With the situation stabilized in New Orleans, the investigations into the causes of
levee failures that allowed water from Lake Pontchartrain to enter the city after hurricane Katrina are in
full gear.
On Dec. 12 and 13, USACE’s Task Force Guardian, New Orleans District and the
Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) plan to do concrete sampling and a sheet pile pull at the
breach on the 17th St. Canal in New Orleans. Concrete sampling is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST on
Dec. 12, and the sheet pile pull, measurement and press conference are scheduled from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
CST on Dec. 13.
The IPET analysis teams, commissioned by Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, P.E., F.SAME, Commander
and Chief of Engineers, USACE, are co-led by representatives from independent organizations and USACE
personnel.
While the IPET’s primary focus is investigating the levees and floodwalls that overtopped
or breached in order to provide answers for use in future New Orleans protection project designs, the task
force is also providing preliminary observations from its own team members and from other engineering
organizations for possible use in the rapid-paced repairs of Hurricane Katrina damage.
These observations are being provided to Task Force Guardian, which is managing the
repair of damaged levees and floodwalls, for possible inclusion in repair designs.
As part of this process, the IPET has reviewed the Preliminary Report on the Performance
of the New Orleans Levee Systems in Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005 that was prepared jointly by an
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) team and a National Science Foundation (NSF) team, which are
conducting a separate investigation. The ASCE/NSF report is available at the ASCE Web site at www.asce.org.
USACE reports on the levees and floodwalls are available at https://ipet.wes.army.mil.
Read or hear testimony given before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee regarding
preliminary assessments of the levee failure at http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=290.
Federal efforts to aid in the rebuilding of the Mississippi Gulf Coast areas
devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita are gearing up under the leadership of Donald E. Powell, the
outgoing chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission. Powell will coordinate federal involvement in
support of state and local governments on issuing ranging from infrastructure rebuilding to economic
development.
Meanwhile, the White House already has created the Gulf Coast Recovery and Rebuilding
Council, which has been charged with developing and reviewing federal policies and plans to help rebuild the
hurricane-affected region. The White House Council will be led by National Economic Council Chairman Al
Hubbard. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051101-9.html.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Commerce has established the Hurricane Contracting
Information Center. The center is designed to help U.S. businesses, including minority-owned, women-owned and
small businesses, participate in the Gulf Coast rebuilding efforts. The inter-agency effort is aimed at
providing a centralized location for information and services available at all levels of government geared to
assist in the contracting process. See http://www.rebuildingthegulfcoast.gov/index.html.
For more information on government contracting for businesses visit:
The state of Florida has offered to build a new headquarters complex for the U.S. Army
Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which has outgrown its leased complex of buildings in northern Miami, Fla.
When the command moved to Miami from Panama in 1997, SOUTHCOM took out a 10-year lease
for the existing complex on commercial property. That lease currently costs the government $6.8 million a
year, a figure expected to rise to $14.5 million a year by 2008, according to Lt. Col. James Marshall,
SOUTHCOM deputy public affairs officer.
Florida officials have offered a “build-to-suit” reduced cost lease-back arrangement,
with the new facility to be located on 40-acres of state-owned land adjacent to SOUTHCOM´s current
headquarters.
The value of new construction starts as of October 2005 reached a seasonally adjusted
annual rate of $668.5 billion, unchanged from revised September numbers, according to McGraw-Hill
Construction´s latest outlook report.
Nonresidential building and nonbuilding construction (public works and electric
utilities) showed gains in the month of October, offsetting a moderate housing construction decline. Through
the first 10 months of 2005, total construction on an unadjusted basis was reported at $550.5 billion, a 9
percent increase over 2004.
According to McGraw-Hill, nonresidential building in October rebounded 8 percent to
$176.3 billion (annual rate), boosted by a 12 percent increase in education-related construction projects,
which is the largest nonresidential category by dollar volume.
Institutional categories that showed a reduced volume of construction starts for
October included healthcare facilities, down 1 percent; public buildings (courthouses/detention facilities),
down 17 percent; and transportation terminals, down 50 percent.
Non-building construction, at $110.2 billion (annual rate), rose 13 percent in
October. The sewer and waste disposal category jumped 37 percent with the start of projects including a $217
million biosolids processing facility in Illinois, a $118 million wastewater treatment plant in Tennessee, and
a $110 million water recycling facility in California. Water supply systems had a similar gain in October,
increasing 34 percent, while highway construction grew 17 percent.
