ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS 2020

SPECIAL EDITION

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF

ENGINEERS

FREE

2020 EDITION

Building Support PROTECT Safeguarding dams and communities

CONTAIN Addressing climate change along Great Lakes

RESTORE Cleaning up former military sites

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CONTENTS

2020 S PECI A L E D ITI O N

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

BREAKING THE BANKS USACE partners with towns along the Great Lakes to mitigate the impact of climate change

USACE BUFFALO DISTRICT

Buffalo District civil engineer Paul Bijhouwer inspects the foundations of Bird Island Pier in Buffalo, N.Y., after a 2019 storm.

FEATURES

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USACE

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HELPING HAND Military vets learn office skills while recording USACE finds

AIRMAN 1ST CLASS NICHOLAS DUTTON

IN THE ZONE USACE keeps a close eye on dam operations to safeguard nearby communities

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CONTENTS 68

This is a product of

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jeanette Barrett-Stokes jbstokes@usatoday.com

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jerald Council jcouncil@usatoday.com

MANAGING EDITOR Michelle Washington mjwashington@usatoday.com

ISSUE EDITOR Deirdre van Dyk ISSUE DESIGNER Debra Moore

Michigan’s Soo Locks USACE

NEWS

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HYDROPOWER SPEEDY RESPONSE USACE builds alternative care facilities for states during pandemic

LEADERSHIP

9 Georgia’s Hartwell Dam USACE

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LAST CALL Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite leads COVID-19 operations amid uncertainty

STANDING TALL Three female leaders aim to inspire the next generation

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Dams along the Savannah River produce sustainable electricity

DEFENSE SITES

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OUT OF SERVICE How USACE removes munitions from retired military sites around the nation

DAMS AND LOCKS

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CAREERS

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POWER PLAYS

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In Puerto Rico, USACE assesses dams after earthquakes

New construction at the Great Lakes’ Soo Locks

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NATURAL FLOW In the Everglades, USACE works on water and land management

ON THE COVER Readying an alternate care center

PHOTOGRAPH Getty Images

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MODERN LIVING West Point’s 200-year-old campus gets an upgrade

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ADVERTISING VP, ADVERTISING Patrick Burke | (703) 854-5914 pburke@usatoday.com

ACCOUNT DIRECTOR Vanessa Salvo | (703) 854-6499

FINANCE Billing Coordinator Julie Marco

PASSING THROUGH

ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

USACE partners with students and colleges around the country

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Matt Alderton, Brian Barth, Mary Helen Berg, Jennifer Bradley Franklin, Stacey Freed, Adam Hadhazy, Gina Harkins, Patricia Kime, Robin Roenker, Adam Stone

vsalvo@usatoday.com

EDUCATION IT’S ACADEMIC

DESIGNERS Hayleigh Corkey David Hyde Gina Toole Saunders Lisa M. Zilka

STANDING STRONG

GOOD JOB From conflict resolution to algae bloom management, a look at careers

EDITORS Amy Sinatra Ayres Tracy Scott Forson Harry Lister Megan Pannone Debbie Williams

LOOK OUT Find volunteer opportunities with USACE

ISSN#0734-7456 A USA TODAY Network publication, Gannett Co. Inc. USA TODAY, its logo and associated graphics are the trademarks of Gannett Co. Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Copyright 2019, USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. Editorial and publication headquarters are at 7950 Jones Branch Dr., McLean, VA 22108, and at (703) 854-3400.

For accuracy questions, call or send an e-mail to accuracy@usatoday.com.

Printed in the USA

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NEWS

New York City’s Javits Center is converted into an auxiliary care center.

USACE

Fielding Aid Corps builds alternative care sites, assisting COVID-19 response

By Deirdre van Dyk

T

HE FIRST CRY FOR help

came from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as New York City was quickly becoming the epicenter of the nation’s coronavirus pandemic. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Commander Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite and his team flew to meet with Cuomo on March 17

and began to organize a response. Not an easy task: “We’ve never, never done ... pandemic capabilities,” Semonite said at a March 27 briefing. “We don’t have off-the-shelf designs on how to modify hotels into COVID centers.”

The Corps quickly devised an engineering plan: Create a standard design that could be adapted at sites around the country as needed. And construct, with funding from the Federal Emer-

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NEWS

AS OF JUNE 11, THE CORPS RESPONSE: FUNDING, IN BILLIONS

$1.8 PERSONNEL DEPLOYED AT THE PEAK OF THE RESPONSE

2,100 Loveland, Colo., alternative care center FEMA

ALTERNATIVE CARE SITES BUILT

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INSIDE THE CENTERS

AVERAGE BUILD TIME

To outfit each room — averaging from 8’ x 8’ to 12’ x 12’ — the Corps partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services to provide a bed, latrine and showers.

Some centers have wireless capabilities so patients can use phones. Oxygen may be piped to each room. One personal touch: Local artwork hangs on the walls of patient rooms in the Washington, D.C., center.

5-14 DAYS TOTAL NUMBER OF BEDS IN ALTERNATIVE CARE FACILITIES Semonite, left front, inside Denver’s Colorado Convention Center on April 14 2ND LT. KATIE LEE

gency Management Agency, facilities in buildings with existing infrastructure — such as college dorms, hotels, arenas and convention centers — available and vacated due to the coronavirus.

Starting with New York’s Javits Center, the Corps scrambled to assess sites and build alternative care centers around the country. Some facilities provided back-up for hospitals, while others were, as Washington, D.C., Mayor

Muriel Bowser said as she toured the city’s convention center turned into a 440-bed hospital, an “insurance policy” against a possible onslaught of cases.

Whether or not these facilities are used to their capacity isn’t the point to the Corps’ leader. “It doesn’t have to have a patient to say it’s a success,” Semonite told The Atlantic in mid-April.

“If we built a facility and no one ever uses it, that’s great, because that means

that all the other parts of the system — the social distancing, the flattening of the curve — work. But when we know that there’s somebody that’s alive today because the Corps of Engineers was able to get a facility done, it’s a big deal.”

As Lt. Col. Gregory Turner, commander of the Corps’ Detroit District said, “engineering solutions to the nation’s toughest challenges is what we do.”

15,074 LARGEST FACILITY, CHICAGO’S MCCORMICK PLACE CONVENTION CENTER

3,000 BEDS SOURCE: USACE

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LEADERSHIP

At a COVID-19 briefing MARVIN LYNCHARD/DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Unexpected Challenges Semonite calls for culture change, leads the Corps in fight against COVID-19

By Adam Stone

A

s of this writing, Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite stands in a unique position. Originally slated to conclude his turn at the helm in May, the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was asked by President Donald Trump to stay on until Semonite’s successor could be confirmed by the Senate.

Continuity of leadership played into the decision. This spring, as the pandemic gripped the country, Semonite became a highly visible player with a string of media appearances highlighting the Corps’ efforts to create alternative care facilities.

At the same time, the Corps had come under scrutiny amid claims it was favoring Republican campaign donors when awarding contracts.

Perhaps with some foresight, Semonite, in a 2019 Senate hearing, had already laid out the criteria by which he hoped that his efforts, and those of the Corps, might eventually be judged. “The Corps’ credibility is measured by our ability to deliver results that are on time, on budget and of exceptional quality,” he said. “Focusing on innovative ways to CO NTINUED

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LEADERSHIP

Semonite, left, with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock at the Colorado Convention Center in mid-April 2ND LT. KATHERINE LEE/USACE

deliver high-quality outcomes sooner is a top Corps priority.”

RISING TO THE TEST The COVID-19 outbreak put that premise to the test and the Corps rose to the challenge.

As the call for extra hospital beds went out this spring, the Corps rapidly transitioned into a COVID response unit.

Semonite praised the work of personnel engaged in the response and highlighted the close cooperation among government agencies driving that effort.

“We are very, very focused in the Corps of Engineers on getting this done.

But this is all about the team, the federal team, the state team, the local team,” he said at an April 20 White House press briefing.

“I’ve been out there; I’ve seen the

doctors; I’ve seen the nurses and all of those that have worked very, very hard and we’re just — we’re just so proud to be a part of this noble calling,” he said.

DRAMATIC TRANSFORMATION Even as Semonite worked on achieving practical outcomes, he’s emphasized the need to make dramatic, long-lasting changes to Corps operations.

He promised the Senate Appropriations Committee in March 2019, “bold actions to improve performance and engineer solutions for the nation’s toughest water resources challenges” along with efforts to “revolutionize” the Civil Works program. This language of radical revision has been a hallmark of Semonite’s leadership.

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“I’ve seen the doctors; I’ve seen the nurses and all of those that have worked very, very hard and we’re just ... so proud to be a part of this noble calling.”

— LT. GEN. TODD SEMONITE, USACE Commander

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LEADERSHIP

Semonite inspects work along the U.S.-Mexico border near Yuma, Ariz., last December.

