• St. Louis District, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Dredge Potter underway for another dredging season

    The Dredge Potter, owned and operated by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District, is getting underway today for the 2024 dredging season ensuring safe navigation for commercial vessels on the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. In 2023, drought conditions required the crew and then 92-year-old vessel to move 6.3 million cubic yards of sand, silt, and clay from the river bottom at 31 different locations.
  • Corps seeks public comments on draft environmental assessment and draft FONSI

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is requesting public comments for the proposed mitigation plan for the West Bank and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project through July 22, 2024.
  • Multiscale Observation Product (MOP) for Temporal Flood Inundation Mapping of the 2015 Dallas Texas Flood

    Abstract: This paper presents a new data fusion multiscale observation product (MOP) for flood emergencies. The MOP was created by integrating multiple sources of contributed open-source data with traditional spaceborne remote sensing imagery to provide a sequence of high spatial and temporal resolution flood inundation maps. The study focuses on the 2015 Memorial Day floods that caused up to US$61 million of damage. The Hydraulic Engineering Center River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) model was used to simulate water surfaces for the northern part of the Trinity River in Dallas, using reservoir surcharge releases and topographic data provided by the US Army Corps of Engineers. A measure of fit assessment is performed on the MOP flood maps with the HEC-RAS simulated flood inundation output to quantify spatial differences. Estimating possible flood inundation using individual datasets that vary spatially and temporally allow an understanding of how much each observational dataset contributes to the overall water estimation. Results show that water surfaces estimated by MOP are comparable with the simulated output for the duration of the flood event. Additionally, contributed data, such as Civil Air Patrol, although they may be geographically sparse, become an important data source when fused with other observation data.
  • Observations of Beach Change and Runup, and the Performance of Empirical Runup Parameterizations during Large Storm Events

    Abstract: Timeseries observations of beach elevation change and wave runup from a tower-mounted stationary lidar assess the skill of 2% runup exceedance (𝑅2%) estimates during four storm events at Duck, NC. The runup parameterization requires the foreshore beach slope, which generally unknown during high energy events. Pre-storm estimates are often used as a proxy. 𝑅2% hindcasts use the observed time-varying beach slope and a static pre-storm beach profile, yielding an 𝑅2% skill of 0.57. The skill drops to −1.0 using seasonal mean beach slopes and reduces after the peak of two storms with the appearance of beach cusps in the swash zone morphology. One storm’s runup is underpredicted by up to 1.0 m at high tides following the storm peak when cusps are present Additional pre- and post-storm mobile lidar surveys for one storm confirm ubiquitous small-scale beach cusps along 8 km of the local shoreline. The results suggest skillful runup estimates are often attainable given the availability of beach information before a storm. The parameterization errors increase when beach cusps develop, highlighting the need to extend standard one-dimensional runup parameterizations to account for two-dimensional effects.
  • Corps of Engineers begins dredging operations near Brownsville, Minnesota

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, is conducting dredging operations at their Above Brownsville Placement site, also known as “Crater Island,” within Pool 8, of the Mississippi River, near Brownsville, Minnesota.
  • MKARNS Nav Notice No. SWL 24-50 Lock 13 Intermittent Delays Update

    The start date for upcoming work at James W. Trimble Lock (No. 13) NM 292.8, as referenced in Nav Notice SWL 24-48, has been modified.
  • USACE reopens swim beach at Dam Site Lake Campground

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Beaver Lake Project Office has reopened the swim beach at Dam Site Lake Campground.
  • Force multipliers: 51 Charlies benefit both USACE and U.S. Army

    Behind almost every project at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is at least one contracting action. Depending on the size of the project, there could be dozens. Behind every contract is a dedicated team of professionals ensuring contracts are prepared within federal regulation. Most of these contracting professionals are Department of the Army civilians. But a select few are active-duty military serving in USACE as contracting officers, also known as 51 Charlies.
  • USACE closes swim beach at Hickory Creek until further notice

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Beaver Lake Project Office is closing the swim beach at Hickory Creek until further notice.
  • From battlegrounds to playgrounds, Army Reserve Soldiers flex engineering muscles thanks to WRDA

    A new authorization in the Water Resources Development Act of 2022 grants permission to U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers to work on projects for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of their official training plans.