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People
Clyde N. Baker Jr., senior VP, STS Consultants Ltd.,
received The Moles Outstanding Achievement in Construction Award. The Moles is an organization of former
tunnel, subway, sewer, foundation, subaqueous or other heave construction workers.
Cheryl Bly-Chester, P.E., F.SAME, President,
Rosewood Environmental Engineering, has been named to the California State Reclamation Board, which handles
flood control policy and oversees a 1,600-mi network of levees.
Maj. Gen. John W. Holly, USA (Ret.) has been named
Senior VP and General Manager of Intergraph Corp.’s federal solutions business unit.
Lt. Col. Thomas L. Mitchell, USAF, CFM, CFMJ, has
been appointed to the International Facility Management Association’s Board of Directors for 2005-2006.
Jeffrey G. Orner has been named as Deputy Assistant
Commandant for U.S. Coast Guard Engineering and Logistics.
Patrick Pechnick, P.E., has joined Smith Engineering
Consultants Inc. as a Principal.
Acquisitions, Contracts
and Awards
Engineers and scientists from BEM Systems Inc., Chatham, N.J., are
volunteering their time and expertise to help Charleston, S.C.-based Water Missions International set up
portable water supply systems through parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Clark Nexsen will provide architect and engineer services at the
Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va.
AECOM Technology Corp., Los Angeles, Calif., is acquiring San
Fransico-based EDAW Inc.
Forrester Construction, Rockville, Md., has been awarded a five-year,
$50 million indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity contract by The Architect of the Capitol, which oversees
maintenance, operation, development and preservation of the U.S. Capitol Complex. Projects include new
construction services, repairs and alterations at multiple locations throughout the Capitol Hill complex, Fort
Meade, Md., and Culpepper, Va. Other new contracts include providing new construction, expansion and
renovation work for U.S. Postal Service facilities in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia
and West Virginia.
The U.S. State Department has awarded KBR a contract to design and
build a new embassy compound in Skopje, Macedonia that includes a new office building, support annex, utility
building and compound access control facilities. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2006 and be completed
in two years. KBR also has been awarded a $15 million contract for disaster recovery efforts in the aftermath
of hurricane Wilma.
KEI Pearson Inc. has won a four-year knowledge management contract
from the Program Management Defense Wide Transmission Systems, the division of the U.S. Army that supports the
Program Executive Office Enterprise Information systems in the global war on terrorism and Army Enterprise
Architecture.
North Wind Inc., Idaho Falls, Idaho, has been awarded two $5 million
task orders by the U.S. Air Force Civil Engineer Support Agency to restore 28 facilities at Keesler Air Force
Base, Gulfport, Miss., that were damaged by hurricane Katrina.
Northrop Grumman Corp. is working with the Society of Women Engineers
to develop a new program targeting 10,000 middle school teachers during Engineers Week 2006, Feb. 19-25, 2006.
“Connecting Educators to Engineering” will train engineers to interact with educators, provide learning
materials and create an online exchange forum. See http://www.eweek.org.
CE News has listed SAME Sustaining Members Roth Hill Engineering Partners
LLC (#4), Capital Consultants Inc. (#10) and Buck Engineering PC
(#12) among the nation’s 15 “Best Companies to Work For” in the category of small civil engineering firms.
Among mid-size firms, the following SAME Sustaining Members ranked among the Top 25 Best Companies to Work
For: USKH Inc. (#2); TBE Group Inc. (#4); Wade-Trim Group
Inc. (#11); Chiang, Patel & Yerby Inc. (#17); Winzler & Kelly Consulting
Engineers (#19); Olsson Associates (#20); Smith Engineering Consultants Inc.
(#21); Parametrix (#23); Barr Engineering Co. (#24); and
Century Engineering Inc. (#25).
Science Applications International Corp., San Diego, Calif., was
awarded a $9.2 million modification to a previous contract to exercise an option for technical, engineering
and programmatic services in support of the Tomahawk-All-Up-Round Missile Program for the Navy and the United
Kingdom. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Md. (85 percent); Lexington Park, Md., (10 percent); and
other locations within the United States (5 percent), and is expected to be completed in November 2006.
December 2005 |
