures perform vital roles in providing for safe navigation, reducing shoaling problems in our harbors and protecting the land-based infrastructure that has grown behind them. The Detroit District also supports the U.S. State Department and the International Joint Commission (IJC) in carrying out the requirements of the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. To support this mission, the District monitors hydrologic conditions and forecasts water levels throughout the Great Lakes system. With a surface area covering almost 300,000 square miles, the Great Lakes are a unique and precious natural resource. Diligence is required to maintain the delicate balance between human and environmental/ecological needs. The Detroit District monitors water levels and flows through Great Lakes and its connecting channels, which is necessary for water level forecasting, hydropower operations and determining dredging needs for commerce and recreation. Additionally, the Detroit District oversees environmental and ecosystem restoration projects by supporting the administration’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) through on-the-ground projects that clean up contaminated sediments, restore wetlands and restore rivers from concrete lined channels to meandering natural habitats, remove obstacles to fish passage and control the spread of aquatic invasive species. The district has a strong construction management mission, helping to construct buildings to support housing, military research and administrative functions; and other infrastructure for our federal partners. District staff members have also supported many interagency customers with their construction management needs such as the rehabilitating hospitals for U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and construction of a new 100 agent border station in Detroit for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Detroit District alone processes about 1,600 permit applications a year for projects in Michigan. The permit evaluation staff analyzes a full spectrum of projects including shore protection, piers, marinas and wetland fills. The enforcement staff is on the ground to conduct jurisdiction determinations, ensure permit compliance, conduct wetland delineations and investigate any unauthorized work. The Detroit District has two of the top five visitors centers USACE-wide based on annual attendance: one in Duluth, Minnesota and one at the Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. They serve to educate the public on the importance of maritime history and preserve a variety of artifacts. Our hydropower plant, located at the Soo Locks, was recently selected as one of the “Top Performers” within the entire USACE Hydropower Program. The St. Marys Falls plant generates more than 150 million kilowatt-hours of electric power each year. This power operates the Soo Locks facility, while the surplus is distributed to meet the demands of the power grid of the eastern Upper Peninsula in Michigan.

HUNTINGTON DISTRICT 502 Eighth Street • Huntington, WV 25701-2070 Tel: (304) 399-5353 Established in 1922, the Huntington District is responsible for a geographic area in the Appalachian hills and mountains of southern and central West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, western Virginia, northwestern North Carolina, and the rolling plains of southeastern and central Ohio. Within this 45,000-square-mile area, more flood control dams, levees, and floodwalls have been designed and constructed in more than in any other USACE district in the country. Huntington District operates and maintains 35 dams, 25 federal levees, and nine locks and dams. The district’s primary civil works missions include flood damage reduction, navigation, regulatory activities, water supply, water quality, hydropower, environmental conservation and enhancement, recreation, and emergency response. The district’s work has reduced flood damages by more than $13 billion, restored ecosystems, and aided regional development through the transport of bulk commodities on the nation’s inland waterways. The district includes the nation’s largest inland waterway port – the seventh-largest port nationally. The district hosts two national-level centers: the Planning Center of Expertise for Inland Navigation and Risk-Informed Economics Division (PCXIN-RED) and the Dam Safety Modifications Mandatory Center of Expertise (DSMMCX). The Huntington District continues to support to the Nation’s overseas contingency operations, including deployment of district employees to Afghanistan and other missions. Building Resiliency, Delivering Results, and Inspiring Relationships.

LOUISVILLE DISTRICT P.O. BOX 59 • Louisville, KY 40201-0059 600 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Place Louisville, KY 40202 Tel: (502) 315-6766 The Louisville District’s geographic area covers Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio. Louisville, one of USACE’s more diverse districts, performs work in military construction; military environmental missions; and civil works missions. In addition to its regional military construction mission, Louisville District manages the Army and Air Force Reserve program nationally. The district’s environmental program provides management, design, and execution of cleanup and protection activities. The civil works boundary is nearly 76,000 square miles in the Lower Ohio River Basin. Primary civil works services include flood control, navigation, regulatory activities, water supply, water quality, hydropower, environmental conservation and enhancement, recreation, and emergency response. To date, Louisville District projects have prevented more than $7.6 billion in flood damages. Support to the nation’s Overseas Contingency Operations includes deployment of district employees to Afghanistan and in support to emergency operations.

NASHVILLE DISTRICT P.O. Box 1070 • Nashville, TN 37202-1070 Tel: (615) 736-7161 The Nashville District encompasses more than 59,000 square miles and includes parts of seven states. It has regulatory, flood control, navigation, hydropower, and recreational responsibility for 89

the Cumberland River watershed. It also has regulatory and navigation responsibility for most of the Tennessee River watershed. With programs that lead USACE in recreation, hydropower, and navigation and a diverse workforce ready to meet any challenge, the Nashville District is positioned to respond to the nation’s needs in peace, war, and natural disaster. The district’s recreation program leads the nation in number of visitors, with more than 33 million last year to 10 lakes in the Cumberland River Basin. In hydropower, the Hydropower Rehabilitation Program is providing customer funding to rehabilitate the district’s power plants over the next 20 years. With 1,175 miles of navigable waterways, which is nearly 10 percent of the U.S. Inland Waterway System, the Nashville District leads the nation in managing and maintaining navigation. In 2015, the district completed the Barrier Wall at Center Hill Dam, a highrisk dam. Rehabilitation work is continuing at Center Hill with the installation of roller compacted berm behind the saddle dam. The Nashville District continues to support to the nation’s overseas contingency operations, including deployment of district employees to Afghanistan and other missions.

PITTSBURGH DISTRICT 1000 Liberty Avenue • Pittsburgh, PA 15222-4186 Tel: (412) 395-7500 The Pittsburgh District’s 26,000 square miles include portions of western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia, eastern Ohio, western Maryland, and southwestern New York with more than 328 miles of navigable waterways. The district maintains and operates 23 navigation locks and dams on the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers and 16 multipurpose flood control reservoirs. Additionally, 41 local flood reduction projects protect communities along nearby rivers and tributaries. All told, Pittsburgh District’s flood damage reduction facilities have paid off handsomely – preventing more than $11 billion in flood damages. Fueled by the expertise and dedication of its employees, Pittsburgh – the Headwaters District – enhances the lives of the area’s 5 million residents. With 140 years of experience, it has developed expertise to accomplish its varied missions, which include flood damage reduction, navigation, regulatory activities, recreation, fish and wildlife management, environmental protection and restoration, water supply and quality, construction management, low flow augmentation, and emergency response. The district’s two major construction projects – the Lower Monongahela River Project and the Emsworth Dam Rehabilitation Project – will keep its waterways viable, year-round transportation corridors.

MISSISSIPPI VALLEY DIVISION P.O. Box 80 • Vicksburg, MS 39181 Tel: (601) 634-7729 The Mississippi Valley Division is responsible for USACE’s water resources programs within 370,000 square miles of the Mississippi River Valley. The division boundary encompasses the entire Mississippi River from Lake Itasca, Minnesota, to the Gulf of Mexico, and includes all or parts of 12 states: Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. 90

The mission of the division is to serve the Mississippi Valley region by managing the watersheds and developing collaborative engineering solutions that will reduce risks through the reduction of flood damage potential, maintain and enhance navigation, and protect, restore, and enhance environmental ecosystems, while being prepared to respond to regional and national emergencies. As North America’s most important waterway, the division’s civil works along the Mississippi River represent critical investments in the nation’s future. The division’s effectiveness in orchestrating the river’s immense power greatly profits America’s economy, environment, and defense. District offices located in St. Paul, Minnesota; Rock Island, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Vicksburg, Mississippi; and New Orleans, Louisiana, conduct the programs and activities overseen by the division. The 1.25-million-squaremile Mississippi River drainage basin (third largest in the world) gathers water from 41 percent of the continental United States, including all or parts of 31 states and two Canadian provinces. The division also serves as headquarters for the Mississippi River Commission. The commission was established by an act of Congress in 1879 to give the civilian engineering community a greater voice in developing a flood control and navigation plan for the Mississippi River. The commission consists of seven members: three USACE officers (one as its president), one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and three civilians (two must be civil engineers). All members are nominated by the president, subject to confirmation by the Senate, and serve as advisers to the secretary of the Army and the chief of engineers.

MEMPHIS DISTRICT 167 N. Main Street, Room B-202 • Memphis, TN 38103-1894 Tel: (901) 544-3005 Established in 1882, the Memphis District encompasses 25,000 square miles of America’s Mid-South, including portions of six states. The district is responsible for keeping 355 miles of the Lower Mississippi River and 245 miles of the White River in Arkansas open for commercial navigation. A comprehensive system of stone dikes, concrete revetments, and state-of-the-art dredges aids commerce on the rivers. Since passage of the Flood Control Act of 1928, the Memphis District has worked – under the Mississippi River and Tributaries (MR&T) Project – to reduce and control flooding in the valley. Thanks to the work done under the MR&T Project, the district prevented more than $35.5 billion in flood damages between 1998 and 2011. Environmental stewardship, emergency operations, and other authorized civil works round out the Memphis District’s mission areas as it strives to benefit its region and the nation.

NEW ORLEANS DISTRICT P.O. Box 60267 • New Orleans, LA 70160-0267 Tel: (504) 862-2201 The New Orleans District provides comprehensive water resources management, including navigation, flood, hurricane, and storm damage risk reduction, and environmental stewardship for south Louisiana to ensure public safety and benefit the nation. Responsible for one of the largest civil works programs, more

Mississippi Valley Division

than $350 million annually, the New Orleans District covers more than 30,000 square miles of south Louisiana, from Alexandria to the Gulf of Mexico. The district includes 2,800 miles of navigable waterways – including five of the top 15 ports in the nation, 1,300 miles of levees and floodwalls, 11 navigation locks, six major flood control structures, and other projects designed to create and protect coastal wetlands.

USACE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY DIVISION PHOTO

ROCK ISLAND DISTRICT (CEMVR-CC) Clock Tower Building P.O. Box 2004 • Rock Island, IL 61204-2004 Tel: (800) 799-8302 or (309) 794-4200 The Rock Island District oversees 314 miles of the Mississippi River from Guttenberg, Iowa, to Saverton, Missouri, and 268 miles of the Illinois Waterway from Lake Street in downtown Chicago, Illinois, to the LaGrange Lock and Dam, southwest of Beardstown, Illinois. The district maintains 22 locks and 18 dams, three flood-risk management reservoirs in Iowa, two flood retarding reservoirs in Illinois, and 65 recreation and visitor sites within its 78,000-square-mile area of responsibility. The district is the national supplier of Innovative Flood Fight Products for USACE and the Regional Flood Fight Product Distribution Center for local and state governments during natural disaster response. It operates the Regional Structural Repair

Center for maintaining river structures on the Upper Mississippi River. While some USACE districts have both military construction and civil works missions, Rock Island District is primarily a civil works district administering federal water resource development programs in large portions of Iowa and Illinois and smaller portions of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri. It maintains the capability to support the military construction program when necessary. District missions include navigation, environmental restoration, flood risk management, regulatory functions, recreation, federal real estate management, mobilization for both federal disaster response and national defense, and emergency operations. The district has a diverse staff that includes both advisory and administrative personnel who manage district operations, and a technical staff comprised of specialists and technicians representing a variety of scientific and professional fields. About one-third of its staff work at its headquarters on Arsenal Island, Illinois, while the other two-thirds work at its lock and dam sites, recreation areas, river project offices, reservoirs, and construction field offices.

ST. LOUIS DISTRICT 1222 Spruce Street • St. Louis, MO 63103 Tel: (314) 331-8000 The St. Louis District is an engineering and water resource agency dedicated to maintaining a proper and healthy balance of the 91

multiple uses of the heartland’s waterways. The district supports the needs of the community and the environment through many civil works missions. Missions include navigation, flood risk management, environmental restoration, environmental river engineering, environmental stewardship, water supply, emergency operations and disaster response, hydropower, recreation, regulatory oversight, and cleanup of hazardous and toxic waste material connected to nuclear weapons production in the 1940s. The district’s AOR encompasses approximately 28,000 square miles, divided almost equally between Missouri and Illinois. The St. Louis District maintains 300 miles of navigable waterway on the Mississippi River from Saverton, Missouri, to Cairo, Illinois, as well as 80 miles of the lower Illinois River and 36 miles of the Kaskaskia River. The district operates and maintains six lock chambers at four dams on the Upper Mississippi River and one lock and dam on the Kaskaskia River. The district also oversees maintenance and operation of 90 levee districts that are annually inspected as part of the rehabilitation program and exercises regulatory control over some 42,000 miles of waterways. On average, the district hosts 15 million visitors a year at its five lakes and rivers projects. Visitors have access to 32 camping areas, offering more than 3,700 campsites, 19 marinas, 180 boat ramps, day-use areas, and swimming beaches.