CATHERINE CARROLL

At the Corps’ inaugural Innovation Summit held at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center headquarters in Vicksburg, Miss., last September, Semonite spoke of the need for transformation.

“To continue to innovate we have to revolutionize,” he said. “I think when we speak about revolutionizing, we’re talking about changing processes that don’t work very well anymore.

Innovation affects products: evolving technologies that are out there in the market to improve the product. Those two together can be a game changer for the Corps. Culture has to be a key part of both pieces, too.”

Semonite shared his vision for culture change in a command brief, calling on the Corps to aggressively pursue the tools, training and resources needed to

meet the mission. His plan calls for enhancements across the board — in civil works, military missions, data analytics, human resources and contracting.

“We’ve got to change the culture to be a better Corps of Engineers,” Semonite said at a national meeting of the Association of the United States Army in October 2018. “The only way we can get from the Corps of today to the Corps of tomorrow is to be able to go through this process that says: How are we going to streamline? How are we going to lighten things up?”

That culture change will demand “a massive amount of delegation,” he said, with ground-level leadership empowered to set the operational course in order to meet the Corps’ mission.

“Sometimes the best decisions don’t come out of Washington, D.C. They

come out of trusting your leaders on the ground.”

Even as he sought to reshape the Corps, Semonite has proved his staying power.

In San Diego last September, Trump began to boast about classified aspects of the border wall. “One thing we haven’t mentioned is technology; they’re wired so that we will know if somebody’s trying to break through,” Trump said, inviting Semonite to elaborate further.

“Sir, there could be some merit in not discussing that,” Semonite said, a rare rebuff to which the president replied: “OK, I like that, that was a great answer.”

As Semonite navigated the challenges surrounding the Corp’s COVID-19 response, that level of presidential confidence was still intact.

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LEADERSHIP

DENNIS FRANKLIN

Maj. Gen. Diana Holland, left, passes the Corps flag to the Charleston, S.C., district’s new leader, Lt. Col. Rachel Honderd.

Leading Women Three formidable females share insights to empower others

By Jennifer Bradley Franklin

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HEN LT. COL. RACHEL

Honderd assumed the position as the Charleston , S.C., district’s 88th engineer and commander last year, she became the first female to fill the role. It marks a historic moment for the district, as all three district leadership roles are filled by women — Honderd is joined by head civilian Lisa Metheney, deputy district engineer for Charleston’s Programs and Project Management and Maj. Gen. Diana

Holland, the South Atlantic division commander. In the Charleston District, Honderd and Metheney manage 225 team members and, with a $350 million budget, are responsible for programs such as harbor maintenance, beach management and hurricane risk reduction. Holland manages five districts, including Charleston, a total of 3,500 employees and a budget of $4.5 billion.

As female leaders, Holland, Honderd and Metheney talk about what makes a good mentor, the importance of supportive relationships and how they’re working to empower their teams:

“I work hard to foster a climate where our people feel they are valued members and are able to achieve their professional dreams and aspirations.”

— MAJ. GEN. DIANA HOLLAND, South Atlantic Division Commander

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LEADERSHIP LOOK FOR MENTORS EVERYWHERE The women emphasized that both men and women provided them with career mentorship. One of Honderd’s standout mentors was a district commander who modeled fair and unbiased leadership, bolstering those who worked for him. “I learned how to listen and value diversity of opinion,” she said. “(He taught me to) allow leaders — male and female — senior and junior to voice input, but also to understand where I, as the leader, might need to assume and underwrite risk because it’s the right thing to do, even if it might not be popular.”

Holland said her mentors were not only her commanders, but fellow officers, graduate school professors and family members. “They have impacted me through their actions and examples as much as they have through actual discussions,” she said.

CULTIVATE PEER SUPPORT The women all agree that, as leaders climb the ranks, it’s important to cultivate relationships with others in similar positions who can provide support and understanding. “I have a lot of strong women in my life. We consider ourselves not mentors (to each other), but peers,” Metheney said. “We bounce ideas off of each other and talk about the biggest challenges (we face).”

These supportive relationships, said Metheney and Holland, can run the gamut from formal to informal, from regularly scheduled meetings to casual catch-ups.

PAY IT FORWARD Honderd and Metheney work directly with those who volunteer for training within the Corps’ leadership development programs. “It’s so rewarding,” said Honderd, who also works with the Society of American Military Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers at local universities and volunteers at high school STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) activities. At these events, Honderd shares her personal experiences and expertise. “True mentorship is an investment,” she said. “(It’s being) candid in both your successes and your shortcomings.”

Metheney makes sure mentees know she’s rooting for them. She not only offers suggestions on extra projects to hone their skills and recommends leadership books tailored to their goals, but offers to listen to practice presentations. And on presentation day, “I try to make sure I’m

DENNIS FRANKLIN

Lt. Col. Rachel Honderd participates in STEM Day at Ashley Hall, an all-girls school in Charleston, S.C.

in the audience,” she said. “Sometimes (it makes a difference to know you) have someone in your corner.”

“Everyone needs someone to observe, emulate or go to for advice and direction,” said Holland. “Effective organizations specifically facilitate and encourage such relationships and opportunities. Effective leaders make time for people and prioritize programs that make mentoring a part of the organization’s culture.”

CREATE A CULTURE OF ADVANCEMENT While the Corps provides myriad formal opportunities for structured leadership training, the women also offer advice in informal settings, working to make themselves approachable for career guidance.

“I work hard to foster a climate where our people feel they are valued members and are able to achieve their professional dreams and aspirations,” Holland said of making an effort to remain accessible and engaged. “There aren’t many senior women in the Army, and some women really want to seek advice and mentoring from other women. I specifically engage them so they feel comfortable reaching out to me.”

JACKIE PENNOYER

Lisa Metheney talks to a student at The Citadel about careers in engineering.

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CAREERS

On the Job Corps professionals follow their passions

By Mary Helen Berg

T

HE 37,000 MEN AND women

of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers serve civil and military missions throughout the U.S. and in 130 countries abroad. Their objectives are to strengthen the nation’s security, energize the economy and reduce the risk of disasters,

but for many Corps members, like the five profiled here, that charge is also their passion.

LAUREN OLIVER Hydraulic Engineer Alaska District

“Every day is a new adventure,” said Lauren Oliver, describing her job as a hydraulic engineer with the Corps’ Alaska

District. Oliver began her Corps career in 2015 after applying to a two-year internship program with the Department of the Army, Oliver explained, “on a whim.”

When she landed an assignment in Anchorage, she fell in love with both the frontier wilderness and her work.

Alaska is not as developed as other CONTI NUED

Lauren Oliver PROVIDED BY LAUREN OLIVER

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CAREERS

Martin Page

“I knew I wanted to use my skills to make the world a safer and better place and that’s what led me to ERDC.” — MARTIN PAGE

parts of the country, which allows engineers to feel like pioneers as they design and construct projects, Oliver said. “We’re still designing brand new infrastructure, which is not the case in most places,” said Oliver, who has a civil engineering degree.

She’s especially proud of her contributions to the Unalaska (Dutch Harbor) Channels Navigation Improvements study, helping to design a deep draft channel to accommodate large trade ships at an Aleutian Islands port 800 miles southeast of Anchorage.

“It’s really rewarding to know that I worked on something that’s going to have an impact on the whole nation,” Oliver said. “That’s something really wild and (something) I never dreamed would happen.”

ter’s (ERDC) Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Ill., developed a mobile water recycling system for soldiers to deploy in war zones, making them less vulnerable to attack because they don’t need to stop for water resupply, he explained. In civil works, his team is attacking the public health threat of algal blooms with a project that harvests the algae from bodies of water and converts it into biofuel.

Page, who has degrees in environmental engineering and science, said it’s thrilling to test his lab research in the field and have the chance to make a real difference.

“I knew I wanted to use my skills to make the world a safer and better place and that’s what led me to ERDC,” Page said.

MARTIN PAGE

BEN WHITE

Materials Engineer Engineer Research and Development Center

Fisheries Biologist San Francisco District

Water is critical for all life forms, and protecting water resources is a calling for materials engineer Martin Page, a 10-year Corps veteran.

Among his many projects, Page and his research team at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Cen-

Babysitting salmon eggs and young fish is a serious job when you’re trying to save a species.

Fisheries biologist Ben White began working with the Russian River Coho Captive Broodstock Program in the San CO NTINUED

Ben White USACE; BRANDON BEACH

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CAREERS

“I know the city from the bottom of the ocean in Charleston Harbor to the top of the buildings because I’ve mapped it so many times.”

— JENNIFER KIST

Francisco District in 2004 when there were only a handful of wild coho remaining in the 1,485-square-mile Northern California watershed. Today, the population hovers around 800 adults and would likely be extinct without careful cultivation, White said.

Urbanization, agriculture, logging, climate change, overfishing and other factors have taken a toll on the species, added White, a self-described beach kid from Southern California. His “office,” the Warm Springs Fish Hatchery at Lake Sonoma, houses enormous water tanks that provide temporary homes to breed and nurture the fish.

