• USACE, partners kick off Marin City Flood Resilience Project with Nov. 7 community event

    Please join our Project Kickoff Celebration for the Marin City Flood Resilience Project on Thursday, Nov 7, 10-11 a.m. This event celebrates Marin City’s selection to be part of a Congressional Pilot Program to improve flood safety and address other water resource challenges in historically-underserved communities across the United States. Marin City was selected by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works to be one of 12 communities who will participate in this program where the federal government will cover 100 percent of the cost of a small water resources project.
  • Notice to Boaters: Interruptions to Black Rock Lock Traffic

    BUFFALO, N.Y. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Buffalo District will conduct a geotechnical investigation in the Black Rock Lock from November 4 through mid-December, causing an interruption to traffic through the lock. During this time, commercial and recreational vessels must give 48 hours’ notice to the Lockmaster to coordinate travel through the lock. Commercial vessels will be given preference to ensure the flow of commerce between Lake Erie, the Black Rock Channel, and the upper Niagara River. The Lockmaster and Black Rock Lock staff can be contacted by phone at 716-879-4403 and by radio at VHF-16.
  • $3M shoreline project to begin near Maritime Visitor Center in Duluth

    A $3 million construction project to improve the lakeshore near the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center in Duluth, Minnesota is set to begin in late fall 2024. The project will construct a shoreline protection system comprised of a concrete tee-wall armored by a stone revetment to decrease the adverse effects of weather and wave damage. The improvements will provide needed upgrades to the 200 feet of pedestrian walkway and ultimately connect the City of Duluth's Lake Walk structure to the Duluth Ship Canal North Pier.
  • Improving Aquatic Placement Practices for Beneficial Use of Dredged Material in the Great Lakes

    Abstract: The Great Lakes Navigation System is an economically critical waterway. To maintain safe and navigable waterways, approximately 3–5 million yd3 (2.3–3.8 million m3) of sediments are dredged annually. The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and others now recognize that beneficial use of these sediments can achieve positive economic, environmental, and social outcomes. However, historically less than 25% of dredged sediments have been beneficially used in the nearshore environment. Improvements are needed in dredged material management practices in the Great Lakes to achieve the goal of using 70% of dredged sediments beneficially by 2030. Therefore, to overcome these challenges this report reviews beneficial use of dredged material projects with the goal of improving and in-creasing beneficial-use-placement practices in the Great Lakes. Identified needs to advance beneficial-use placement in the Great Lakes include the following: (1) improved modeling of sediment-placement methods; (2) better documentation regarding the cost, benefits, and drawbacks of various placement methods; (3) demonstration of some sediment-placement techniques used successfully in other coastal environments; and (4) monitoring before and after conditions, particularly for sediments that contain greater than 10% fines. Several demonstration projects should be implemented to obtain information addressing the data gaps.
  • Innovations of Cellular Automata

    Purpose: In the past several years, there has been a rather substantial uptick in the amount of research within the realm of cellular automata due to its ability to produce complex, self-organizing behavior from simplistic rulesets. The capability to produce this behavior is essential to understanding artificial life and intelligence. This uptick has resulted in numerous novel directions for experimentation within this computational playground. This work summarizes a few of the most impactful directions that have resulted from this research.
  • ERDC looks to modernize flood models with levee vegetation index

    A multidisciplinary ERDC team is working to modernize widely used flood models such as StormSim and Hydrologic Engineering Center software by developing a vegetation index that more comprehensively quantifies vegetation stability on coastal levees. The index will incorporate an array of ecological measurements, such as root/shoot ratios, evapotranspiration rates, soil moisture, vegetation shear, root strength, and vegetation age, size and type.
  • Allison Stefanelli dives into environmental waters and returns to biology interests

    Allison Stefanelli had a passion for the outdoors and all things nature from an early age. When it came time to start her career after college, she decided to go in a direction that still involved the environment and nature but not to the extent that she’s used to experiencing. That changed after speaking to someone from the Corps of Engineers.
  • ERDC’s Taylor Rycroft named USACE Researcher of the Year

    A researcher with the U. S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s (ERDC) Environmental Laboratory (EL) is receiving recognition for his role in protecting the environment. Taylor Rycroft, a research environmental engineer, was named the 2024 USACE Researcher of the Year for his work with the Wellbot and Cyanobacterial Suppression Through Ultraviolet-C Neutralization (CyanoSTUN) technologies.
  • MKARNS Nav Notice No. SWL 24- 82 Sailing Instruction Lifted NM 256.1 to NM 256.4

    Crews have completed digging and clamming operations from NM 256.1 to NM 256.4 and in the downstream approach at Ozark Lock (No. 12) NM 256.8. The sailing instructions, as stated in Navigation Notice No. SWL 23-36, have been lifted.
  • Army planners, Washington State agree to study potential future recreation and transportation services

    Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and Washington State have entered into agreements to study recreation- and transportation-related services that could be needed if, in the future, Congress were to authorize the breach of the four lower Snake River dams.