ST. PAUL DISTRICT 180 5th Street East, Suite 700 • St. Paul, MN 55101-1678 Tel: (651) 290-5807 The St. Paul District is where the “Mighty Mississippi River” starts its long journey through the middle of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico. The district covers an area of approximately 139,000 square miles, and its borders follow the edges of four river basins – the Mississippi River, the Red River of the North, the Souris River, and the Rainy River. This area includes most of Minnesota, the western half of Wisconsin, the northeastern section of North Dakota, and small portions of South Dakota and northeastern Iowa. Today, the St. Paul District supports inland navigation by maintaining the 9-foot navigation channel and operating 12 locks and dams for navigation on the Mississippi River. The district helps communities reduce damages caused by flooding by building flood risk management projects and operating 16 reservoirs for flood risk reduction, recreation, fish and wildlife habitat, and water supply. It can also assist communities by responding to floods and other natural disasters. It provides engineering services to the DOD and other federal agencies to include FEMA. It issues permits for work in wetlands and navigable rivers and is responsible for an environmental restoration program to improve fish and wildlife habitat. In addition, the district maintains 49 recreation areas open to the public.

VICKSBURG DISTRICT 4155 East Clay Street • Vicksburg, MS 39183-3435 Tel: 601-631-5000 The Vicksburg District encompasses 68,000 square miles in three states with a $250 million annual water resources program. Seven major river basins fall in the district’s jurisdiction, including the Mississippi, Red, Ouachita, Pearl, and Yazoo rivers. The district is charged with several key projects that are critical to the economic 92

and military security of the nation and that keep the district at the forefront of international engineering. These include: developing and maintaining a 9-foot-deep navigation channel on 278 miles of the Mississippi River; constructing and operating an expansive flood-control system that to date has prevented $50 billion in flood damages; operating three of the 16 hydroelectric plants in Arkansas, which include Blakely Mountain at Lake Ouachita, Narrows at Lake Greeson, and DeGray at DeGray Lake, capable of generating 168,500 kilowatts of electricity; key environmental projects such as restoring the water quality in Arkansas’ largest natural lake, Lake Chicot, and the restoration of thousands of acres of bottomland hardwoods in the Mississippi Delta; 12 river ports in Mississippi and Louisiana, with the capacity to handle more than 9.5 million tons of cargo; the Ouachita-Black rivers’ navigation project and the J. Bennett Johnston navigation project on the Red River are multipurpose projects providing navigation, recreation, flood control, water supply, and fish and wildlife benefits; and a recreation program that attracts nearly 10 million visitors annually to nine lakes and provides $200 million in benefits to local economies. The district is also home to the national Modeling, Mapping, and Consequences production center (MMC). The MMC supports more than 20 USACE districts throughout the United States in the production of hydrologic and hydraulics models, economic consequences models, and flood inundation mapping. These models and maps support a risk-based assessment, prioritization, and management framework for USACE critical infrastructure protection and resilience, dam safety, and levee safety programs. It also provides critical feedback necessary to refine and update USACE guidance and policies for dam and levee safety.

NORTH ATLANTIC DIVISION 302 General Lee Avenue, Fort Hamilton Brooklyn, NY 11252-6700 Tel: 347-370-4550 The North Atlantic Division (NAD) is one of nine regional headquarters providing engineering and construction services to the nation. To better manage the growing number of engineer districts performing military construction and civil works projects, USACE created four divisions in 1888, including the Northeast Division. That headquarters became the North Atlantic Division in 1929 during a major USACE reorganization. Headquartered at Fort Hamilton Brooklyn, New York, NAD is a robust team of about 3,500 men and women who work as a team to execute the diverse missions of USACE in the northeastern United States as well as in Europe and Africa. In the continental United States, it works with DOD, federal, state and local agencies from Maine to Virginia, including the District of Columbia. The division’s six districts have headquarters located in Concord, Mass., New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk and Wiesbaden, Germany. Overseas, NAD serves the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) through its Europe District. • In Europe, NAD provides military construction services on U.S. installations in the EUCOM footprint and supports various U.S.

government agencies and NATO to help build strategic partnerships. • In Africa, NAD promotes a stable and secure African environment in support of U.S. foreign policy through AFRICOM by executing civil-military operations, exercise-related construction, and infrastructure development projects and programs. The five districts in New England and mid-Atlantic states plan, design, build, operate, and maintain projects to address the environmental, infrastructure, and water resource requirements within the region, including navigation, flood risk management, coastal storm risk management, emergency and disaster response, recreational opportunities, environmental restoration and protection, and water supply. NAD’s districts maintain and improve navigation channels in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk harbors, and in hundreds of smaller ports along the northeast coast and in the Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac, James, and other river basins. All districts within NAD support the military through consolidation and modernization projects on Army and Air Force bases in the Northeast and throughout Europe. NAD is a Center of Expertise for the DOD’s National Relocation Program and the Enhanced Use Lease Program and serves as the National Planning Center of Expertise for Coastal Storm Risk Management. It manages USACE’s Dam Safety National Support Team, serves as the National Design Center for Military Munitions, and provides design and project management support to the Department of Defense (DOD) Education Activity. NAD’s environmental protection and restoration program supports the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, the Defense Environmental Restoration Program, the Base Realignment and Closure Program (Environmental Restoration), and the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action program (FUSRAP).

BALTIMORE DISTRICT 10 S. Howard Street • Baltimore, MD 21201 Tel: (800) 434-0988 Since the nation’s fight for independence, USACE has played a vital role in the development of our country. The Baltimore District has a long and storied history that extends as far back as the early 1800s when USACE constructed Fort McHenry, successfully shielding Baltimore against British attack in the War of 1812. And when the threat of coastal attack diminished in the 1820s, the Baltimore District turned its attention to developing roadways, railways, canals, and more, thus marking the beginning of the district’s civil works mission. Today, the 1,100 members of the Baltimore District proudly serve the citizens of the mid-Atlantic region including Maryland, northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New York; spanning the Susquehanna, Potomac, and Chesapeake Bay watersheds. Headquartered adjacent to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the Baltimore District provides design, engineering, construction, environmental, and real estate expertise to a variety of important projects and customers, and provides drinking water to the District of Columbia and Falls Church, Va., through the Washington Aqueduct.

In addition to its diverse military and civil works missions, the Baltimore District provides real estate, design, and construction services to the nation’s intelligence community. These services support an ever-growing list of emerging security requirements including cybersecurity and homeland security that serve the warfighter, and ultimately, protect the nation. With a surface area of 4,400 square miles and more than 7,000 miles of coastline, the Baltimore District remains an active partner in the development of the North Atlantic region.

EUROPE DISTRICT CMR 410 Box 1 • APO AE 09049 USACE’s Europe District has been helping its partners solve their toughest engineering challenges in over 100 countries for more than 40 years. The district supports various U.S., international, and host-nation military and government agencies in Europe, Africa and parts of the Middle East. Headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, the district provides premier planning, design, construction, environmental- and project-management services to meet partner infrastructure requirements; engineering services supporting the Theater Security Cooperation Plan; and a Forward Engineer Support Team-Advanced, or FEST-A, for contingency operations and civil emergencies in the U.S. European Command and Africa Command areas of responsibility. Work is executed from area, resident, and project offices in Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Kosovo, Poland, Romania, and Turkey. The district supplements installation engineers with the total resources, experience and expertise of USACE in its efforts to resolve operations and maintenance, host-nation engineering and construction issues.

NEW ENGLAND DISTRICT 696 Virginia Road • Concord, MA 01742-2751 Tel: (978) 318-8238 USACE traces its beginnings to the opening days of the Revolutionary War when Boston native Col. Richard Gridley was named chief engineer of the Massachusetts Volunteers, and shortly thereafter, chief engineer of the newly formed Continental Army by Commander in Chief Gen. George Washington. The first Army engineer action occurred on the night of June 16, 1775, when Gridley designed and supervised the construction of an earthwork on Breed’s Hill overlooking Boston Harbor that would prove impregnable against British bombardment during a fierce battle the following day. Although the patriots lost the position after running out of ammunition, the Battle of Bunker Hill (as it was later called) marked the beginning of the long tradition of service to New England that USACE continues today. The New England District manages USACE’s civil works responsibilities in a 66,000-square-mile region encompassing the six New England states east of the Lake Champlain drainage basin. The region has 6,100 miles of coastline, 11 deep-water ports, 102 recreational and small commercial harbors with USACE improvements, 13 major river basins, and thousands of rivers and streams. Within this AOR, USACE operates, maintains, or has constructed 36 federal flood control dams, 100 local protection projects, and five hurricane barriers. 93

Norfolk District

Storage Area Project that combines a large dam/tidal barrier with three locks downstream between Boston and Cambridge and nearly 8,000 acres of upstream nonstructural floodplain storage.

NEW YORK DISTRICT 26 Federal Plaza • New York, NY 10278-0090 Tel: (917) 790-8007 New York District is the “Cradle of the Corps.” The birth of the Army Corps of Engineers began in New York. New York District’s history began when Gen. George Washington named Col. Rufus Putnam as chief engineer for the defenses of New York. Today, New York District is a full-service district working vital civil, military, and environmental projects in the most densely populated geography of any USACE district. The New York District is responsible for overall military design and construction management in northern New Jersey, New York, and Thule, Greenland. The U.S. Military Academy (USMA), West Point is located in New York District’s Area of Responsibility as well as various joint bases and Army installations. There are ongoing high-visibility construction projects at USMA West Point and Fort Drum, New York. New York District’s civil works responsibilities include areas in northern New Jersey, eastern New York state, portions of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The New York District is also responsible for coastal restoration associated with Hurricane Sandy – an ongoing mission that includes more than 60 projects at a cost of $3.2 billion. In addition to work related to Hurricane Sandy, New York District is also deepening the shipping channels to 50 feet in the New York Harbor in the Port of New York and New

U.S. ARMY PHOTO BY PATRICK BLOODGOOD

The missions of USACE in New England include engineering environmental remediation; support to Army and Air Force installations and missions; flood control; natural resource management; streambank and shoreline protection; navigation improvements and maintenance; disaster and emergency assistance; regulatory administration (about 6,000 permit applications annually); and engineering and construction management support to other agencies. The New England District project sites total more than 50,000 acres that include 36 dams and reservoirs in five river basins. Some of this land is periodically used to store floodwaters, but in their natural state, these lands make ideal habitats for fish and wildlife. The district’s project sites are also managed to provide recreational opportunities. The New England District also operates, manages, and maintains the world’s widest sea level canal – the Cape Cod Canal. The New England District has had a history of unique projects and programs. Under its IIS services, the district provides engineering and construction support to many other federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the EPA, and the Interior Department. The New England District is proud to have pioneered the construction of hurricane barriers. The Fox Point Hurricane Barrier in Rhode Island was the first in the nation. Today, the New England region has five, with the district operating the barriers with navigational features in New Bedford, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; and Stamford, Connecticut. The New England District also pioneered the use of nonstructural flood control with the Belmont Park Project in Warwick, Rhode Island, and the Charles River Natural Valley

Jersey. This $1.8 billion project will enhance navigation and the environment while ensuring the future success of a vital economic engine serving 35 percent of the American population. New York District’s Drift Collection and Floatables Program operates year-round, with crews aboard debris collection vessels removing obstructions and debris in the harbor waters that pose a hazard to navigation. The program is a cooperative effort with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the states of New York and New Jersey, and the City of New York. The New York District is also a center of expertise for coastal design, construction, and maintenance. New York District is a key player in environmental restoration efforts, including supporting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at various Superfund sites. New York District personnel stand ready to deploy in support of overseas contingency operations, both stateside and abroad.