“We are always wet and cold, and we’re always in waders and wading gear,” said White, who earned a degree in wildlife biology. When not in the hatchery, “we are out in the field, hiking these streams either putting fish out there or collecting fish to bring back as broodstock,” he said.

JENNIFER KIST Geographer and Data Scientist Charleston, S.C., District

Jennifer Kist SARA CORBETT

Family vacations nurtured a love for scuba diving and tide pools, fueling Jennifer Kist’s curiosity about the ocean and eventually leading her to the Army Corps, which oversees 12,000 miles of the nation’s waterways.

Kist, a geographer and data scientist in the Charleston District, believes that data is like the ocean: Both hold secrets that aren’t always visible at first. Since joining the Corps in 2015, Kist has cruised South Carolina waterways creating maps of the seafloor and hunkered down in a windowless concrete room deep within the St. Stephen Power Plant during Hurricane Dorian, using data to predict and analyze the impact of the 2019 storm.

Today, Kist, who has degrees in marine biology, geology and environmental geosciences and geospatial information systems, is on a team conducting a study to help the city of Charleston prepare for the impacts of climate change. She’s CONTI NUED

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CAREERS

Seth Cohen PROVIDED BY SETH COHEN

prepared for the job. “I know the city from the bottom of the ocean in Charleston Harbor to the top of the buildings because I’ve mapped it so many times,” Kist said.

SETH COHEN Collaboration and Conflict Resolution Specialist Institute for Water Resources

For Seth Cohen, the path to becoming a peacemaker began in places as far-flung

as Zimbabwe. During a college semester abroad in Africa, he witnessed Nelson Mandela’s efforts to bring peace and social justice to the region as apartheid ended, and he was inspired to pursue conflict resolution as a career, said Cohen, who has degrees in international communication and conflict resolution and analysis.

Today, Cohen travels the globe as a collaboration and conflict resolution specialist for the Collaboration and Public

“(I help) ensure that different voices can be heard and that people are aware of where the different parties are coming from.”

— SETH COHEN

Participation Center of Expertise, part of the Institute for Water Resources.

“The Corps has a thoughtful, wellthought-out and developed planning process,” said Cohen, a 10-year Corps veteran. When he facilitates discussions that help prevent and manage conflicts around water-related Corps projects, he helps “ensure that different voices can be heard and that people are aware of where the different parties are coming from.”

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Bird Island Pier, Buffalo, N.Y.

When the Great

XXUF USACE USACE BUFFALO DISTRICT

Lakes burst their banks, the Corps helps mitigate the damage

By Matt Alderton UST A FEW YEARS AGO, summers in Southwest Michigan were a walk on the beach. In lakeside hamlets like New Buffalo, St. Joseph and South Haven, visitors could meander up and down the shoreline for miles at a time. Now, these beaches are underwater. To the west, Lake Michigan surges and seethes, throwing waves like punches at the coast. To the east, water smothers the strand, taking bites from bluffs until exposed tree roots dangle out of the earth like entrails. Meanwhile, homes teeter overhead like ballerinas dancing precariously en pointe.

To be sure, Lake Michigan has always vacillated between highs

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A house along Lake Ontario USACE BUFFALO DISTRICT

and lows, retreating from the shore in some years and encroaching on it in others. Recently, though, its highs have gotten higher.

“We had an unusually long period of low water from the late ’90s until about 2013. And then the lake climbed really high, really fast,” said coastal management expert Richard Norton, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan. “Now, it’s at or above record levels — and it looks like it’s going to stay there for a while.”

What’s happening in Lake Michigan is happening across the Great Lakes, according to hydrologist Drew Gronewold, associate professor of environment and sustainability at the University of

Michigan. “The last decade for the United States has been the wettest on record,” he said. “The Great Lakes have received a lot of that precipitation, which turns into high water levels.”

Of course, high water in and of itself isn’t the problem; rather, it’s the destruction it sows. “The impacts depend a lot on the unique conditions along each lake’s shoreline,” Gronewold continued.

“Some of the land around western Lake Erie or eastern Lake Ontario, for example, is very flat and dominated by wetlands. When water levels go up just a little bit above their normal highs, the water turns CONTI NUED

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Detroit city workers fill sandbags to help with flooding.

USACE DETROIT DISTRICT

“... if you look at the past 125 years, 15 of the 50 wettest years have occurred since 2006.”

— KEITH KORALEWSKI, chief of hydrology and hydraulics engineering and water management, USACE Buffalo District into flooding that spreads across the land. In contrast, the shoreline along eastern Lake Michigan in many places is very steep and dominated by tall, sandy dunes. There, instead of immediate flooding, you get erosion and deterioration of the shoreline.”

The fallout can be significant for lakeside communities. “There are environmental consequences and economic consequences,” Norton said. “Environmentally, shorelines are dynamic habitats for fish, birds and plants. If all that’s left (are) waves pounding hard rocks, you lose that. Economically, the Great Lakes are a huge economic engine. A lot of coastal communities rely on revenue from tourism and part-time residents. There’s good reason to think that if folks don’t have beaches to walk on anymore, they’re no longer going to spend their time and money in those communities.”

Ultimately, protecting lives and livelihoods from wild waters requires a diverse coalition of local, state and federal stakeholders — including the Corps. Federal law gives the Corps jurisdiction over all “navigable waters” of the United States, including the Great Lakes.

■ WATCHING THE WATER One of the most important things the Corps does on the Great Lakes is monitor water levels. “The water level record has gauges that go back to 1860, and they have been meticulously maintained throughout that entire time period so that we have a really good understanding of how water levels have changed over time. That water level record is like gold,” Gronewold said.

Hydrologists in the Corps’ Detroit District use historical data, contemporaneous climate information and forward-looking models

to author a monthly bulletin featuring six-month forecasts for each of the Great Lakes.

“We coordinate our forecast with our partners in Canada, and that forecast goes out in print to more than 4,000 people in the United States,” said Lauren Fry, technical lead for Great Lakes hydrology in the Detroit district. “We use that forecast to engage with local communities through things like public meetings to let them know that water levels are high, and that we expect them to remain high for at least the next six months.”

As recently as March, lakes Michigan and Huron had a mean elevation of 581.43 feet above sea level; that’s 3 feet above their average March elevation, more than 5 feet above their record low and less than an inch from their record high. By September, the Corps forecasts, water levels could rise by as much as another foot.

“There’s no reason to believe we’re going to be at record-high water levels forever, but we do need to buckle up for a little while,” Fry said.

“It will take some dry conditions for a long period of time in order to bring us back to normal conditions.”

Unfortunately, “normal conditions” might be a thing of the past.

“It’s difficult to say whether high water levels are part of climate change, but if you look at the past 125 years, 15 of the 50 wettest years have occurred since 2006. And if you look at the 50 driest years in the same 125-year period, not one of them has occurred since 2000,” said Keith Koralewski, chief of hydrology and hydraulics engineering and water management in the Corps’ Buffalo District.

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Determining sandbag placement in Sodus, N.Y. USACE BUFFALO DISTRICT

■ HIGH-WATER HELP Armed with Corps forecasts, flood-prone communities can put in motion emergency plans to proactively protect people and property.

Families with coastal homes can build seawalls, move their houses away from the shore or even demolish structures to avoid the expense of fishing them out of the lake later.

Although such decisions and corresponding mitigations generally fall to local governments and private citizens, Public Law 84-99 gives the Corps discretionary authority to act and react to coastal emergencies caused by floods.

“Public Law 84-99 enables each of our districts to have a dedicated emergency operations center and a dedicated emergency management staff,” said Krystle Walker, an emergency management specialist for USACE’s Detroit District.

This Corps emergency staff provides both technical and direct assistance. “Under technical assistance, we send out subject matter experts to look at areas of concern that are affected by high water levels, and we provide recommendations about what to do to help with the situation,” said Michelle Kozak, emergency manager for USACE’s Chicago District.

“Here in the Chicago District, our emergency operations center has been activated since July 8, 2019, and since then we’ve been on more than 40 site visits to provide technical assistance up and down the lakeshore in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin.”

Among the recipients of technical assistance in the Chicago District are the Chicago Department of Transportation, which has installed jersey barriers along portions of Lake Shore Drive to

mitigate erosion, and the Chicago Park District, which has installed boulder riprap to protect eroding beaches.

“Direct assistance is our ability to provide actual, physical floodfighting materials like empty sandbags and HESCO barriers to communities at a reimbursable rate,” said Walker, who cited Detroit as one recipient of this work. This spring, to prevent Detroit’s wastewater treatment plant from becoming overwhelmed, causing sewage backup into residents’ basements, the Corps provided wire mesh sand-filled basket walls and sandbag sleeves that the city used to construct a temporary levee around the Harding Canal.

