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  • Corps hosts cleanup event at Santa Ana River Marsh

    With a navy pink- and- blue-flowered baseball cap pulled over her forehead, purple boots and a plastic grabbing tool in hand, 4-year-old Amelia Jones set off down the marsh’s dirt road. Her parents, Erin and Chris, both biologists, and her uncle, Andrew Hardison, were not far behind. As Amelia scoured the ground for trash, Erin, who works for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District, pointed to a plastic water bottle hidden in the brush. Amelia seemed pleased with her find, as she picked up the bottle with her grabber and dropped it into her lime-green bucket.

  • Commander reflects on time as member of 9/11 search-and-rescue team

    The inside of the building was dark, smoky, damp and hot. It was still smoldering from the fires that raged within it just hours before, when Col. Aaron Barta, then a captain and commander of the Military District of Washington Engineer Company, and his team stepped into the battered Pentagon Sept. 11, 2001.

  • LA District commander tours San Diego, Riverside project sites

    As the new commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District, Col. Aaron Barta understands the importance of visiting project sites firsthand. “Seeing project sites myself and talking to our team members makes it much easier for me to clearly advocate for the Los Angeles District,” he said.

  • Planning Associates group learns about California watersheds

    Seven members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Planning Associates program traveled to Los Angeles July 23 to 27 to learn about water resource planning. The program develops emerging leaders in the planning community of practice. In its second year at the South Pacific Division, the Integrated Water Resources Management-Watershed course is an advanced training opportunity in water resources planning. The goal of the program is to broaden planners’ competencies in solving complex water resource challenges and to strengthen their leadership talents.

  • New LA District commander brings broad range of experience to position

    As Col. Aaron Barta begins to settle into his new position as the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District, he considers himself lucky. “Coming to the Los Angeles District is a dream come true, both professionally and personally,” he said. “I am proud to pass on that every leader I've encountered (has told me) I am walking into a world-class organization filled with the Corps’ best.”

  • Barta becomes 62nd LA District commander

    After three years as the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District, Col. Kirk Gibbs relinquished duties to Col. Aaron Barta during a July 19 change of command ceremony. Barta, a native of Texas, became the 62nd commander of the LA District, during the event at Fort MacArthur’s Community Center in San Pedro.

  • Gibbs reflects on time as leader of the Corps’ Los Angeles District

    If there is any advice Col. Kirk Gibbs can give to his successor, it is this: Lead with honor and humility. As Gibbs, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District’s 61st commander, prepares to relinquish command of the LA District July 19 to Col. Aaron Barta, he offered up some advice and reflected on the past three years as the leader of one of the largest Corps districts in the country.

  • Corps of Engineers, LA County, state join forces for flood-risk exercise

    El Nino has returned with a vengeance. Over the last week, back-to-back storm systems have hit southern California. The National Weather Service is predicting a third storm in the area, describing it as the “biggest storm of the season.” The already saturated conditions, along with the additional forecasted rainfall, indicate Los Angeles River channels will be flowing at full capacity and may overtop.

  • Community rallies around Corps’ ecosystem restoration project in Norco

    About 120 volunteers came together to help restore an area around the Santa Ana River to its natural habitat. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District, along with its contractor, UltraSystems Environmental, partnered with the City of Norco to host a restoration-planting event May 12 on more than one acre of the Corps’ land near the Santa Ana River. About 520 plants and 200 plant cuttings, including California buckwheat, Chemise, Mexican elderberry and arroyo willow were planted.

  • Corps of Engineers completes debris removal from Santa Barbara basins following devastating mudslide

    It was a dark, cold night in February in Santa Barbara County – in the low 30s – and freezing outside, as far as Mary Carmona was concerned. As she worked alongside a contractor during a 12-hour night shift at the Cold Springs Creek Basin in Montecito, she pondered why she was there. She missed her family and just wanted to go home and sleep in the comfort of her own bed. But going home wasn’t an option for Carmona – at least not for the next 20-some days, as she and about 60 other U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employees set up temporary residence in the county to help clear vehicle-sized boulders, several feet of mud, trees and other debris from the community’s basins. It was a daunting task in less-than-ideal conditions, but these weren’t even less than ideal; they were catastrophic.