NORFOLK DISTRICT 803 Front Street • Norfolk, VA 23510 Tel: (757) 201-7606 Established in 1879 and headquartered at historic Fort Norfolk, the men and women of the Norfolk District execute the district’s military, civil works, environmental, and emergency operations missions in support of the nation, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and its communities. The district’s military program includes premier engineering, construction, project management, real estate, and environmental management products and services for nine U.S. Army/U.S. Air Force installations in the Commonwealth of Virginia, including Arlington National Cemetery, Defense Supply Center Richmond, Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee, Fort Pickett, the National Ground Intelligence Center, Radford Ammunition Plant, and Joint Base Langley-Eustis. The Norfolk District’s IIS program provides planning, engineering design and construction management, environmental services, and technical services related to water, natural resources, buildings, and infrastructure. Customers include NOAA, NASA Wallops Flight Facility, and NASA Langley Research Center. Norfolk District’s civil works mission provides water resources support Virginia’s towns, counties, and cities, as well as nongovernmental organizations, with environmental restoration, flood risk management, and navigation products and services. The district’s civil works boundaries cover more than 21,000 square miles and include the Rappahannock, York, James, and Chowan river basins, as well as the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay coastal basin. The district is also responsible for the Port of Virginia, the country’s largest coal-exporting terminal and the fourth busiest container port in the nation. The district operates and maintains 38 miles of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The district’s Regulatory Program covers Virginia’s 42,775 square miles, evaluates more than 4,000 permit applications, and annually performs another 4,000-plus pre-application site visits and jurisdictional determinations. The district’s real estate specialists plan, acquire, lease, manage and dispose of fee, and other interests in real property for both civil works and military installation projects, and manages the Army Residential Communities Initiative and Privatization of Army Lodging.

PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT Wanamaker Building • 100 Penn Square East Philadelphia, PA 19107-3390 Tel: (215) 656-6515 The Philadelphia District manages water resources throughout the Delaware River Basin and along the New Jersey and Delaware coasts; executes military construction projects at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, Tobyhanna Army Depot, Pennsylvania, and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey; and provides engineering, environmental, and project management services for other federal agencies on a reimbursable basis. Within its five-state geographic area, the district maintains more than 550 miles of navigable waterways, most notably the 40-foot Delaware River, Philadelphia to the Sea federal channel (to be fully deepened to 45 feet by 2017) and the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which the district owns, operates, and maintains – along with the five highway bridges that span the canal. Philadelphia is also homeport to the McFarland, one of only four USACE-owned oceangoing hopper dredges on call 24/7 for emergency operations. Philadelphia is especially known among USACE districts for its coastal storm damage reduction program. Since 1990 the district has built 12 beach nourishment projects between Barnegat Inlet, New Jersey, and the Delaware-Maryland line. After Superstorm Sandy (late 2012), the district’s FEMA missions in New Jersey included closing a breach that had severed one community from the mainland, dewatering a major sewage treatment plant, and refurbishing former Army barracks for temporary housing. Then in 2013, the district fully restored all its existing beachfill and dune systems, with five more started or approaching construction since 2014. The district operates five dams in eastern Pennsylvania with a long history of reducing flood damages while providing water supply, water quality, and recreation. Best known are Blue Marsh Lake near Reading, which annually hosts about 1.5 million day visitors, and F.E. Walter Dam in the Pocono Mountains, whose annual flow management plan benefits both rafting and fishing enthusiasts. An increasing share of the district’s workload in recent years has supported ecosystem restoration. At New Jersey’s Lower Cape May Meadows, a protective dune and berm was combined with the clearing of marsh reeds and reseeding of native vegetation to preserve freshwater migratory bird habitat. Other projects have involved building fish passages, removing obsolete dams, and revitalizing urban streams. Military milestones include a $1 billion, 1.5-million-square-foot electronics research and development campus at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, built under BRAC 2005; a new mortuary, personal effects depot, and medical examiner facility at Dover Air Force Base; and the district’s dedicated contracting support to the Army’s 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power), since 2003 totaling more than $3 billion to deliver centralized power plants and distribution grids in Iraq and Afghanistan. For nearly three decades the Philadelphia District’s remediation of toxic waste sites in New Jersey has accounted for a major share of USACE’s nationwide support to the EPA Superfund program, from Lipari Landfill (once ranked as EPA’s No. 1 cleanup priority) to several projects still ongoing. Other major federal customers engaging 95

NORTHWESTERN DIVISION P.O. Box 2870 • Portland, OR 97208-2870 Tel: (503) 808-3733 The Northwestern Division covers all or parts of 14 states and nearly 1 million square miles. The division owns or manages more than 1.8 million acres of military property, including 13 Army, 17 Air Force, and one joint base, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, installations. The Northwestern Division has 465 miles of navigable waters in the Columbia River Basin and 735 miles in the Missouri River Basin. It maintains 22 deep-draft and 20 shallow-draft harbors. The division oversees 255 flood-protection projects (flood walls, levees, channel improvements) and 91 flood-control projects containing 115 million acre-feet of flood storage, or about 35 percent of the total USACE water storage capacity. There are 2,956 miles of levees in the division. Northwestern Division power plants on the Columbia, Snake, and Missouri rivers generate almost 75 billion kilowatts of power per year, which is about 75 percent of the total USACE hydroelectric capacity. The division also oversees an annual program of about $3.5 billion in military, civil works, and environmental restoration activities, executed through its five district offices.

KANSAS CITY DISTRICT 601 East 12th Street • Kansas City, MO 64106-2896 Tel: (816) 389-3486 With more than 165,000 square miles of district operations and a century of vision, achievement, and service as the “Heartland’s Engineers,” the Kansas City District provides comprehensive engineering, management, and technical support to help defend America’s security – militarily, economically, and environmentally. The district’s civil works boundaries span the states of Kansas and Missouri and parts of Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska. The district maintains 500 miles of the Missouri River from Rulo, Nebraska, to St. Louis and operates 18 multipurpose reservoirs in Kansas, Missouri, southern Iowa, and southern Nebraska that welcome more than 15 million annual visitors. Additionally, the district’s levee safety program provides assistance to 156 flood risk management projects that reduce risk to communities along the heartland’s rivers and tributaries. All told, these facilities have paid off tremendously, preventing more than $32.5 billion in flood damages. Whether supporting engineering projects in the Midwest, serving volunteer tours overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of overseas contingency operations, or joining the effort to recover from catastrophic tornadoes, hurricanes, or floods, the professionals of the Kansas City District continue to answer the call of the nation, as it has since 1907.

OMAHA DISTRICT 1616 Capitol Avenue, Suite 9000 • Omaha, NE 68102-1618 Tel: (402) 995-2417 The Omaha District is a full-service district covering 700,000 square miles and maintains 27 dams, including six giant 96

multipurpose main stem dams and reservoirs along the upper Missouri River Basin. More than 1,300 employees execute a $1 billion-plus program across 2,300 projects annually including military construction projects in eight states, civil works projects in nine states, regulatory program in 6 states, real estate services in 10 states, and environmental restoration projects in 41 states. With incredible geographic diversity, including the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Badlands of the Dakotas, lakes of Minnesota, and Great Plains of the Midwest, the district is home to 53 Federally-recognized Tribal Nations. In addition to Mandatory Centers of Expertise in Protective Design and Transportation, the Omaha District also hosts Centers of Expertise in Rapid Response, Interior Design, and Fuels Systems, as well as a Military Munitions Restoration Program Design Center and Dam Safety Production Center.

PORTLAND DISTRICT P.O. Box 2946 • Portland, OR 97208-2946 Tel: (503) 808-4510 Serving the needs of the Pacific Northwest since 1871, today the Portland District provides products and services in civil works areas such as flood risk mitigation, navigation, hydroelectric power production, ecosystem restoration, fish and wildlife enhancement, emergency preparedness and response, irrigation, water quality, recreation, and regulatory duties. The district’s boundaries cover 79,405 square miles in western and central Oregon and 8,740 square miles in southwestern Washington. The district has a strong environmental mission looking at ways to protect, preserve, and restore our fragile environment. Throughout the organization,

Omaha District

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PHOTO BY EILEEN WILLIAMSON

the district’s services have been FEMA, the Coast Guard, Navy, Veterans Affairs, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Federal Aviation Administration.

people are working to identify ways to minimize the impact that dams and their operations have on migrating salmon. Clean, inexpensive hydroelectric power is the chief output of the dams’ operations. Each year, the district produces about 25 million megawatt-hours of electricity (worth $1.36 billion) – the most of any district within USACE.

SEATTLE DISTRICT P.O. Box 3755 • Seattle, WA 98124-3755 Tel: (206) 764-3750 The services Seattle District provides and the customers it serves are extremely diverse. The district provides a full range of civil and military services. Facilities design and construction for military installations represent the majority of the district’s military program, from major Army construction such as the wastewater treatment plant for Joint Base Lewis-McChord, to Reserve centers, to Air Force hangars, and quality-of-life facilities. The district’s hazardous, toxic, and radiological waste remediation program includes support to active and former military installations and other federal agencies such as the EPA. The district’s civil works services concentrate around hydropower, flood damage reduction, navigation, regulatory, and disaster response programs, as well as environmental protection and improvement – from protecting wetlands to ecological restoration. The district is a center of expertise nationally for historic preservation, the Army’s program manager for constructing morale, welfare and recreation facilities, and a leader in emergency preparation and response. Seattle District employees are deployed in Afghanistan in support of overseas contingency operations, and travel around the region and nation responding to natural and man-made disasters.

WALLA WALLA DISTRICT 201 North 3rd Avenue • Walla Walla, WA 99362-1876 Tel: (509) 527-7020 The Walla Walla District was established in 1948 to build McNary Dam on the Columbia River near Umatilla, Oregon, slightly downriver from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near the Tri-Cities area in Washington. The district’s civil works boundaries generally follow the Snake River basin and include approximately 107,000 square miles in six states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, and portions of Nevada and Utah. The district is USACE’s second-largest hydropower producer, capable of providing a total generating capacity of 4,413 megawatts to the federal Columbia River Power System. The district also is pioneering some of the most advanced fish and salmon research in the world to include providing fish passage at all its Snake and Columbia rivers’ dams. The district operates and maintains the federal navigation channel from McNary Dam on the Columbia River through four lower Snake River projects, providing a navigable waterway 465 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean to Lewiston, Idaho, with a market commodity value of $3 billion. The Walla Walla District also provides engineering, environmental, and planning services to the region under the continuing authorities program and has established an office in Boise to assist local and state governments in Idaho with using these services.

PACIFIC OCEAN DIVISION Building 525 • Fort Shafter, HI 96858-5440 Tel: (808) 835-4715 The Pacific Ocean Division (POD) stretches from Alaska and the Arctic Circle in the north to American Samoa below the equator in the south. It encompasses Hawaii, and then moves across the international dateline and across Polynesia to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Republic of Palau. From there, the division’s boundaries extend out of Micronesia and into Southeast and Far East Asia. Within its area of responsibility, the Pacific Ocean Division is the Department of Defense engineering, design, and construction agent for the Army in Alaska and Hawaii, and for the Air Force in Alaska. POD designs and builds for all of the services – the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines – in Japan, Republic of Korea, and Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands. Most notably the division contributes significantly to the peace and security in the Pacific region through the execution of multibillion-dollar construction programs for U.S. forces in Japan and the Republic of Korea. The annual program of the division amounts to $5 billion. Its 1,500-strong workforce produces every type of construction imaginable in support of service members and their families throughout the region, from barracks to high-rise family housing, from fitness centers to child care centers, and from ship berths to aircraft runways and hangars. It is the only USACE division whose division and district headquarters are all located on military installations (three Army, one Air Force). Additionally, the division has a civil works mission in Alaska and Hawaii. It is responsible for executing the federal water resources development program there and also in U.S.-controlled land in the Pacific. POD also has civil works projects ongoing in the U.S. territories of Guam and American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Most of its civil works activities and capabilities are focused in the areas of navigation, flood and coastal storm damage reduction, and ecosystem restoration. Typical projects include deep- and shallow-draft harbors, riverine and coastal structures, and wetland restoration. In addition to its planning, design, construction and operations and maintenance responsibilities for water resources development, it has a responsibility to regulate or oversee certain activities in the nation’s waters to protect its quality and availability through its Regulatory Program. Ancillary to these duties are environmental services that include studies and hazardous and toxic waste cleanup. On a reimbursable basis, the division also performs work for other military commands, federal and state agencies, and sovereign island nations in the Pacific. The former United Nations Trust Territories of Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Federated States of Micronesia are prime examples where the Pacific Ocean Division continues to provide important environmental and engineering design and construction services on a reimbursable basis. Pacific Ocean Division also supports U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Army Pacific’s Theater Security Cooperation strategies, Humanitarian Assistance Program, and Civil Military Emergency Preparedness with projects throughout the Asia Pacific region. 97