“Even while the Detroit District and the Corps nationwide is surging to help the nation respond to (the COVID-19 pandemic), we’re working diligently to help the city of Detroit and state of Michigan protect our communities from historically high water levels,” Detroit District commander Lt. Col. Greg Turner said in a statement.

■ SHORING UP SHORES Still, the war against rising waters is mostly up to communities to wage. Fortunately, local governments are more buoyant than ever thanks to Corps support. “If there’s any silver lining to having had sustained high water levels over the last few years, it’s that it’s given us an opportunity to improve our communications. As a result, I think people are better prepared,” Koralewski said. “It doesn’t prevent the problem, of course — it’s very difficult to prevent flooding and erosion due to high waters — but knowing they can come to us and ask questions makes communities more resilient.”

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Jessica Costello, a technician, processes a box of artifacts from West Virginia’s Burnsville reservoir at the Veterans Curation Program’s lab in Alexandria, Va.

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By Patricia Kime

F

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Veterans program helps troops in transition

ORMER MARINE INFANTRYMAN DUSTIN

Wood has always had an interest in history, dating back to a fascination with Egypt, Rome and ancient Greece in primary school. Fast forward to Iraq in 2004, and as Wood patrolled a combat-intensive area south of Baghdad known as the Triangle of Death, he found himself drawn to the Iraqi culture.

“I was on the streets every day and got to talk to (Iraqis) every day and hear their concerns. If I could go back and visit the sites and museums now knowing I wouldn’t die, I would,” Wood said. “The experience definitely made me who I am today.”

After retiring from the Marine Corps, Wood settled in his hometown of Milwaukee, but became restless. One day, while typing “veterans” and “archaeology” into a Google search, he discovered the U.S. Army Corps Veterans Curation Program (VCP), a paid internship for former service members that supports the mission to preserve artifacts found at Corps’ properties and projects.

Woods said he couldn’t apply fast enough. “I couldn’t believe it.

Archaeology has been a lifelong passion.”

Conceived by the legendary

USACE

This U.S. coin was found at Winfield Locks and Dam in West Virginia.

Corps archaeologist and forensic scientist Michael “Sonny” Trimble, who led the Mass Graves Inspection Team in Iraq that helped convict former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime of crimes against humanity, the VCP is a five-month educational and vocational training program. Veterans learn jobhunting and office skills while they work to help preserve and catalog the Corps’ archaeological collection.

Trimble founded the program as a way to give back to the service members who protected his team during the graves recovery efforts in Iraq, but according to Jennifer Riordan, a physical anthropologist with the Corps’ St. Louis District, the program is a win-win, as thousands of artifacts that have otherwise been sitting on shelves — such as pottery shards from a civilization that predated a Revolutionary War fort in Norfolk, Va., and Civil War-era pipe stems from Pea Patch Island in the Delaware Bay — are entered into the record books.

That’s vital work, according to Riordan, who also serves as director of the Mandatory Center of Expertise for the Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections, because the Corps is required by law to recover artifacts unearthed during any project in accordance with the National CONTI NUED

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PROVIDED BY KIMBERLY BLANKE

Assistant Lab Manager Kimberly Blanke (in black) teaches veterans how to photograph artifacts at the program’s St. Louis-based facility.

Historic Preservation and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Acts.

Veterans apply to work in one of four labs or three satellite sites across the country. As part of the program, they work as lab technicians, managed by archaeologists and anthropologists. They rotate through various work stations processing artifacts: sifting through boxes of relics, cleaning them, numbering them, entering their descriptions into a database, photographing them and then packaging them for storage.

“When I arrived, they asked me what I wanted out of the program. No one had really ever asked me that.”

During the process, these former troops learn valuable computer, photography, digital scanning and other office skills. “One of the strong suits of the program is the soft skills it teaches the veterans. Many have never worked in an office. It gives them an understanding outside a military setting,” Riordan said.

The program pays veterans a living wage and also provides them job counseling and training that includes interview preparation, resume writing and networking tips.

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— DUSTIN WOOD, imaging specialist, Na’ Ali’i VETERANS CURATION PROGRAM

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USACE

In Augusta, Ga., Kendarrious Sanders undergoes artifact processing training.

One of the few intact glass bottles recovered from Mississippi’s Waverly Plantation.

USACE

Kimberly Blanke served in the Marine Corps from 2009 to 2013 and decided to apply to VCP after spending several years as a stay-at-home mom. She said she applied for the program to learn skills like Microsoft Excel that she rarely used as a combat engineer. Her goal was to become an administrative assistant, and shortly after finishing the program, she was hired as one at a financial services firm in St. Louis.

Though the program has an archaeology focus, it isn’t geared toward working just in that field, Riordan said. “We want to ensure (veterans) have the skills and the stability to take the next steps,” she said.

Wood agreed, saying veterans should not dismiss VCP as a beginner archaeologist job. Instead, he said, it’s a program that provides former service members a comfortable environment to re-enter the workplace, especially those with service-connected disabilities like post-traumatic stress disorder.

To date, 646 veterans have completed the program, according to Riordan, with 91 percent landing jobs in the federal government and private sector in document digitization, data entry, photography and administration.

VCP was initially established at three locations: Augusta, Ga., St. Louis and Alexandria, Va. Another full-service lab opened in San Mateo, Calif., and two satellite locations were established at universities in Washington and Texas in 2018. Last year, a third satellite location at the University of Arkansas opened.

The program runs on $4 million of congressional funding and is managed under a government contract

by New South Associates of Georgia, a women-owned small business that specializes in cultural resource management services.

“When I arrived, they asked what I wanted to get out of the program. No one had really ever asked me that. The coolest thing is they understand veterans.

They help you, and they support you,” Wood said.

While most don’t continue to jobs of a historical or archaeological nature, Wood was offered a job with Na’ Ali’i, a contractor for the National Archives, even before he graduated. He now spends his days as an imaging specialist digitizing the service records of former prisoners of war and troops missing in action from World War II — skills he learned at VCP. “It’s a process, preparing the boxes, taking items out like dog tags and telegrams from loved ones. We use the cameras and the whole setup like VCP. It’s so cool,” Wood said.

Blanke found she missed the VCP program, so when an assistant lab management position at the St. Louis VCP became open, she applied and was hired, becoming the only nonscientist fully employed by the lab.

“I really love being able to provide assistance to fellow veterans,” said Blanke. “I didn’t know how much I would enjoy working with other vets.”

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Dam Nation GUARDING AGAINST FLOODS IS ONE OF THE CORPS’ MOST IMPORTANT MISSIONS

The Oroville Dam in California after the 2017 breach DEFENSE IMAGERY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS CENTER

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By Brian Barth N FEB. 7, 2017, resi-

dents of Oroville, Calif., awoke to alarming news: A giant sinkhole had opened up in the spillway of a nearby dam on the Feather River, potentially threatening the integrity of the structure. At 770 feet, the Oroville Dam is the tallest in the country, supplying irrigation and drinking water to a large swath of the state. There had been concern among advocacy groups for years about the dam’s safety — nearing its 50th birthday, it was technically at the end of its service life. That winter, unusually heavy rainfall put the dam to its greatest test; its reservoir filled more than 50 percent above the capacity it was designed to handle.

The sinkhole caused a torrent of water to pour outside of the concrete spillway, eroding the earthen bank of the structure. On Feb. 11, the dam managers diverted the flow to the emergency spillway — a hillside, not lined with concrete, that would be subject to erosion with such a massive flow. The emergency spillway was designed to tolerate some erosion, but it deteriorated in a way its designers did not foresee, threatening a concrete structure at the top of the dam that, if it gave way, would produce catastrophic flooding downstream.

Just before 5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12, the state’s water agency tweeted: “Auxiliary spillway at Oroville Dam predicted to fail within the next hour.

Oroville residents evacuate northward.” More than 188,000 residents proceeded to clog local highways as

they fled. Fortunately, the situation Management Center. did not progress to the worst-case “It’s also given us a chance to scenario, and on Valentine’s Day demonstrate (to) the Congress, and the evacuation order was rescinded. to the public, that we can execute on “The spillway failure did not cause this large volume of work to better the dam to breach,” said Phoebe protect our nation’s infrastructure,” Percell, chief of the USACE Dam and Percell added.

Levee Safety Branch. “But we have The Corps operates and maintains learned from it.”

700 of the largest and most The Oroville incident was one of economically important dams in the the most high-profile dam safety country. It also oversees the National events in recent memory, and, like Inventory of Dams, which includes the May failures of the Edenville and some 90,000 additional structures Sanford dams in Michigan, which — managed by states, other federal are overseen by the state, it agencies, public utilities pointed the public’s attenand private companies, FOR EVERY $1 that are large enough to tion toward a latent crisis INVESTED, in American infrastructure: pose a significant risk if 70 percent of the nation’s they were to fail. Together, 90,000 dams are more these are vital to the fabric than 50 years old, accordof the nation, providing ing to the Association of recreation opportunities State Dam Safety Officials and storing water for both (ASDSO). Of the dams the municipal and agricultural Corps manages, 52 percent use. In many areas, dam IN DAMAGE have exceeded the 50-year IS PREVENTED operation is critical for the service lives for which they release of water to maintain SOURCE: USACE were designed. Fixing all aquatic vegetation and dams that need repairs habitat for fish and wildlife. nationwide would cost $65 billion Many dams are fitted with locks that ASDSO estimates. Fixing the dams enable the transportation of goods overseen by the Corps would take up and down the nation’s rivers. Oth$24 billion, or 50 years based on the ers generate energy — the Corps is current funding stream. the biggest producer of hydroelectric The Corps has struggled with power in the country. a limited budget for addressing When not maintained properly, these aging civil works, but after dams pose catastrophic flood risk. widespread flooding across the The May failure of the Edenville country in 2017 and 2018, Congress and Sanford dams forced 11,000 appropriated nearly $2 billion to people to evacuate their homes in address dam safety. “The administhe middle of a pandemic. But under tration made a big down payment normal conditions, the reservoirs on dam safety, fully funding all the they create provide flood mitigation projects we were working on,” said by absorbing surges in runoff. The Nathan Snorteland, director of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Risk CONTI NUED

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“These 1,000year storms ... are wreaking havoc with some of the smaller dams that are not really designed for that kind of rainfall.”

— JOHN BIANCO, special assistant for dam safety, USACE

A Corps employee documents the damage to Puerto Rico’s Guajataca Dam caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Corps dams prevent roughly $50 billion per year in flood damages.

Prioritizing their upkeep makes economic sense: The agency’s repairs prevent an average of $8 in damages for each $1 invested, according to the Corps.

The principal work of the Dam Safety Program is continual monitoring of structural integrity

to assess risk across the agency’s portfolio. “The Corps uses a riskinformed approach to prioritize the large workloads that we have in the program,” said Percell. “We consider many different things when we’re making those decisions, including a dam’s performance during flood events and things like earthquakes. We also consider the

potential consequences of failure, whether loss of life and economic damages, or impacts to navigation, the environment and cultural resources.”

Prior to the recent push for dam improvements, the American Society of Civil Engineers designated almost 4,000 U.S. dams as “deficient.” Climate change isn’t helping. In September 2017, barely six months after the crisis in Oroville, inundation from Hurricane Maria created a hole in the spillway of Puerto Rico’s Guajataca Dam, which has 70,000 people living below it. The following year, during a period of record rainfall in Texas, Dallas residents became fearful of the Lewisville Lake Dam, which had shown signs of leakage a few years earlier and would cover the city in up to 50 feet of water if it failed.

“These 1,000-year storms, like Harvey, Maria and Florence, are wreaking havoc with some of the smaller dams that are not really CONTI NUED

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Guajataca Dam, Puerto Rico

designed for that kind of rainfall,” said John Bianco, a Corps special assistant for dam safety.

The bulk of repairs to the Oroville Dam’s spillway were completed in 2017 and 2018, though minor work continues today. Repair crews have used enough concrete to fill 372 Olympic-size swimming pools, which

cost more than $1 billion. Congress commissioned an independent review to determine the root causes of the spillway failure.

“The review board concluded that inspectors had recognized cracking in the spillway, but it became something that was just accepted over time and was not identified as

a mode of failure,” said Percell. “We have learned from that and are now more sensitive to those types of potential failure modes than we were before.”

Commitment to public safety, said Percell, has never been a shortcoming at the agency: “We’re pretty passionate about it.”

USACE JACKSONVILLE DISTRICT

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EDUCATION

Study Buddies Corps partners with colleges to offer students real-life experience

A student at Southwestern Oklahoma State University KAREN SWEENEY

By Stacey Freed

I

N 2017, KAREN SWEENEY, assistant professor of computer science at Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) in Weatherford, Okla., wanted to find a final project for graduating seniors. As luck would have it, Sweeney received a call from a park ranger looking for help on the Corps’ Junior Ranger program, which teaches children ages 6 to 12 how to become honorary rangers.

To engage youngsters, Sweeney’s students created an app meant to teach camping skills, provide information about how dams work and offer basic facts about nearby CO NTINUED

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SWOSU students and Tulsa District Corps staff STACEY REESE/USACE TULSA DISTRICT

Canton Lake.

The program was so successful, the Corps has since established partnerships in 14 districts, including Little Rock, Ark., Los Angeles and Buffalo, N.Y. All are part of the Multi-District Innovations Team.

“College students bring positive energy, excitement and innovative ideas to meetings and workshops,” said Jason Knight, a natural resource specialist with the Corps’ Tulsa District, which has partnered with SWOSU on a variety of projects. “Without our SWOSU partners, many of the solutions the (Corps) team has produced would not be possible.”

Here are highlights from four districts and their partnership programs:

TULSA DISTRICT: COMPUTER ACCESS Sweeney’s SWOSU students have been involved in more than a dozen projects

“Being able to pass on our love of science and inspire a few students to pursue that down the road is a great opportunity.”

— MICHAEL VOORHEES, biologist, USACE Buffalo District

with the Corps, including “Bid Assist,” a program that helps prospective contractors who wish to bid on government contracts complete the required application on PCs or smartphones.

The Corps partnership has become so popular that the college has created a second class, Design Practicum, which partners with the Corps to update existing apps as well as develop new ones.

Sweeney credits the Corps for helping to grow SWOSU’s computer science department.

“We knew from the beginning this

program and partnership would be special. Students are getting to be the innovators using the leadership, resource and manpower of the team,” said Knight.

“So far, this team has created some very good solutions to a lot of common problems we’ve faced for years.”

LITTLE ROCK DISTRICT: FRESH PERSPECTIVES At Arkansas State University, students are helping to assess the Corps’ six reservoirs in the White River Basin (WRB), which includes large parts of

Missouri and Arkansas. “An additional 10 inches of rain has fallen each year during the past decade in the upper WRB,” said Jaysson Funkhouser, program manager for the Corps’ Little Rock District. “Do we need to change how we make releases?

We need to more closely examine the effects of this.”

This year, the Arkansas students will help the Corps decide what data would be most effective in analyzing water control and how the information should be collected. “We hope to get the needs identified by end of summer and get the study started later in the calendar year,” Funkhouser said. “We anticipate that it could take anywhere from two to three years before the report is available for publication.”

The Corps has already had a successful CONTI NUED

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EDUCATION joint venture looking at the WRB. In summer 2019, it partnered with local communities to fund two University of Arkansas Ph.D. students studying the Black River’s flooding. “The students bring different perspectives and viewpoints, so it’s not just the Corps’ mentality,” Funkhouser said. “That’s critical.”

LOS ANGELES DISTRICT: ENGINEERING UP CLOSE Six years ago, Charles “Steve” Dwyer, chief of the navigation branch in programs and project management at the Corps’ Los Angeles District and a local expert on the Los Angeles River, began giving guest lectures and tours of the Corps’ facilities to engineering students at The University of Southern California (USC). It was so successful, Dwyer helped finalize partnerships with four other local schools: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); California State University, Los Angeles; California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and Arizona State University.

These partnerships include internships, lectures and student project critiques by Corps experts, as well as field trips. Dwyer recently brought UCLA engineering students to see the inner workings of the Sepulveda Dam on the the Los Angeles River and a group of USC graduate landscape architecture students on a tour of the river.

“We might be able to incorporate some of the student design ideas in the Corps’ L.A. River Ecosystem Restoration Project,” Dwyer said. “The students are very enthusiastic about these site visits, as these are things they would not normally see firsthand. I bring practical engineering to the table for them.”

BUFFALO DISTRICT: FISHING FOR ANSWERS At D’Youville College in Buffalo, N.Y., students in the Great Lakes ecology class don’t just attend lectures, they engage with local Corps projects led by biologist Michael Voorhees and fisheries biologist Richard Ruby. Students get real-world experience, while the Corps gets extra hands to help with data collection.

Voorhees and Ruby recently ran two labs, one on wetland delineation, which measures the boundaries of wetlands, and the other on fish community surveys. For the wetlands lab, held at N.Y.’s Department of Environmental Conservation ecosystem restoration project on Grand Island near Buffalo, they taught students how wetlands are identified and regulated. Students dug soil pits and looked for evidence of

D’Youville College students with Corps biologist Richard Ruby, left, on Unity Island in Buffalo, N.Y. USACE

water inundation.

During the community lab at Unity Island in Buffalo, students collected real-world data during the monitoring phase of the ecosystem restoration project. They used gill and fyke nets to trap fish so they could more easily check their length and identify species.

The Corps uses this information to measure the success of the project and restoration of the fish community.

Students identified species such as muskie, perch and bass. “Their presence is a healthy indicator for the aquatic environment,” said Ruby. “We’re hoping to continue the relationship with the college so students can see the progress of these projects over time.”