ALASKA DISTRICT P.O. Box 6898 • Anchorage, AK 99506-0898 Tel: (907) 753-2522 Since its establishment in 1946, more than a decade before statehood, the Alaska District has served as the nation’s leader in arctic engineering and construction to forge an influential role in the development of the “Last Frontier.” The organization’s area of responsibility encompasses the largest state in the union, spanning 586,412 square miles and measuring one-fifth the size of the lower 48 states combined. This territory presents an extreme operating environment marked by a harsh climate, rugged landscape, austere conditions and remote project sites. As a full-service district, major programs include military construction and civil works development as well as environmental cleanup and restoration. The agency also provides contracting, regulatory, real estate and emergency management services, along with operations and maintenance functions. Its military program constructs world-class facilities for America’s Army and Air Force on-time and within budget, while helping to provide economic stability in the Far North. These projects boost warrior readiness, training and quality of life. In a state valued as a strategic military location, the Alaska District also assists the DOD Missile Defense Agency with enhancements to its operational capability. These efforts strengthen the ballistic missile defense system to shield the United States and its allies from attack. The organization’s civil works program builds and maintains small boat harbors to back an industry that supplies half of the country’s fish harvest, while enriching the marine transportation framework in a state with few roads. As directed by the administration and Congress, the agency also protects rural communities from shoreline erosion associated with climate change. Furthermore, the Alaska District operates USACE’s northern-most flood risk mitigation project in North Pole. Since operations began in 1979, the Chena River Lakes Flood Control Project has managed 22 flood events to keep Fairbanks and surrounding communities safe from high water during the spring and fall. The Formerly Used Defense Sites Program in Alaska, which is responsible for the environmental remediation of military sites from the World War II era, remains steady with funding at $30 million a year and work expected to continue beyond 2020. In addition, the agency’s regulatory program, which protects aquatic resources while allowing for reasonable development, is one of the largest in the nation and processes more than 1,500 permit actions annually. USACE authorization is required for proposed projects that impact wetlands or waterways – such as oil and gas development, mining operations and property improvements ranging from roads to bridges to docks. Meanwhile, the Alaska District operates on the forefront of the U.S. defense strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. It supports the U.S. Pacific Command’s Humanitarian Assistance Program by providing schools, medical clinics and other key facilities in seven countries throughout Southeast Asia. Under the DOD Foreign Military Sales program, the organization oversees the design and construction 98

of critical infrastructure for C-17 Globemaster III aircraft at Hindon Air Force Station in India. Through the State Department’s Global Peace Operations Initiative, the district manages construction of training centers for host-nation peacekeeping forces in Bangladesh and Mongolia. In addition, it assists the U.S. Agency for International Development with the establishment of roads and multipurpose cyclone shelters in Bangladesh. Lastly, the organization is prepared to engage in response and recovery missions following natural or manmade disasters within the Pacific Region. These activities often involve the delivery of critical assistance to communities impacted by earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. To date, more than 600 personnel have deployed from Alaska to participate in overseas contingency operations and civil emergencies.

FAR EAST DISTRICT Unit 15546 • APO AP 96205-5546 Tel: (011-82) 2270-7301 Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, USACE’s Far East District provides high-quality planning, engineering, design, contracting, and construction management services across the full spectrum of military operations in support of DOD agencies. From the Demilitarized Zone to the southern coast of the Korean peninsula, the Far East District team focuses on delivering quality facilities to enhance military readiness and improve the quality of life for Soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, civilians, and their family members through military construction, host-nation-funded construction, non-appropriated funds, and sustainment, restoration, and modernization projects.

HONOLULU DISTRICT Building 230 • Fort Shafter, HI 96858-5440 Tel: (808) 835-4004 Honolulu District’s AOR spans five time zones, the equator, and the International Dateline. It covers an estimated 12 million square miles from the Hawaiian Islands to American Samoa, through Micronesia to Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The district accomplishes military missions, including military construction, real estate, and environmental services for the Army and Air Force in Hawaii, for all DOD agencies in Kwajalein Atoll, and for other defense agencies in its AOR as assigned. Honolulu District also has a civil works mission: federal water resource management and development, focusing on navigation, flood control, and shore protection in Hawaii, the U.S. territories of Guam and American Samoa, and the Marianas. The district also has regulatory jurisdiction governing work in waters and wetlands of the United States within its AOR.

JAPAN ENGINEER DISTRICT APO AP 96338-5010 Tel: (011-81) 311-763-3575 The Japan Engineer District services 88 U.S. Forces Japan installations supporting 48,000 service members, DOD civilians, and their families as the designated construction agent for U.S. MILCON (military construction) and host-nation-funded construction

programs in Japan. The district provides support to all U.S. installations in planning, design, and construction of operations and maintenance reimbursable projects. Host-nation-funded work includes projects funded by the Japan Facilities Improvement Program, Special Action Committee on Okinawa program, and the Defense Policy Review Initiative program. From its inception in fiscal years 1979-2008, the host-nation-funded construction programs have benefited U.S. forces with $23 billion in construction projects. Total annual construction placement for the district exceeds $700 million. The district supports U.S. forces, installations, and agencies with planning, engineering, construction, environmental, and other related services. The district provides construction surveillance through the Okinawa Area Office and six resident offices based throughout mainland Japan.

SOUTH ATLANTIC DIVISION Room 10M15, 60 Forsyth Street SW Atlanta, GA 30303-8801 Tel: (404) 562-5011 USACE’s South Atlantic Division is one of eight regional offices of USACE overseeing military and water resources design, construction, and operation in the eight states in the Southeast, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. The division has five districts located in Wilmington, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Jacksonville, Florida; and Mobile, Alabama. The South Atlantic Division designs and builds major military facilities for the Army and Air Force in the Southeast. Serving 14 major Army posts and 13 Air Force bases, the division builds barracks, hospitals, office buildings, commissaries, and other facilities to meet the needs of the American military. Within the division boundaries, 32 percent of the stateside Army and 18 percent of the Air Force find their home, and six major commands have their headquarters. Thirty-three multipurpose projects in the Southeast provide citizens with flood damage reduction, hydroelectric power, water supply, recreation, navigation, and wildlife enhancement. The division operates and maintains more than 6,000 miles of federal navigable channel and 32 deep-draft harbors in the region. The division also has a growing environmental restoration workload, including the largest single environmental restoration project in the world, the Everglades restoration in South Florida. USACE works in concert with the private sector in accomplishing its military and water resources programs. By contracting with architect-engineer, construction, and many other types of companies, the South Atlantic Division designs, builds, and operates dams, waterways, buildings, recreational, and other facilities throughout the region.

and international support programs serve a diverse group of customers that spans not only South Carolina, but the entire United States, which keeps the staff of approximately 225 quite busy. The District’s civil works program includes the operation and maintenance of several navigation projects, the biggest project being Charleston Harbor– one of the nation’s 17 strategic ports. The District is currently in the preconstruction engineering and design phase of the Charleston Harbor Post 45 Deepening Project, one of the President’s “We Can’t Wait” initiatives. During the PED phase, the team will complete a detailed engineering and technical study and the design that is needed before construction can begin. Most recently, the project went through a ship simulation to see how the design in our feasibility study could be refined. The team is also developing beneficial use options for the dredge material. The U.S. Army Reserve 81st Regional Support Command remains one of the district’s larger customers. The District provides facility investment service contracts for issues such as HVAC systems repair, changing out electrical panels, investigating and sealing roof and window leaks, and repairing sewer lines across nine states in the Southeast and Puerto Rico. The District manages military construction, sustainment, restoration and modernization work and preventive maintenance services for Fort Jackson, which trains 44,000 Soldiers entering the Army each year. Through its robust IIS program, the District provides contracting support, engineering and design support, facility management, construction management, and project management for customers such as the departments of Energy and State and the Defense Logistics Agency, MARFORRES and the VA. The Charleston District Regulatory Division has initiated the preparation of a major Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed Jasper Ocean Terminal port facility. The project is a joint venture between Georgia and South Carolina, and is proposed along with other port facility improvements in both states to meet increased shipping container volumes resulting from the newly expanded Panama Canal. A few highlights of the year were christening of new survey vessel, the SV Heiselman, named after a former District boat captain. This vessel will conduct surveys for all of the smaller waterway projects. The District established a Bee Pollinator program and will host 10 hives in support of the President’s National Pollinator Program and the new USACE Pollinator Program. The District was also awarded the Army’s Kathy CanhamRoss Award of Distinction for their “Pulling for Unity: Harvesting Sweetgrass in Memory of the Mother Emanuel Victims” event. This award is the first in this category in USACE’s history. The District also partnered with the South Carolina Aquarium to host a display for their many visitors to learn about the importance of the fish passage the District operates in conjunction with DNR at our St. Stephen’s powerhouse.

CHARLESTON DISTRICT 69A Hagood Avenue • Charleston, SC 29403-5107 Tel: (843) 329-8123

JACKSONVILLE DISTRICT 701 San Marco Boulevard • Jacksonville, FL 32207 P.O. Box 4970 • Jacksonville, FL 32232-0019 Tel: (904) 232-2568

The Charleston District has a wide and varied program that grows larger every year. The civil works, military construction, and interagency

Boasting a diverse culture and geography, Jacksonville District is a USACE pioneer, leading the largest coordinated ecosystem 99

Mobile District

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the second-largest freshwater lake within U.S. boundaries, is undergoing a $1 billion rehabilitation to provide continued protection for south Florida communities. The district’s AOR covers the Caribbean Basin and includes support for the USAID in Haiti and other Caribbean nations. The district has an office in Puerto Rico, home of the first single-centered, roller-compacted concrete thickarch dam built by USACE in United States territory and a state-ofthe-art school at Fort Buchanan, one of the first Department of Defense Education Activity schools to incorporate 21st century school design elements and which is expected to achieve a LEED® Silver rating. District projects have received USACE, national, and international recognition.

MOBILE DISTRICT 109 Saint Joseph Street • Mobile, AL 36602-3630 Tel: (251) 690-2511 • Fax: (251) 690-2525 The Mobile District has both civil works and military missions throughout the southeastern United States and in Central and South America. The district’s military mission is in support of U.S.

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restoration ever undertaken – restoring America’s Everglades. This program involves the restoration and preservation of natural habitats; improvement to water storage and movement for more natural flows; development of controls for invasive exotic plants and animals; field and laboratory research; and water quality improvement. The district maintains 1,500 miles of Florida’s coastal shoreline and 900 miles of inland waterways. Nine of Florida’s ports are in the top 100 in the United States in terms of annual tonnage; two (Jacksonville and Miami) were included in President Barack Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” initiative, along with the Central Everglades Planning Project. The district is an innovator in flood damage reduction and water management, has the largest Regulatory program in USACE, and serves as the national Center of Expertise for aquatic plant control operations. The district is the only USACE district with an unmanned aerial vehicle program, which has a broad range of potential applications in monitoring invasive species, beach erosion, the structural condition of levees and canal banks and conducting biological investigations and wildlife census. Herbert Hoover Dike, which surrounds Lake Okeechobee,

Army, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy installations located in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee. This work includes design and construction management for a multitude of different types of facilities such as medical centers, dormitories, aircraft facilities, sewage treatment plants, gymnasiums, and family housing. The district also provides engineering studies and other technical assistance such as master planning, environmental management, and real estate support. Interagency and International services (IIS) is USACE’s program providing technical assistance to non-DOD federal agencies, state and local governments, tribal nations, private U.S. firms, international organizations, and foreign governments. Most IIS work is funded on a reimbursable basis. USACE provides engineering and construction services, environmental restoration and management services, research and development assistance, management of water- and land-related natural resources, relief and recovery work, and other management and technical services. A few customers include: the Federal Bureau of Investigations, VA, and NASA. Since 1970, Mobile District has been the USACE lead agent for all activity in Central and South America when it assumed responsibility for support to the Panama Canal. In this role, Mobile District has executed hundreds of projects across the region, ranging from the planning design, and construction of entire military installations to small humanitarian projects designed to improve the quality of life for the local populace. To accomplish this important mission, Mobile District relies on a dedicated team of professionals who work directly from USACE offices in Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, and El Salvador. Established in 1815, the Mobile District’s civil works mission now covers more than 96,000 square miles in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi. It includes all river, harbor, and flood damage reduction works within the drainage basins of six major river systems. The district’s civil works mission includes navigation within five major inland waterways with more than 2,200 miles of inland navigation, seven deep-water harbors, and 21 shallow-draft ports; flood damage reduction with more than 67 projects, which have prevented in excess of $200 million in flood damages during the last 10 years; eight hydropower facilities generating 2 billion kilowatts of electricity and returning $23 million to the U.S. Treasury; one of the largest recreation programs in the federal government, with 27 lakes and 464 recreation and nature areas averaging more than 28 million visits a year; and water supply for municipalities, industry, and irrigation. The Mississippi Coastal Improvement Program (MSCIP) is a comprehensive plan to increase the resiliency of the Mississippi coast to future storms including non-structural and structural risk-reduction measures and ecosystem restoration. MSCIP was authorized in the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 and comprehensive restoration of the Mississippi barrier islands began February 2015.

SAVANNAH DISTRICT 100 W. Oglethorpe Avenue • Savannah, GA 31401 Tel: (912) 652-5279 With a large military construction program and extensive civil works projects, two of the Savannah District’s primary missions

include support to national security, plus water resource management across the region. The Savannah District serves the communities of seven Army and four Air Force installations in Georgia and North Carolina. The district has more than $820 million under construction or contract to build or renovate barracks, dining facilities, training areas, command and control buildings, child care facilities, and more. The district is currently leading the construction effort involved in relocating the Army’s Cyber Command to Fort Gordon, Georgia. Through this relocation Fort Gordon is expected to increase by more than 4,000 military members and dependents over the next five years. The massive regional security operations center is only one part of this $500 million dollar effort to transform Fort Gordon’s installation. On the civil works side, the district’s annual routine maintenance dredging ensures global access for ships carrying imports and exports through deep-water ports at Savannah and Brunswick, Georgia. Additionally, the district is overseeing the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project – a plan designed to deepen the port’s navigation channel from its current 42-foot depth to a 47-foot depth and extend the length from 33 to 40 miles. The project has a remarkable benefit-to-cost ratio and is expected to net more than a hundred million dollars annually in economic benefits to the United States over a 50-year period. Farther upstream, the district operates and maintains three hydroelectric dams and reservoirs on the Savannah River. The Hartwell, Richard B. Russell, and J. Strom Thurmond projects have prevented an estimated $220 million in flood damage since constructed. The projects also enhance water supply and quality for municipalities and industry, and produce 2 million megawatt-hours of low-cost, clean, renewable energy each year. Encompassing more than 200,000 acres of land and water, these outdoor havens attract more than 18 million visitors annually. Commercial developers and private citizens turn to the Savannah District Regulatory Program to evaluate permit applications when construction plans could impact streams or wetlands in the state of Georgia. Through fair, flexible, and balanced permit decisions, the district helps protect the nation’s aquatic resources, while allowing reasonable development. Savannah District’s emergency management operations assists in disaster recovery efforts, responding to emergencies such as Hurricane Sandy, when a 12-person emergency power team deployed to Pennsylvania. The district has also deployed more than 200 civilians to Iraq and Afghanistan in support of overseas contingency operations. These volunteers facilitated construction efforts of critical infrastructure in these countries. The multi-disciplined Savannah District team remains committed to the partners, stakeholders, and customers it serves. It has been designated as a regional or national center of expertise for emerging programs including energy independence, subsurface explorations, mitigation bank development, and environmental services. The Savannah District has promoted a strong sense of community by providing jobs and contracts to large and small businesses, including disadvantaged-, minority-, and veteran-owned small businesses, since 1829. Its community outreach efforts give 101

encouragement and guidance to local schools and universities. Through these partnerships, team Savannah lays the foundation for continued support of the engineering requirements, environmental needs, and economic future development of the district, region, and nation.

WILMINGTON DISTRICT 69 Darlington Avenue • Wilmington, NC 28403 Tel: (910) 251-4626 Today, the Wilmington District stands at the threshold of a new era. In the past, the district might best have been described as an independent district working cooperatively with others. Today, it is one of five interdependent districts operating regionally. Instant communication and common business practices empower it to enhance services and create efficiencies. The district has transformed many times since the late 1700s when USACE first began to improve navigation in coastal North Carolina. In 1884, a permanent USACE office was established on the Cape Fear River with a sole purpose: to support the states’ leading port and waterway. In time, our role expanded to encompass river basin management. We built and operated dams and reservoirs for flood risk management and hydropower production. Today, some of those facilities have celebrated more than 50 years of operation, and are undergoing major renovations and re-evaluations to adjust management practices to better reflect today’s conditions and environmental values. The district includes six river basins and more than 300 miles of the Atlantic shoreline. The district’s mission is to provide North Carolina and the Virginia Roanoke River Basin with water resources and navigation project development, management, and integration. This includes environmental remediation and restoration as well as regulatory permitting, enforcement, and emergency response, recovery, and mitigation. Our history traces a growing responsiveness to environmental concerns, and we incorporate environmental principles in all we do. We have taken a leadership role in wetlands management. We’ve partnered with North Carolina to help create a nationally recognized Ecosystem Enhancement Program, a powerful concept that we share with other Southern states. The Wilmington District’s coastal storm damage reduction projects and disaster response and recovery operations have proven effective through several years of severe hurricanes. The district’s biggest endeavor is the Wilmington Harbor Project, deepening the Cape Fear River channel from 38 to 42 feet and enabling larger ships to call at the Port of Wilmington. It’s the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken in North Carolina and also included beneficial-use placement of dredged, beach-quality material on area shorelines. Since early 2003, more than 60 Wilmington District employees have volunteered for service in Iraq and Afghanistan. They, side by side with our mobilized reservist and guardsmen, testify to the selfless service and unique quality and character of the people who make up USACE. The district’s mission has expanded to include military construction. The district serves the needs of the U.S. Army Special 102

Operations and Joint Special Operations commands at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, providing engineering design, project, and construction management for improved facilities to better serve our Soldiers and civilians involved in our critical overseas missions. Whether in a continuing regional role, like our dredge fleet’s east coast operations, or in new missions supporting other geographic areas, Wilmington District team members are eager to join their skills, passion, and spirit of creative cooperation with those same outstanding qualities found all over the South Atlantic Region to better serve you, our customers and stakeholders.

SOUTH PACIFIC DIVISION 1455 Market Street • San Francisco, CA 94103-1398 Tel: (415) 503-6800 Established in 1888, the South Pacific Division is “Building Strong and Taking Care of People!” Its workforce of 2,300 civilian and military engineers, scientists and technical experts manages a $1.5 billion annual military and civil works design and construction program. The region encompasses California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of five other Western states. Four operating districts are headquartered in Albuquerque, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. The division is also home to two USACE virtual centers of expertise – the Range Support Military Munitions Design Center and the Dam Safety Production Center. The division supports 13 Army and 12 Air Force installations. The Air Force is the largest military customer. South Pacific Division is currently executing one of the largest Air Force modernization programs in the nation. More than 25 percent of all Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) and 38 percent of all Military Munitions Response Program sites in the nation are in this region. The division currently manages cleanup of munitions at more than 1,700 FUDS. Key civil works missions are flood risk reduction, navigation, and environmental restoration. Fifteen of the 25 fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States are in this diverse region, where water is precious and there is tremendous economic and environmental focus on integrated water management. Five major river basins include the Sacramento, San Joaquin, Santa Ana, Colorado, and Rio Grande. Most of the region gets less than 20 inches of precipitation a year; however, due to climate and geography, peak runoff flows occur in a very short time, setting conditions for cycles of flood, drought and wildfire disasters. South Pacific Division manages 46 USACE dams and reservoirs for flood risk, water supply, environmental stewardship and recreation, in cooperation with local water supply managers and other stakeholders. California’s ports and harbors are the gateways for more than 250 million tons of foreign and domestic cargo annually. The division maintains five major deep-draft ports to depths greater than 40 feet, six operational ports to 20 to 40 feet, plus 17 small craft harbors, and 429 miles of federal channels. The two largest container ports are Los Angeles and Long Beach, California.

Together they contribute more than 1.6 million jobs and $40 billion per year to the economy. The region is home to more than one-quarter of all threatened and endangered species in the nation. USACE issues permits for all construction activities affecting U.S. water – balancing development with healthy aquatic resources. The division averages 3,400 general permits, 300 individual permits, and 4,500 jurisdictional determinations annually.

ALBUQUERQUE DISTRICT 4101 Jefferson Plaza NE • Albuquerque, NM 87109 Tel: (505) 342-3349 The Albuquerque District covers all of New Mexico, about a third of Colorado, and one-fifth of Texas. The district recently celebrated 75 years of civil works and other support to its regional customers. The civil works planning, design, and construction team works on flood risk management, ecosystem restoration, watershed studies and environmental infrastructure projects within New Mexico, southeast Colorado, and southwest Texas. Major flood risk management projects include levees along the Rio Grande from San Acacia to Bosque del Apache near Socorro, New Mexico, and levees from Albuquerque to Belen, New Mexico. One of the district’s key ecosystem restoration projects is centered on the area surrounding the Middle Rio Grande. The district performs design, construction, and operations and maintenance services for three New Mexico Air Force bases and design services to two Arizona Air Force bases. The district’s personnel have extensive experience in the design and construction of family housing, dormitories, bridges, hangars, research facilities, and airfields, as well as the remodeling of existing structures. Albuquerque District’s environmental program includes endangered species surveys, environmental assessments and impact statements, and cultural resource mitigation. The district is one of 20 partners supporting the Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Act Collaborative Program, aimed at protecting and improving the status of endangered species, while simultaneously protecting existing water uses. Tribal relations and partnership is very important to district personnel, as USACE operates two facilities on tribal lands and enjoys working under the Tribal Partnership Program.

LOS ANGELES DISTRICT 915 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 930 • Los Angeles, CA 90017 Tel: (213) 452-3333 The Los Angeles District provides civil works and military engineering support to Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, and parts of Utah. The scope of missions in the district varies from constructing a water treatment system in the desert at Fort Irwin, California, to its involvement along one of the nation’s most significant waterways, the Los Angeles River. Navigation channels maintained by the district for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach account for a majority of West Coast trade and shipping. Major projects to reduce disaster risk include improvements to Prado Dam and the Santa Ana River Mainstem project. The district is responsible for the operation and maintenance of 16 dams, 14

navigation projects, 13 miles of breakwaters, and 54 miles of flood control channels. The dams and recreation areas host more than 7 million visitors a year. Military missions at eleven installations are focused on support to the warfighter and include construction of a hospital at Fort Irwin, California, and F-35 facilities at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. Ecosystem restoration projects form a major part of the district’s workload and are transforming the way we deliver civil works projects. These include the Tres Rios project in the heart of Phoenix and the Los Angeles River ecosystem restoration study, focused on water quality improvements and passive recreation opportunities along portions of these rivers. The Interagency and International Support program allows the district to do work for other federal agencies by tailoring program support capabilities to customer requirements and budget. Major projects include construction of border patrol stations for DHS and rehabilitation of infrastructure at VA facilities. To prepare for tomorrow, the District reaches out to high schools and universities to increase awareness and interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education and career pathways to address the nation’s critical need for STEM professionals.

SACRAMENTO DISTRICT 1325 J Street • Sacramento, CA 95814 Tel: (916) 557-5100 The Sacramento District operates in parts of eight western states. It has nearly 1,000 employees covering that large territory, which includes robust civil works and military programs missions. The district’s work on the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins with the State of California and dozens of local stakeholders exemplifies USACE’s collaborative approach to problem solving for multiple objectives throughout watershed systems. The district is partnering with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, California Department of Water Resources, and the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency to dramatically reduce the Sacramento region’s flood risk by constructing an auxiliary spillway – a massive, new secondary dam at Folsom Dam – and many upgrades to the downstream levee system. The 43,000-square-mile Central Valley watershed, where the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Basins flow together to form a diverse delta, is a complex system of reservoirs, aging levees, weirs, and floodwater bypasses operated for water supply, floodplain management, land use, and ecosystem viability. This floodprone area is home to 4.4 million people, provides habitat for dozens of species, and is one of the nation’s great agricultural breadbaskets, accounting for 8 percent of U.S. agricultural production. It’s also a drinking water source for much of California. USACE shares responsibility in this complex issue with a host of local, state, and other federal stakeholders. The district is heavily involved in the Army’s Energy Conservation Investment Program (ECIP), with multiple projects in support of the Army’s goal to improve energy efficiency at DOD facilities, including plans to reach net zero energy use at some installations (creating all of the energy that the installation consumes). The Sacramento District is also a USACE center of expertise for 103

cleanup of hazardous, toxic, and radioactive waste, as well as the dam safety production center for the South Pacific Division.

SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT 1455 Market Street • San Francisco, CA 94103-1398 Tel: (415) 503-6804 Established in 1866, the San Francisco District oversees civil works missions in construction covering approximately 40,000 square miles, mostly along the northern California coastline from the Klamath River watershed in Oregon to San Louis Obispo, south of Monterey. The district’s programs and projects contribute more than $100 million annually to the regional economy. The district’s operation and maintenance program includes dredging more than 4.5 million cubic yards annually, including 1.5 million cubic yards in San Francisco Bay to keep navigation channels, harbors, and ports open for more than 100 million tons of cargo shipped to the area’s deep-water ports. The district helps build the nation’s long-term economic strength in an environmentally sustainable way through water supply management and flood damage reduction, shore and coastal protection, ecosystem restoration, and wildlife protection; all of these sustainable tools will be incorporated to protect the South San Francisco Bay Shoreline from future sea-level rise. Currently, the district is creating hundreds of acres of San Francisco Bay wetlands habitat through the beneficial reuse of dredged material. Dredge material is also being used to replenish Ocean Beach to mitigate years of erosion. Debris collection in San Francisco Bay, which averages 1,500 tons per year, is another high-visibility mission keeping cargo vessels and commuter ferries moving safely to port. Congress tasked the San Francisco District with removing debris from the San Francisco Bay’s federal channels in 1942 after a tragic accident involving a seaplane crashed into the bay carrying Navy Adm. Chester Nimitz. The district’s three recreation facilities average 1.5 million visitors annually. The Bay Model in Sausalito is a major visitor center with education programs focusing on the environmental, historical, and cultural elements of the region. The Bay Model originally served as a scientific tool used by engineers, scientists, and planners to analyze, in a laboratory setting, the effects of change on the physical tidal forces of the bay and delta region. Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma reduce flood risk, provide water supply and create a host of recreational activities. The district is a leader in sustainability, incorporating biofuel use into its debris vessel operations and installing solar energy at its three recreational properties which helps reduce its carbon footprint, highlighted by the 2,200 panel, 777,000 kilowatt solar energy system installed across the Bay Model’s 145,000 sq.ft. rooftop.

SOUTHWESTERN DIVISION 1100 Commerce Street, Suite 831 • Dallas, TX 75242-1317 Tel: (469) 487-7007 The Southwestern Division (SWD), headquartered in Dallas, Texas, has served the region since 1937, overseeing hundreds of water resources development and military design and construction 104

projects. Since that early beginning, the division has continued to grow in expertise and missions, seeking innovative solutions for future challenges. The division’s regional team, which includes four district offices in Little Rock, Arkansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Galveston and Fort Worth, Texas, provides diverse engineering and construction expertise and other services in all or portions of seven states. The division’s AOR covers some 2.3 million acres of public land and water, with an annual program totaling $2.6 billion. The division’s civil works mission area includes 90 lakes, which has prevented some $1.3 billion in average annual flood damage while providing 7.7 million acre-feet of water supply storage. SWD’s recreation areas are the most visited in USACE, with the division managing more than 11,400 miles of shoreline and 1,172 recreation sites. More than a half-billion tons of commerce are shipped annually over the SWD’s 1,458 miles of channels, including some 22 shallow-draft ports, 12 deep-draft ports, and 22 lock chambers, ranking it second in USACE for navigation. The division’s 18 hydropower plants provide enough electricity to power more than three-quarters of a million homes. Almost one-third of the nation’s military activities are located within the Southwestern Division boundaries, covering an area of some 443,700 square miles. The division provides new facilities, rehabilitates older ones, and provides other services at nine Air Force and nine Army installations. Across the region, SWD anticipates future military missions with focus on the restoration and modernization of existing facilities and continues to pursue ways to reduce of cost of military construction project delivery. In addition to the valuable contributions it provides each day to the communities it serves, the division supports emergency response and recovery efforts when hurricanes or other natural disasters occur, whether within or beyond its area of responsibility. Under its IIS mission, the Southwestern Division provides services to DHS, the VA, the Department of Justice, Native American governments, and various other federal, state, and local agencies.

FORT WORTH DISTRICT 819 Taylor Street, Room 3A24 P.O. Box 17300 • Fort Worth, TX 76102-0300 Tel: (817) 886-1306 The Fort Worth District, established in 1950 after disastrous floods in the area, is responsible for water resources development in two-thirds of Texas and military design and construction in Texas and parts of Louisiana and New Mexico. It covers a geographical area of approximately 410,000 square miles and employs just over 1,200 team members. The district’s operations and maintenance program includes 25 multipurpose projects, three hydropower plants, and 197 parks serving more than 25 million visitors annually. These reservoirs have prevented $82 billions of dollars in flood damages. The district has numerous ongoing studies and construction projects that will result in additional flood damage reduction and environmental restoration for the citizens of the Lone Star State. Fort Worth District also manages one of the largest military construction programs in USACE, supporting the Army, Air Force, DOD, and IIS customers. The district currently manages

approximately $2.6 billion worth of projects under construction and approximately $4 billion under design, including ranges and other training facilities, barracks, dining halls, hospitals, reimbursable and Soldier/family readiness centers. In addition, the district provides real estate support for recruiting commands, housing assistance for Soldiers, and leasing in support of emergency operations and military facility reuse. The district is also responsible for one of the largest FUDS programs with almost 900 sites identified. Fort Worth District provides planning, real estate, and construction support for all Department of Homeland Security projects with a focus on border security and assessment services for many military and civilian federal agencies. The district’s Regional Planning and Environmental Center provides support to a variety of USACE military and local sponsor projects for the Fort Worth, Tulsa, and Galveston districts.

GALVESTON DISTRICT P.O. Box 1229 • Galveston, TX 77553-1229 Tel: (409) 766-3004 The Galveston District, established in 1880 and fondly known as the “Custodians of the Coast,” plays a key role in America’s well-being by keeping waterways open for navigation and commerce and serves the nation as part of the world’s largest public engineering, design and construction management agency. Encompassing the Texas coast from Louisiana to Mexico – an area that spans 50,000 square miles contains more than 1,000 miles of channels (750 shallow draft and 250 deep draft) serving 28 ports and includes 700 miles of coastline – the district successfully executes its mission of providing vital public engineering services in peace and war to strengthen the nation’s security, energize the economy, and reduce risks from disasters. With its 300 dedicated professionals, the Galveston District continues to focus efforts along the Texas coast to improve and maintain Texas channels, support nonfederal investment in infrastructure, and protect our shorelines all while providing valuable navigation, flood risk mitigation, environmental, shoreline protection, regulatory, and emergency management services to the nation.

LITTLE ROCK DISTRICT P.O. Box 867 • Little Rock, AR 72203-0867 Tel: (501) 324-5551 The Little Rock District has been serving southern Missouri and Arkansas since 1881, with both military and civil missions. The district has a wealth of experience as a planning, design, and construction agency. It has a “can-do” reputation for delivering a quality product on time and within cost. Its employees include professionals in a wide range of disciplines who provide expertise in many areas. The district manages $6.5 billion worth of public infrastructure that provides tremendous benefits to the region and the nation. Among them are 12 multipurpose lakes in the White, Arkansas, and Little River basins that have prevented $3.2 billion in flood losses and provide drinking water to tens of thousands of people. The district’s 13 locks and dams and 308 miles of navigation channel on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System enable $3.7 billion worth of commerce to

move cleanly and efficiently, the equivalent of about half a million trucks not on the highways. The district’s 148 parks help generate nearly $1.1 million a year in visitor spending in the vicinity of district projects. The district’s seven hydroelectric plants have the capacity to generate enough electricity to power 500,000 average homes each year and prevent about 1.5 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

TULSA DISTRICT 1645 South 101 East Avenue • Tulsa, OK 74128-4609 Tel: (918) 669-7366 The Tulsa District was established in 1939, and its civil works boundaries include Oklahoma and parts of southern Kansas and northern Texas. The district’s civil works mission is one of the largest in USACE; it includes 38 multipurpose lakes, including five locks, dams, and pools on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. Although the primary purpose of district lakes is flood control, they also provide recreation, water supply, hydropower, navigation, and fish and wildlife habitat. The district’s navigation channel boasts the most inland, ice-free river port in America and provides waterway commerce to the heartland of the country. Tulsa District projects have prevented nearly $17 billion in flood damages, and the district’s eight hydropower facilities provide about $52 million in annual sales. The district has 267 parks with more campsites – 6,000 – than any other district in USACE. The Tulsa District’s military construction mission provides engineering and construction management services to two Army and four Air Force installations. During the last 10 years, the district has managed the design and construction of more than $1 billion in facilities for its military customer.

TRANSATLANTIC DIVISION P.O. Box 2250 • Winchester, VA 22604-1450 Tel: (540) 667-3173 The Transatlantic Division (TAD) is USACE’s ninth and newest major subordinate command with its headquarters in Winchester, Virginia. TAD stood up for the second time on Oct. 1, 2009, after its original establishment in 1991 to support the increased reconstruction activities following the 1990-1991 Gulf War, after which it was re-designated as a center in 1994. TAD provides engineering services to support U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) throughout their area of responsibility (AOR), which spans 20 countries from Egypt to the Arabian Gulf and Central Asia. TAD’s AOR is USACE’s second-largest operational area and the United States’ No. 1 priority. TAD administers thousands of projects overseas with a full spectrum of regional support, including the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), Afghan Infrastructure Fund (AIF), U.S. and coalition forces, counter-narcotics and border management, strategic reconstruction support to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP), to name a few. The Transatlantic Division has under its command the Transatlantic Middle East (TAM) District, formerly the Transatlantic Programs 105

TAD-KU also assists Area Support Group (ASG) – Kuwait (KU) with engineer support by creating building and constructions plans, to include wiring diagrams among other specifications, and performing inspections of the construction facilities on Camp Arifjan, Camp Buehring, the Kuwaiti Navy Base (KNB), and other U.S. facilities in Kuwait. TAD-KU also assists ASG-KU in the areas of real estate, contracting, and environmental matters.

TRANSATLANTIC AFGHANISTAN DISTRICT Attn: Bagram Airfield • APO AE 09354 Tel: (540) 678-2975

Center, in Winchester, Virginia; the Transatlantic Afghanistan (TAA) District in Kabul, Afghanistan; and the TAD Forward Operational Command Post (OCP) at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. The Division, its two Districts and the Forward OCP deliver high-intensity engineer capabilities for all of USCENTCOM providing USACE’s expertise in overseas contingency operations. USACE designated TAM as its worldwide Center of Standardization for Contingency Standard Designs and the Technical Center of Expertise for Aircraft Hangar Fire Protection. TAM supports USACE military construction and interagency and international programs while providing maximum reach back support to TAA. TAA continues Afghanistan reconstruction efforts and promotes infrastructure development while conducting project management, construction, and engineering to help establish a secure, stable environment and supports deployed coalition forces and other government agencies. TAD established a Forward OCP in Kuwait in 2015 with a mission to provide USCENTCOM and U.S. Army Central Command (USARCENT) with technical expertise in engineering and capabilities to anticipate and plan for future requirements while providing administrative and logistical support for USACE sourced teams across USCENTCOM in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR).