Both scientists are glad they can spark interest in budding scientists. “Being able to pass on our love of science and inspire a few students to pursue that down the road is a great opportunity,” said Vorhees. “It’s something that makes you want to go to work every day.”

Steve Dwyer,far left, and fellow Corps staff members at an event at The University of Southern California PROVIDED BY STEVE DWYER

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EDUCATION

TECH. SGT. JENSEN STIDHAM/USACE

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is seen from across the Hudson River as an aerial formation flies over the school, part of last year’s New York International Air Show.

21st-Century Campus Updating West Point one building at a time

By Stacey Freed

T

HE END IS IN sight for the

Corps’ $1 billion upgrade of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point’s campus.

Since 2013, the Corps’ New

York District has been reconfiguring the U.S. Military Academy’s buildings. One new barracks has gone up, while the other barracks were modernized and renovated to alleviate overcrowding.

“More than 4,000 cadets lived three and four to a room,” explained Matthew

Ludwig, the Corps’ chief of construction for the project. The new barracks house two to a room, said Ludwig.

The team faced the logistical and design challenges of working on a CONTI NUED

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MIKE GROLL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Corps constructs the new barracks, named in honor of Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr.

nationally designated landmark that has its academic and housing facilities clustered together in a relatively small area within the 16,000-acre campus.

NEW DIGS Part one of the project was to build Davis Barracks, the first new barracks on the campus since the 1970s, according to Ludwig. It’s named in honor of the late four-star Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. who though shunned as the sole black cadet entering West Point in 1932, went on to become the Air Force’s first black general.

The biggest logistical challenge the Corps faced, Ludwig said, was creating the footprint for the new barracks. “We had to blast away 150 cubic yards of material in a confined space.” While blasting, the Corps installed seismic monitoring systems on the surrounding buildings to track the operations. “We also provided an alert monitoring notification system so that the campus was aware that blasting would commence in CONTINUED

Davis Barracks HECTOR MOSLEY/USACE NEW YORK DISTRICT

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HECTOR MOSLEY/USACE NEW YORK DISTRICT

Transforming Pershing from an academic building to a barracks required a gut renovation. The new facility opened in 2018 and features updated amenities.

the specified time frame,” said Ludwig.

Completed in 2017 at a cost of about $200 million, the seven-story granite structure houses 650 cadets in 325 rooms and is LEED Silver certified, Ludwig said.

Modern additions include air conditioning, 4,000 solar collector tubes to heat water and a soaring glass curtain wall to bring natural light into the building, according to Ludwig.

BARRACKS 2.0 Once Davis was completed, the Corps converted Pershing, originally an academic building, into a barracks, which was rededicated in November 2018.

Next, the Corps gutted and renovated Eisenhower Barracks.

At the moment, the Corps is focused on remodeling Grant Barracks’ interior, which should be completed this summer, as well as reconfiguring Bradley Barracks to include air conditioning, aiming to finish that project next year.

All the barracks will have energy improvements such as low-emissivity (low-E) double-pane windows, Ludwig said. “We analyzed every building — layout, configuration, orientation, as well as N.Y. State Historic Preservation Organization rules — for things to improve energy efficiency.”

As work on the barracks nears completion, the Corps could next, pending approval from Congress, begin work on a cyber engineering and academic center.

COVID-19 has, as elsewhere, had an impact on progress, but the Corps carries on. “We put in controls to monitor the staff and staggered hours to create more social distancing,” said Ludwig. “All work remains active.”

Rendering of West Point Elementary School HECTOR MOSLEY/USACE NEW YORK DISTRICT

FULL STEAM AHEAD Students at the new West Point Elementary School learn from the building itself. In January, a brand-new LEED Silver certified, 100,000-square-foot school built by the Corps began serving more than 500 students of instructors or military members living on the West Point campus.

Located on the north side of the military installation, the new school replaces a building constructed in the 1960s that was physically “outdated and didn’t have any tech aspects,” said Matthew Ludwig, chief of construction for USACE’s New York District.

With the school’s focus on STEAM — science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics — “teachers use

the aspects of building functionality in their lessons,” Ludwig said, such as open sections of ceiling, so students can see sanitary and heating systems in use. And, there’s a wind turbine on the roof, which “serves as a teaching tool for students to learn about harnessing energy and converting wind into electricity,” Ludwig added.

During the school’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, teachers greeted the team, Ludwig said. “When they opened the doors to the gym and the teachers were lined up on either side of doors and high-fived everyone, I was elated. Very rarely do I get to feel the thanks for doing these kinds of projects.”

— Stacey Freed

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HYDROPOWER

Hartwell Dam and Lake USACE

Power Players Dams provide electricity, play vital environmental role

By Adam Hadhazy

T

HE SAVANNAH RIVER RUNS through both South

Carolina and Georgia, with the Palmetto State forming the eastern bank and the Peach State the western bank of the waterway’s 300-mile stretch.

Along this state-dividing waterway, the Army Corps of Engineers’ Savannah Dis-

trict operates three dams. The Hartwell Dam is just 7 miles south of where the Savannah River begins, at the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca rivers. The other two facilities, the Richard B. Russell Dam and the J. Strom Thurmond Dam, arise 30 miles and 67 miles downstream from Hartwell.

Collectively, the reservoirs behind each dam form a lake chain that stretches for 120 miles. Through these dams, the

Corps has harnessed the flow of water to produce hydroelectric power, as well as provide myriad benefits to the surrounding region, including flood reduction, downstream navigation, water supply, improved water quality, recreation and fish and wildlife management.

To generate power, the Corps funnels water from the dams’ reservoirs through CONTI NUED

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Thurmond Dam USACE

massive pipes, called penstocks, into the downstream portion of the river. At Hartwell, Russell and Thurmond, the penstocks measure 24 feet, 26 feet and 20 feet wide, respectively. Such tremendous widths allow water to gush through at a rate of 2 million to 3 million gallons per minute. Water rushing through the dams spins the fan blades inside turbines, which in turn spin a generator shaft. The shaft then spins a series of magnets, known as the rotor, inside coils of copper wire, called the stator, which induces a voltage, and voila: electricity.

The three dams supply critical energy during peak periods when the demand on the electrical grid is highest, for instance

“Today, hydropower provides nearly 7 percent of U.S. electricity generation, and is one of the largest generators of renewable energy.”

— LEROY COLEMAN, National Hydropower Association during hot summer days. Unlike coalburning and nuclear power plants, which require hours to increase their output, the dams’ generators can switch on a moment’s notice. “We can go in a matter

of minutes from a dead stop to making power,” said Stanley Simpson, senior water manager for the Savannah District.

In the last fiscal year — which was fairly typical in terms of hydropower production — the Hartwell, Russell and Thurmond dams produced more than 2 million megawatt-hours, according to USACE officials. (A typical home uses around 800 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.)

This power is sold to private companies and public cooperatives in the region by the Southeastern Power Administration, part of the Department of Energy, at competitive rates, and typically accounts for more than $80 million in

revenue annually.

“All revenues collected go to pay all Corps operations and maintenance costs,” said Douglas Kennedy, a hydropower business line manager at Thurmond. Most years, according to Kennedy, roughly $4 million goes toward operations, ensuring that staff are on hand around the clock to start, stop and monitor the generators as needed, and about $10 million covers annual maintenance. In other words, the Savannah District dams more than pay for themselves, with the surplus going to the U.S. Treasury.

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HYDROPOWER

Generators at the Russell Dam

Thurmond Dam

Specially trained mechanics and electricians — each dam has two fourperson teams — handle most of the repairs. Besides maintaining hydropower capability, the work by these, and other Corps members, fulfills congressional mandates for key services provided by the dams. For flood control, for example, the dams’ lakes each have 5 feet of water storage to reduce flood peaks beyond what operators call the lakes’ full-pool level.

At the Russell Dam, part of maintaining pool levels at desirable heights — for generating hydropower and delivering downstream benefits — involves a feature found at only one other Corps dam. Four of the eight generator units at Russell can pump water back up into

the dam’s reservoir, usually at night, for subsequent power-making downstream flow the next day. “We recycle the water over and over again, so it’s a really clean and renewable energy source,” said Simpson.

The Corps’ three dams on the Savannah River, along with the 72 other hydropower dams the Corps operates, are part of a greater whole in powering the country.

Their dams alone can power 10 cities the size of Seattle. “Today, hydropower provides nearly 7 percent of U.S. electricity generation, and is one of the largest generators of renewable energy,” said LeRoy Coleman, spokesman for the National Hydropower Association. “As the federal agency with the most hydropower capacity in its fleet, the Corps plays an important role.”

Spillway gates at the Russell Dam USACE (3)

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DEFENSE SITES

NICK STOLTE

At Camp Breckinridge, in Morganfield, Ky., unexploded 81mm mortars, found at a former range, are lined up before demolition.

Bombs Away Former defense sites get safety cleanup

By Robin Roenker

T

HINK OF IT AS one of the world’s most high-tech cleanup crews.