TRANSATLANTIC DIVISION-KUWAIT (TAD-KU) Attn: Camp Arifjan • APO AE 09366 Tel: (540) 667-3173 The Transatlantic Division (TAD) -Kuwait (KU) forward Operational Command Post (OCP) officially stood up in May 2015 and is the Transatlantic Division’s newest outpost with an office at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. TAD-KU’s mission is to provide liaison capability, technical engineering expertise, and planning capability to anticipate future requirements to U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) and U.S. Army Central Command (USARCENT) in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) while providing administrative and logistical support for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) sourced teams across the 20 countries in USCENTCOM’s area of responsibility (AOR). TAD-KU is USACE’s forward asset sharing and coordinating their engineering expertise for overseas contingency operations. 106

MIDDLE EAST DISTRICT P.O. Box 2250 • Winchester, VA 22604-1450 Tel: (540) 665-4085 USACE has worked in the Middle East for more than six decades. In the mid-1970s, USACE established a stateside organization near Winchester, Virginia, to support operations in Saudi Arabia. Over the next decade, USACE expanded its engineering services to other areas of the Middle East and Africa, concurrently changing its organizational structure and location to meet U.S. national security requirements. Today the Middle East District is a subordinate element of the Transatlantic Division and still provides skilled engineering and

USACE PHOTO

Transatlantic Afghanistan District

Established first as an area office and subsequently in 2004 as a district, the USACE Afghanistan Engineer District (AED) later split into two districts, AED-North in Kabul and AED-South in Kandahar. Since 2002, USACE has completed more than $11 billion in construction in Afghanistan, mostly building facilities for the Afghan National Security Forces. In July 2013, the two districts were inactivated and the Transatlantic Afghanistan District (TAA) was activated. The USACE mission in Afghanistan is to conduct project management, construction, and engineering to help establish a secure, stable environment and promote construction and infrastructure development. USACE has supported coalition forces participating in Operation Enduring Freedom since 2002, and the first USACE district in Afghanistan, AED-North, was established in March 2004. AED-South was activated in summer 2009. In support of coalition forces, TAA provides facilities to support bed-down, administration, and base operations in various locations around Afghanistan to include Bagram, Kandahar, and Kabul. The district works with the Resolute Support, (RS), Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), U.S. Forces Command-Afghanistan (USFOR-A), Commander’s Emergency Response Program, USAID, donor nations, and agencies to complete projects that will have the most significant impacts toward building partner capacity and managing transitions. Projects include infrastructure, military and university facilities such as the Afghanistan National Defense University, the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense headquarters’ buildings. The district has completed a significant number of headquarters, maintenance buildings, fire stations, and power plants. TAA continues to execute construction while supporting deconstruction, drawdown, and the retrograde mission of coalition forces from Afghanistan.

construction, and other related technical services to U.S. and foreign customers in the 20 country area of operations for the U.S. Central Command. The District is currently active in 15 of those countries. Headquartered in Winchester, the District has field offices throughout the Middle East. When the Gulf Region District, the last USACE district in Iraq stood down in 2011, the Middle East District assumed responsibility for USACE operations in Iraq. Working closely with the Transatlantic Afghanistan District, the Middle East District also continues to provide reach back support and oversight of a small handful of projects in Afghanistan. The Middle East District’s work falls into the following areas: • Designing and building facilities for U.S. forces deployed within CENTCOM’s AOR; • Managing service contracts for various military customers, supporting USACE programs, such as logistics and maintenance, transportation and security, and personal services; • Providing engineering, project management, contracting, and support services to the USACE district in Afghanistan; • Designing and building facilities under the USACE International and Interagency Support program. Most of this work is through DOD’s Foreign Military Sales program, aimed at supporting the defense interests of the United States and its allies. The District also has a multitude of Foreign Military Financing projects which enhance U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. government relationships in the region. These programs permit eligible foreign governments to purchase U.S. defense equipment and services, including the full array of USACE technical and contracting services. • The District has also supported DOD-funded projects providing humanitarian assistance and counternarcotics projects in the region. The Middle East District also houses the Technical Center of Expertise for Aircraft Hangar Fire Protection, and the Center of Standardization for Contingency Standard Designs which won an award for value engineering in 2015.

CENTERS

systems; medical facilities; environmental and munitions; and utility monitoring and control systems. The center is also home to many technical centers of expertise: industrial control systems cyber security; energy savings performance contracting; facility systems safety; heating, ventilation and air conditioning; installation support; facilities reduction; facilities repair and renewal; centralized furnishings; and operation and maintenance engineering enhancement. In addition, Huntsville Center is assigned 16 centers of standardization facility types in the following categories: medical facilities; child and family services; sports and fitness facilities; fire and emergency facilities; and training ranges.

USACE FINANCE CENTER 5722 Integrity Drive, Building 787 • Millington, TN 38054-5005 Tel: (901) 873-9000 USACE’s Finance Center provides responsive and professional day-to-day operating finance and accounting support worldwide. This support includes the full range of customer services, payments, disbursing, accounting, and financial reporting for civil works and military programs appropriated funds and revolving and trust funds. The Finance Center is responsible for performing research, analysis, development, installation and systems maintenance for the USACE Financial Management System (CEFMS) and for the USACE Enterprise Management Information System (CEEMIS). The Finance Center has the principal responsibility for providing overall operating finance and accounting functions for USACE. This mission is accomplished with a dedicated, professional staff of accountants, accounting technicians, and various other support personnel. In keeping with the Commander’s vision, the Finance Center has built the bench with a talented and motivated staff that is cognizant of the costs of operation and continues to achieve greater efficiencies through improved business processes and enhanced financial systems. The Finance Center searches for ways to reduce costs by identifying and eliminating duplicative processes, taking advantage of leading technology, encouraging e-commerce, and improving business processes.

USACE HUNTSVILLE CENTER P.O. Box 1600 • Huntsville, AL 35807-4301 Tel: (256) 895-1694

USACE ENGINEER RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER 3909 Halls Ferry Road • Vicksburg, MS 39180-6199 Tel: (601) 636-3111 or ERDCinfo@usace.army.mil

The U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville provides technical expertise and innovative engineering solutions in support of U.S. forces, their families and the nation. Huntsville’s more than 960 employees manage a $2.1 billion annual budget to support a very diverse global customer base that includes USACE divisions and districts, federal agencies and military installations worldwide. Huntsville Center was activated in October 1967 as the Huntsville Division with its sole mission being the Sentinel ballistic-missile defense program. Since that time, the center’s mission has evolved and diversified significantly to include installation support, energy, ordnance and explosives, chemical demilitarization, engineering, and environmental programs. Huntsville Center is USACE’s mandatory center of expertise for the Army range and training lands program; electronic security

The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center supports the nation and our Armed Forces. ERDC research and development saves Soldiers’ lives, improves homeland security, enhances the economy, reduces disaster risks, and improves the environment. ERDC technologies and expertise support Warfighters, military installations, and USACE civil works missions as well as other federal agencies, state and municipal authorities, and U.S. industry through innovative work agreements. ERDC R&D focuses on four primary technical areas: • Military Engineering – deployable force protection; environmental effects on sensor performance; adaptive protection; austere entry and maneuver; weapons effects; and antiterrorism; • Geospatial Research and Engineering – Provide the Warfighter superior situational awareness enabled through enhanced 1 07

geospatial capabilities for data, analytics, information, and decision frameworks. Geospatially enable the Army’s Common Operating Environment Computing Environments through advanced Geospatial Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination, Mission Planning and Standards and Sharing; Geospatial Engineering and Intelligence data analytics, tactical decision aids, data representation and geospatial narratives, terrain analysis and phenomenology; Human Geography remote sensing, assessment of population dynamics, host nation stability indicators, and operational impacts of infrastructure and culture within densely populated and complex areas; • Environmental Quality and Installations – adaptive, resilient and sustainable installations and infrastructure; military materials in the environment; and risk-based decision analysis; and • Water Resources/Civil Works – inland and coastal navigation hydropower; flood risk management and coastal systems; water supply and emergency management; environmental restoration, regulation and stewardship; water resources infrastructure; and system-wide water resources. ERDC Headquarters is located in Vicksburg, Mississippi, along with four of its seven laboratories – the Coastal and Hydraulics, Geotechnical and Structures, Environmental, and Information Technology laboratories. Other laboratories include the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Illinois; Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, New Hampshire; and the Geospatial Research Laboratory in Alexandria, Virginia. These laboratories provide a wide range of research expertise that can collectively address diverse and complex challenges. ERDC has a staff of more than 2,100 engineers, scientists and support personnel, with an annual research program budget exceeding $1.1 billion. Its staff includes more than 1,060 engineers and scientists, many with advanced degrees (32 percent hold doctoral degrees and 45 percent have master’s degrees). The center has more than $1 billion in research facilities, including unique national assets. It manages the DOD High Performance Computing Modernization Program and five DOD Supercomputer Centers around the country. ERDC’s Vicksburg center hosts the DOD’s largest and most powerful supercomputer, putting ERDC in the top tier of computing capacity. Other world-class facilities include one of the world’s most powerful centrifuge, blast effects simulators, physical models of river and coastal projects, specialized chemistry and analytical labs, frost and ice engineering facilities, a large shake table, and a 1,800-foot coastal research pier. ERDC’s research is recognized throughout the Army, DOD, the nation, and internationally. ERDC – Innovative Solutions for a Safer, Better World!

U.S. ARMY GEOSPATIAL CENTER 7701 Telegraph Road • Alexandria, VA 22315-3864 Tel: (703) 428-3736 The U.S. Army Geospatial Center (AGC) is a direct reporting center under USACE to provide timely, accurate and relevant geospatial information, domain expertise, training, and reachback capabilities to our warfighters across the operational environment. 108

As a knowledge center for geospatial engineering expertise, the AGC coordinates, integrates and synchronizes geospatial information requirements and standards across the Army, as well as develops and fields geospatial systems and capabilities to the Army and DOD. The AGC supports the Army, DOD, and the nation through: 1) enterprise development and system acquisition support synchronizes geospatial policies, priorities, program strategies and technologies across Army Acquisition ensuring efficient integration, provides geospatial domain expertise to Army programs and Network Integration Evaluations, develops, acquires and fields engineer and intelligence capabilities and evaluates the Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities; 2) warfighter support and production that collects, creates and provisions strategic-operational-tactical imagery, elevation data, geospatial information and mission related products, provides information on water location quantity and quality and provides training, technical support and reach back capabilities to the field; and 3) research, development, technology, and evaluation (RDT&E) that conducts RDT&E focused in current and emerging geospatial technologies that will help characterize and measure phenomena within the physical (terrain) and social (cultural) environments encountered by the Army. One of the AGC’s primary goals is to enable an Army Geospatial Enterprise (AGE), which addresses geospatial capability gaps preventing systems from achieving a true common operating picture. The AGE enables horizontal and vertical dissemination and the exchange and synchronization of geospatial feature data between echelons. It improves continuity of operations during unit Relief in Place/Transfer of Authority and enhances and extends the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s data holdings with Army-produced operational and tactically relevant geospatial information. The AGE enhances Soldier situational awareness and leads to information superiority and improves commanders’ military decision-making process, ultimately improving the probability of mission success.

MARINE DESIGN CENTER Wanamaker Building • 100 Penn Square East Philadelphia, PA 19107-3391 Tel: (215) 656-6850 The Marine Design Center is USACE’s center of expertise and experience for the development and application of innovative strategies and technologies for naval architecture and marine engineering. The center provides total project management including planning, engineering, and shipbuilding contract management in support of USACE, Army, and national water resource projects in peacetime and augments military construction capacity in time of national emergency or mobilization. The Marine Design Center was established in 1908 to give USACE a group of naval architects and marine, mechanical, and electrical engineers who could design, build, and maintain the complex craft needed to improve and maintain the inland and coastal waterways. Located in Philadelphia since 1939, the center is a field operating activity under the Directorate of Civil Works that provides services to USACE worldwide. The center’s skills and talents have also served other federal agencies and

foreign governments through international agreements. The center’s work is naval architecture, marine engineering, and marine construction management, including the assurance of quality construction. These efforts have been concentrated on the “turn-key, design-to-delivery” philosophy. The center also offers expertise in design, preparation of plans and specifications, contract management, and inspection of marine equipment including structures and machinery. Experience includes projects for dredges, towboats, floating cranes, survey vessels, and various other service vessels. The center has completed thousands of such projects since its inception. The Marine Design Center can also be called upon to study and make recommendations concerning vessel modifications, occupational safety, energy conservation, fire prevention programs, or environmental problems, or to conduct an accident investigation or marine condition survey.