Team members involved with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) program are charged with detecting and removing contaminants and munitions on retired military training or testing grounds across America. Their goal: removing potential hazards so the land can be safely allocated to other uses — from farms, parks and wildlife refuges to sites for new neighborhoods and more.

“The (Corps) has one of the largest environ-

mental restoration and environmental compliance roles in the federal government,” said Lara E. Beasley, the Corps’ environmental division chief. “We provide solutions to the nation’s toughest environmental challenges. We’re known for that.”

So whether it’s detecting and removing some 1,500 pieces of unexploded ordnance at Camp Breckinridge, a former WWII training facility in western Kentucky that’s now largely farmland, or cleaning up WWII-era landfill waste — including electronics equipment, fuel, lead and steel — at Fort Rousseau near Sitka, Alaska, to prevent CONTI NUED

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DEFENSE SITES contaminated soil from leaching into nearby waterways, Corps crews merge on-the-ground know-how with cuttingedge scientific advances to get the job done.

When it comes to removing munitions, archival records and maps of military land usage are paired with modern high-precision aerial photographs, LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology and advanced geophysical classification capabilities — including electromagnetic induction (EMI) technology, which can detect and identify metal anomalies in the ground — to help teams identify precisely where remediation efforts are needed on designated “The (Corps) FUDS sites.

“The has one of technology the largest has come a long way,” said environmental Christopher restoration and Evans, chief of the ... compliance Department of Defense roles in the environmental federal govern- programs branch within ment. We prothe Corps’ environmental vide solutions division. to the nation’s “When I first started worktoughest ing at these sites looking environmental for munitions, challenges.” you had an — LARA E. BEASLEY, instrumentenvironmental division that beeped at every piece chief, USACE of metal. The advanced sensors that we are deploying now actually allow us to generate an electronic signature of the metallic items in the subsurface, compare them to a library of signatures for various unexploded ordnance items and make (an identifying) match.”

To date, the FUDS program has invested roughly $7.8 billion to clean up approximately 3,700 project sites nationwide — some on land with defense ties dating as far back as the Revolutionary War. Work is underway, or will start soon, at an additional 1,700 FUDS projects across the nation, where Corps teams will oversee building demolition, toxic and radioactive waste cleanup, and munitions and explosives removal as needed.

“Our remaining cost to complete the

AARON SHEWMAN/USACE ALASKA DISTRICT

The Corps removes a contaminated landfill from a World War II military installation at Alaska’s Fort Rousseau park.

THE CORPS HAS CLEANED UP

3,700 FORMER DEFENSE SITES

rest of the cleanup is about $11.7 billion,” said Beasley. “We look at the current and anticipated future land use for each site and work with stakeholders in the area to jointly determine what the best remedy is going to be.”

FUDS success stories abound. Last June, for example, the Corps completed a three-year effort to clean up land and waterways near Cape Poge, on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, which had been used as a bombing practice site by the U.S. Navy in WWII. In addition to roughly 20,000 pieces of munition fragments, crews removed at least 2,000 MEC (munitions and explosives of concern) — so-called because they likely still had a charge intact — on land, plus roughly 1,700 explosives in

USACE NEW ENGLAND DISTRICT

Crews excavate WWII explosives at a former bomb target near Cape Poge, Mass.

nearby waterways. Divers also made the surprising find of portions of aircraft parts, likely from a downed Curtiss SB2C Helldiver that crashed during training in 1946.

While removing the munitions hazards was a key goal, so too was preserving the integrity of ecosystems during the process, since portions of the site fell inside Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge. “Before we dug for any anomalies, we essentially

did a biological survey to determine what plants and animals were occupying the area,” said Carol Charette of the Corps’ New England District, who served as the Cape Poge project manager. When they were done, they replanted the vegetation that had been there. “Our end goal was to have the whole site be as vegetated as it was before we even started,” said Charette. “It was a very rewarding project.”

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DAMS AND LOCKS

Shake, Rattle, Respond Keeping a close eye on dams in earthquake zones

By Matt Alderton

H

URRICANE MARIA TAUGHT PUERTO Rico

many difficult lessons when it devastated the island in September 2017. One was the importance of critical infrastructure — in particular, electricity. Maria caused the largest power loss in U.S. history, and it took nearly a year and $3.2 billion to resolve.

Some two years later, electricity was top of mind when Puerto Rico found itself in the midst of yet another natural disaster. This time, earthquakes. Starting on Dec. 28, 2019, and concluding on Jan. 15, 2020, some 10 earthquakes rattled southwestern Puerto Rico.

When a 5.8 magnitude earthquake affecting the region’s hydroelectric dams struck on Jan. 6, the government-run Puerto Rico CONTINUED

Portugués Dam, Puerto Rico CATALINA CARRASCO/USACE

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DAMS AND LOCKS

ROSS HINER/USACE PORTLAND DISTRICT

Corps geologist Erica Medley conducts rock mapping and inspection within the Fall Creek spillway near Eugene, Ore.

ADVANCE WORK The Corps prepares for seismic activity in the Pacific Northwest

CATALINA CARRASCO/USACE

Engineers inspect a wall inside the Portugués Dam after seismic activity in January.

Electric Power Authority (PREPA), which oversees the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to look for damage. Three Corps engineers were dispatched to conduct inspections the following day.

That’s when the largest quake — 6.4 magnitude — hit at 4:24 a.m.

“We woke up to the ground shaking,” recalled Julio Soto, one of the engineers who, even as tremors continued underfoot, got out of bed and headed to the first of his inspections. Earthquakes continued rocking the island: a 5.6 magnitude quake at 4:34 a.m., a 5.0 magnitude quake at 4:50 a.m. and another 5.6 magnitude quake at 7:18 a.m.

“I was afraid because you never know if something even bigger might happen while you’re inside,” said Soto.

“But that’s the risk you have to take when you’re an engineer. When a threat

comes, you have to respond.”

Soto and his colleagues spent approximately two hours inside four hydroelectric dams near Guayanilla: Carite Dam in Guayama, Lucchetti Dam in Yauco and Portugués and Cerrillos dams in Ponce. At each site, the team analyzed the dam’s structural and geotechnical conditions and compared its observations with past periodic inspections to identify any changes.

Fortunately, although they found there was apparent seepage at the toe and downstream face of Carite Dam, which they reported to PREPA for remediation, the Corps was able to report dams mostly were in excellent condition.

The ability to respond so quickly was crucial. “If the dams fail, electricity is affected,” Soto said. “But also, lives are at risk. A lot of people live downstream of the dams; if they fail and people are not given enough time to evacuate, it would be a catastrophe.”

On Jan. 26, 1700, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake occurred along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a fault line that extends from British Columbia to northern California. Now, 320 years later, seismologists say the Pacific Northwest has a 40 percent chance of experiencing another large earthquake within the next 50 years.

In response, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is mitigating potential impact by shoring up infrastructure — including 19 “high-hazard-potential” dams in Oregon.

“In the Willamette Valley, in particular, there’s some really tall dams with some pretty large amounts of water behind them,” said Ross Hiner, manager of the dam safety program within the Corps’ Portland District. The dams there are vulnerable not merely because the impending earthquake could be so strong, but because they were not constructed with such hazards in mind.

“Because when they were built in the 1930s through the 1950s, and into the late 1960s, it was believed that there was very low risk for an earthquake in this region,” explained Erica Medley, a geologist in the Portland District’s dam safety program.

Now that more sophisticated science has yielded new earthquake models and predictions, Corps dam safety experts are in the early phases of a yearslong project to conduct analyses of dam conditions. While there’s no evidence yet of an emergency situation — “there was a lot of conservatism in the original designs and the dams are very well built,” Medley said — the Corps is taking action now to prevent catastrophe later. At Hills Creek Dam near Oakridge, Ore., for example, the Corps has eased pressure on the structure by reducing the water volume by 5 percent to 10 percent.

Although it expects the dams to perform well during most seismic scenarios, the Corps may consider physical modifications to dams if studies suggest they’re necessary. “The Portland District is concerned about Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquakes because of the large population centers downstream of the dams,” Hiner said. “Due to the potential consequences, we are analyzing the dams for the most extreme and unlikely earthquake scenarios.”

— Matt Alderton

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DAMS AND LOCKS

Vital New Link Great Lakes locks keep business flowing

By Adam Hadhazy

A

MEGA PROJECT BY the U.S.

Army Corps’ Detroit District to keep open the vital waterway between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes recently entered a new phase.

In January, the Corps announced it awarded a $53 million construction contract to Mesquite, Nev.-based Trade West Construction to begin deepening the upstream approach channel to a planned new lock at the Soo Locks facility.

Before the construction of the original locks in 1855 in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., the connection between Lake Huron and Lake Superior was the St. Marys River, which, with a precipitous drop of 21 feet over a mere three-quarters of a mile, created dangerous rapids making it unnavigable. Workers had to manually move cargo over land which was expensive, slow and arduous.

Locks raise and lower seagoing vessels to enable transit across water levels of differing heights. “Locks are like a huge elevator for ships,” said Corps project manager Mollie Mahoney. With the “elevator” in place, ships are able to travel between the lakes by first navigating into a lock’s channel. Gates behind the ship then close. For a ship going downstream, valves open and gravity causes water.

USACE

CONTINUED

A ship enters the Soo Locks, one of the 10,000 annual lockages during shipping season.

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DAMS AND LOCKS

USACE

The Soo Locks and the St. Marys River are situated between Canada to the left and the U.S. to the right.

80 MILLION TONS OF CARGO PASS THROUGH THE SOO LOCKS ANNUALLY SOURCE: SOO LOCKS VISITOR CENTER

to flow out, dropping the water level and the ship to the desired downstream height. A second gate in front of the ship then opens and the ship proceeds.

To go upstream, extra water is allowed to flow into the lock, raising the vessel. The process takes about 15 to 20 minutes.

Throughout the decades (the Corps assumed ownership of the Soo Locks in 1881) multiple parallel locks have been constructed. Until now, the newest and biggest was the Poe Lock, built in the 1960s. It can handle modern, 1,000-foot-long vessels.

About 90 percent of the tonnage that

passes through the Soo Locks facility must use Poe Lock.

Having a lock with this capability is vitally economically important, Mahoney said.

About 10 percent of the nation’s waterborne domestic traffic travels on the Great Lakes navigation system — a 27-foot deep draft waterway spanning 2,400 miles from Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean — and half of that traffic passes through the Soo Locks.

Approximately 11 million U.S. jobs are directly or indirectly dependent on the locks, according to a 2015 Department of Homeland Security

report. Without the infrastructure, vital supplies such as iron ore, needed to make high-strength steel (used in manufacturing automobiles, appliances and heavy machinery), traveling from mines along Lake Superior to steel mills in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio would be stalled.

While the 52-year-old Poe Lock is still operational, it was built with a 50-year design life. “The Poe Lock is a potential single-point failure,” said Mahoney. “That’s why we need to construct another lock like the Poe.” That newer Soo Lock will share CONTI NUED

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DAMS AND LOCKS

USACE

It takes up to 22 million gallons of water to lift or lower a ship through the locks.

the Poe’s dimensions of 1,200 feet long, 110 feet wide and 32 feet deep, and will be built on the site of the decommissioned Davis and Sabin locks at the facility.

Estimated to cost more than $1 billion, the project began in 2009 with downstream deepening and cofferdam construction. (Cofferdams are sealed-off areas where water is pumped out, creating a pocket of dry land amidst a waterway.) Three phases remain. The recently awarded phase one will deepen the mile-long upstream approach channel to 30 feet from as shallow as 25 feet in places. Roughly 300,000 cubic yards

of material — mostly bedrock — will need to be removed, said Mahoney, with completion slated for late 2021.

Phase two will rehabilitate the upstream approach walls to the planned lock. The existing walls have deteriorated over their 100-year life and were designed to support loads from ships much smaller than today’s 1,000-foot vessels.

Strengthening the walls, installing larger mooring bollards and adding modern lighting should be completed in fall 2022.

Phase three involves the construction of the lock chamber, as well as rehabilitation of the downstream

approach wall. That work could begin as early as summer 2022 and conclude by 2030, Mahoney said.

This last phase will require demolition, excavation, complex formwork and mass concrete pouring. The severe winter climate limits the pace of the project and forces annual closure of the Soo Locks from January 15 to March 25. Corps engineers use this valuable downtime to perform maintenance and repairs.

This past winter’s work on the Poe Lock included gate structural repairs, stress checks, concrete gate sill repairs, valve emptying and machinery repairs, removal of debris

from the lock’s drainage system and electronics updates.

The seasonal rhythm of uptime and downtime has served the Great Lakes region well for decades.

Accordingly, to the extent possible, the new lock is being designed to have its parts be interchangeable with the Poe Lock, cutting down on the number of spare parts needed on-site and continuing the successful stretch of operations.

“Why recreate the wheel?” said Mahoney. “The Poe Lock has provided 50 very reliable years of service, and we’re looking to keep that going with the new lock.”

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ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

The Kissimmee River Restoration Project in Florida USACE

Everglades Restoration Massive project provides fresh water for residents, wildlife

By Robin Roenker

I

N CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN Florida, the Army Corps of Engineers is in the midst of “the largest aquatic ecosystem restoration program in the world,” said Col. Andrew Kelly, commander and district engineer of the Corps’ Jacksonville District.

Spanning more than 18,000 square miles, the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration program (SFER), a suite of projects managed by the Corps and the state of Florida, encompasses the Kissimmee River Basin near Orlando south

to Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. “We are contributing directly to the restoration of two national parks (Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park),” said Howie Gonzales, chief of the Jacksonville District’s ecosystem branch. “It’s ultimately a landscape that is like nowhere else on the planet.”

Begun in the 1990s and designed to improve the water flow and ecological health of some 2.4 million acres, including some of Florida’s most diverse natural CONTI NUED

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ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

The Kissimmee River restored to its natural flow

The former C-38 canal with the Kissimmee River, right USACE(2)

habitats, the Corps estimates the multifaceted SFER initiative won’t be completed for another 20 to 30 years. By then, countless hours and more than $15 billion will have been invested with one goal in mind: delivering clean water to native ecosystems and Florida residents.

The project is “meant to address the quantity of water and the quality of water — making sure we’re keeping the fresh water in the system and not losing it to tides,” explained Gonzales.

Within the next two years, the Corps is aiming to complete several central SFER components, including shoring up the aging Herbert Hoover Dike — a 143-mile earthen dam surrounding Lake Okeechobee. Additional work will improve the flow of canals and estuaries surrounding the lake and establish new water storage reservoirs that will allow the Corps and its partners to manage flood control, as well as perfect the timing of fresh water delivery in the region.

In the northernmost section, the Kissimmee River Restoration Project — expected to be finished in the next year — will be one of the most tangible and successful modifications completed. Since 1999, Corps teams have been working to re-create the original natural meandering flow of the river, portions of which had been replaced in the 1960s by the 56-mile-long, 300-foot-wide, C-38 canal, a sort of “water super highway,” Gonzales said.

“As we got into the 1990s, there was a realization that the ways the Kissimmee River had been manipulated to form a large, straight, deep-cut canal were having significant negative impacts on the environment,” Gonzales said.

“The amount of native birds, native wildlife and native vegetation were all declining significantly.”

Fast forward to today, with water winding slowly and naturally from the Kissimmee River basin to Lake Okeechobee. “We’ve done a wonderful job creating a natural environment, reminiscent of the way it used to be — where the river bends and flows and has a wide flood plain,” Kelly said. “We’ve seen a huge resurgence of natural ecosystems.”

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VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers plant trees at Oklahoma’s Canton Lake.

DEBBIE CHALOUPEK

One-Stop Shopping Volunteering with the Corps just got easier

By Adam Stone

M

ORE THAN 31,000 CITIZEN

volunteers assist the Army Corps of Engineers with projects each year. Staffing campgrounds, maintaining trails and restoring fish and wildlife habitats, the volunteers — who get no pay, but do get housing — are the lifeblood of the Corps. “We rely on volunteers to accomplish our national resource mission, to keep our areas open, to keep them clean and maintained,” said Heather Burke, the Corps’ national partnership program manager.

For those looking to gain new skills, meet new people or contribute to the well-being of outdoor areas, finding volunteer opportunities is now a lot easier.

As of 2020, the Corps has done away with its Volunteer Clearinghouse, first launched in 2002, and moved USACE volunteer

listings to the federal interagency website, volunteer.gov. The Corps will now share that site with a number of land-use agencies, including the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Forest Service volunteer programs.

“This brings a much wider audience to the Corps,” Burke said. “There are a lot of people who don’t know the Corps and wouldn’t necessarily be seeking out volunteer opportunities with us. This is basically one-stop shopping for someone looking for volunteer opportunities on federal lands.”

Previously, volunteer applicants would find the job on the clearinghouse and then apply through the volunteer.gov site. By consolidating the two sites, according to Burke, the agency “reduced some redundancy. It saves the government money by not paying for two contracts.”

The all-inclusive volunteer.gov site also

offers a more up-to-date user experience than the previous site. “It meets all the federal cybersecurity standards around personal information,” Burke points out, “with modern collection and management of that data.”

The improvements will keep coming when, later this year, volunteer.gov relaunches after a scheduled overhaul. “It will be a modern website with a better user interface, with a social media platform and a mobile platform,” said Burke.

While the Corps is eager to tap a wider audience of potential volunteers, the goal of the program is to do more than just acquire free labor. “It’s not just about getting the work done,” Burke said.

“Volunteers are a link to the community, a way to connect with individuals and organizations. It creates a sense of pride and ownership for people and encourages long-term stewardship of the land.”

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