U.S. ARMY ENGINEER INSTITUTE FOR WATER RESOURCES 7701 Telegraph Road, Casey Bldg. Alexandria, VA 22315-3688 Tel: (703) 428-8250 The USACE Institute for Water Resources (IWR), with its National Capital Region (NCR) headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, was established to provide forward-looking analysis to aid the development of the USACE Civil Works program. IWR’s mission emphasizes the linkage of planning, socio-economic, environmental, hydrologic, and engineering risk considerations within a contemporary evaluation and investment decision-support framework for water resources systems, global change, sustainable development, and collaborative problem solving. The institute has offices in five locations, including its office in Alexandria, Virginia, which includes the Navigation and Civil Works Decision Support Center (NDC), the Conflict Resolution & Public Participation Center of Expertise (CPCX), and the International Center for Integrated Water Resources Management (ICIWaRM). ICIWaRM is affiliated with the United Nations and involves collaborative relationships with universities and nongovernmental organizations. IWR’s remote centers include the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) in Davis, California; the Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center (WCSC) in New Orleans, Louisiana; and the Risk Management Center (for dam and levee safety) with offices in Golden, Colorado, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. IWR’s NCR office houses the USACE chief economist and a diverse multidisciplinary workforce specializing in the advancement of planning methodologies, developing and applying procedures for evaluating multipurpose water resources investment alternatives involving both monetary and non-monetary outputs, and conducting a wide range of special investigations commissioned either by the Congress, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works), and/or USACE Headquarters, including strategic studies aimed at informing agency decisions on the future direction of the Civil Works program. The NCR office also includes the secretariat for the U.S. Section of the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure (also known as PIANC), a global forum for professional organizations to share

and exchange knowledge of worldwide trends and challenges in port and waterway development and management. NDC provides a critical mass of expertise focusing on the management of infrastructure utilization and performance information for USACE programs and projects spanning civil works business lines. NDC directly supports the USACE navigation, hydropower, recreation, environmental compliance, water supply, regulatory, homeland security, emergency, and readiness functions as well as those of other federal, state, and local agencies, plus those in the private sector with interests in water transportation. NDC also provides integrated business information in support of USACE operational decision-making, and includes financial, output, and performance measurements that are used in the development and defense of the USACE civil works budget. NDC’s WCSC specializes in the collection and synthesis of all U.S. waterborne commerce statistics, vessel movement data, along with maintaining information on vessel characteristics, port facilities, dredging cost, and performance data and information on navigation locks. The mission of the CPCX is to help USACE field practitioners anticipate, prevent, and manage water conflicts, ensuring that the interests of the public are addressed in water resources decision-making. The CPCX provides technical assistance and training to USACE division and district offices as well as other stakeholders on collaborative processes, facilitation, public involvement, risk communication, and collaborative modeling (shared vision planning). CPCX also supports USACE-HQ on relevant aspects of national initiatives and policy development and coordinates USACE’s cross-cutting Collaboration and Public Participation Community of Practice. The Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) is world-renowned for its applied software model development, training, and consulting in hydrologic and hydraulic engineering, water resources planning, and water systems management. The primary mission of HEC is to support the nation in its water resources management responsibilities by enhancing USACE technical capacity in applied hydrologic and hydraulic engineering. Its additional mission goals include providing technical leadership in improving the analytical methods for the hydrologic aspects of water resources planning and in the delivery and application of the integrated suite of models serving as the USACE Water Management System, which is used by the MSC and district’s water in the real-time operation of reservoirs throughout the nation. HEC models represent state-of-the-art tools that are widely used throughout the world. The mission of the Risk Management Center (RMC) is to support the USACE Civil Works program by providing a nationally consistent context for managing and assessing risks associated with dam and levee systems across USACE, to support dam and levee safety activities throughout USACE, and to develop policies, methods, tools, and systems to enhance those activities. The RMC also assists USACE Headquarters in the technical and policy oversight of infrastructure safety decisions, and serves as an independent technical adviser to USACE senior leadership, maintaining and developing risk competencies and helping ensure consistency of risk assessment processes, the application of risk criteria, and the basis for decision-making on dam and levee safety projects across USACE. 109

ICIWaRM was established in collaboration with other U.S. agencies, academic institutions, and organizations sharing an interest in the advancement of the science and practice of integrated water resources management around the globe. ICIWaRM was formalized as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) “Category 2” water center in 2009, the first such center in the United States. ICIWaRM serves as a nexus for technology transfer, integrating new ideas, advancing practical scientific and technological applications of integrated water resources management approaches developed both in the United States and by partner nations within UNESCO’s International Hydrological Program (IHP). The center focuses on water security, adapting to global change, applying collaborative approaches, and ensuring environmental sustainability, consistent with U.S. government goals for international water resources. ICIWaRM is also the Technical Secretariat for IHP’s Global Network on Water and Development Information for Arid Lands, or G-WADI.

249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power)

ENGINEER COMMANDS

The 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power) is a multi-component active-duty, versatile prime power generation battalion assigned to USACE that provides commercial-level, medium-voltage power to military units and federal relief organizations during unified land operations. The battalion is also an integral part of USACE’s response to the National Response Framework under Emergency Support Function #3. Additionally, the commander serves as the commandant of the U.S. Army Prime Power School, the institution responsible for the development of Army and Navy power generation specialists. The organization is charged with the rapid provision of Army generators to support worldwide requirements. The battalion consists of a headquarters and headquarters company, four Prime Power line companies (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta), and the Prime Power School. The Prime Power School graduates the Army’s Prime Power Production Specialist (MOS 12P) following a one-year course that includes math, physics, engineering, and power plant operations and maintenance. • Each line company has a headquarters and four platoons comprised of a warrant officer, 15 noncommissioned officers, and two enlisted personnel. The platoons are capable of setting up, operating, and repairing complete medium-voltage power generation and distribution systems worldwide. • Alpha Company, 249th Engineer Battalion, is located at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. • Bravo Company, 249th Engineer Battalion, is located at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. • Charlie Company was activated in 2008 and is located at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. • Delta Company, comprised of all Reserve Soldiers, is headquartered in Cranston, Rhode Island. 110

Each of the battalion’s 13 power generation platoons has the capability to produce approximately 3.2 megawatts of power at 4,160 volts (medium voltage). The battalion has 3 additional platoons of power line distribution soldiers that specialize in aerial and underground distribution systems. The battalion’s 52 medium-voltage deployable generator systems are capable of converting the voltage to a user level (120/208/277/480 volts). The battalion also offers a variety of services, including: • electrical power requirement assessment and power production • transformer inspection and test analysis • maintenance/repair of power plants, substations, and government-owned or managed transmission and distribution systems • circuit breaker and relay maintenance • infrared surveys • medium-voltage electrical contractor oversight • training for personnel to operate and maintain prime power distribution and generation equipment

416th THEATER ENGINEER COMMAND 10 S100 South Frontage Road • Darien, IL 60561 Tel: (630) 427-9700 The 416th Theater Engineer Command (TEC) is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Reserve Command that provides engineer-planning support to U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), and U.S Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM). Headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Darien, the 416th TEC provides trained and ready forces in support of global operations utilizing the Army Force Generation model; and provides policies, guidance, resourcing, and administrative support as an operational command over assigned Army Reserve units. On order, the 416th TEC mobilizes and deploys to a theater of operations as the senior engineer headquarters to provide mission command of assigned or attached units in support of the Army Service Component Command’s (ASCC) assured mobility, protection, logistics, and

U.S. ARMY NATIONAL GUARD PHOTO BY SPC. MARK VANGERPEN

249th ENGINEER BATTALION (PRIME POWER) 9450 Jackson Loop, Building 1418 Fort Belvoir, VA 22060 Tel: (703) 805-2643

infrastructure development lines of operation. The 416th TEC leads 135 units in 37 states across the United States, encompassing more than 12,500 Soldiers, two engineer brigades, one maneuver enhancement brigade, the USACE Contingency Response Unit (CRU), one Forward Engineer Support Team-Main, and 10 ForwardEngineer Support Teams-Advance. Recent deployments include Operation Desert Shield/Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and Operation New Dawn. During the first deployment in support of OIF, the command oversaw the planning and construction of several prisoner-of-war camps, U.S. military logistics bases, and a 230-mile-long Inland Petroleum Distribution System - the largest-ever constructed in wartime by the U.S. Army - from Kuwait through the southern desert of Iraq to ensure the availability of fuel for the units moving forward. The 416th TEC serves as the principal engineer force provider and engineer planner for annual exercises around the globe such as Beyond the Horizon (formerly New Horizons) in Central and South America and Bright Star in Egypt Beyond the Horizon emphasizes humanitarian assistance every year in a different Central or South American nation, while Bright Star emphasizes joint and international military readiness. The 416th Theater Engineer Command motto is “Serving by Building.”

CONTINGENCY RESPONSE UNIT, 416TH THEATER ENGINEER COMMAND 441 G Street NW, 3rd Floor • Washington, DC 20134 Tel: (202) 761-4116 The Contingency Response Unit (CRU) is a highly specialized reserve unit under the 416th TEC that is comprised of 46 Soldiers, 37 officers and 9 noncommissioned officers. The CRU was organized on Oct. 16, 2000, as a ready source of trained Army Reserve engineers. CRU Soldiers would fill a recognized shortage of military engineers within USACE, capable of providing military planning and management during overseas contingency Operations (OCO) and civil disasters. Utilized extensively from 9/11 to today, the CRU has answered the call to duty through numerous full and partial unit mobilizations and deployments. These include missions in support of OCOs Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn; and Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) activities with Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Sandy. The CRU was originally envisioned as a source of highly trained technical personnel to expand or establish USACE division battle staffs, liaison with major Army commands (MACOMs), and serve as project engineers. The CRU mission has expanded to include close coordination and support of geographic combatant command (GCC) Engineer battle staffs, and service as subject-matter experts (SMEs) for engineer-related assessments. The CRU is structured to align subordinate teams with each of the six GCCs as well as USACE divisions. This allows the teams to closely coordinate with the GCCs, and USACE in order to provide support for technical engineering requirements, disaster response, and battle staff engineer support. CRU Soldiers regularly support strategic level and national-level exercises such as Ulchi Freedom Guardian, Lucky

Warrior, and others. The CRU Motto speaks true to its mission: First Forward!

412th THEATER ENGINEER COMMAND 1265 Porters Chapel Road • Vicksburg, MS 39180 Tel: (601) 631-6103/6176 Mission: The 412th Theater Engineer Command (TEC) provides trained and ready forces in support of global operations utilizing the Army Force Generation model, and provides policies, guidance, resourcing, and administrative support as an operational command over assigned Army Reserve units. On order, the 412th TEC mobilizes and deploys to a theater of operations as the senior engineer headquarters, providing mission command of assigned or attached units in support of the Army Service Component Command’s assured mobility, protection, logistics, and infrastructure development lines of operation. History: The 412th TEC provides theater-level engineer support to the combatant commander in the event of a contingency operation. It is designed to command hundreds of engineer units and thousands of Soldiers in a warfighting capacity. Prior to mobilization, the 412th TEC is under operational control of headquarters, USACE. The command has historical training relationships in the Pacific and European theaters, and provides direct support to the 8th U.S. Army in Korea It also serves as the Army’s Reserve Executive Agent for River Assault, a training exercise held annually at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. As an operational command, the 412th TEC has three brigades and 140 other assigned units with approximately 13,000 Soldiers located throughout the southeast and northeast United States. These units include the 926th Engineer Brigade, the 411th Engineer Brigade and the 302nd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade. The 412th TEC was formed in the Organized Reserves in 1923, and served in World War II, earning the Meritorious Unit Commendation. In the 1990s, the command participated in Operations Joint Endeavor and Joint Forge in Bosnia and Kosovo, and as part of the Hungary Joint Task Force East in several former Warsaw Pact and Soviet countries. Soldiers from the 412th TEC have assisted with construction missions and supported joint exercises in Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and the Marshall Islands and provided engineer support to the United Nations during the East Timor crisis in 2002. The 412th TEC Headquarters has deployed numerous detachments since the beginning of the Global War on Terrorism. In 2003, a detachment deployed as the engineer section for headquarters, U.S. Army Europe. In 2004, the commanding general and a small detachment supported the multinational force in Baghdad. In 2005, a design-management section supported the 130th Engineer Brigade in Iraq. In 2006 and 2008, task forces deployed to augment the then-Gulf Region Division of USACE in Iraq In 2009, the very first 412th TEC Deployable Command Post deployed to Afghanistan, where it served as the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Engineer Staff. In 2011, the 412th TEC began conducting military-to-military engagements in support of theater security cooperation efforts in developing countries by providing engineering expertise. n 111

Contractors working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (USACE) Norfolk District place fossilized shell, obtained from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, on sanctuary reefs in the Great Wicomico River in Burgess, Virginia. The reefs, originally created in 2004 by USACE, are receiving the new shell as part of an adaptive management/rehabilitation project, which is building them up to a higher level promoting a healthier oyster reef. U.S. Army photo by Patrick Bloodgood