U.S. Corps of Engineers on schedule for Hurricane Sandy fixes

By J.D. LeipoldApril 29, 2015

U.S. Corps of Engineers to finish Hurricane Sandy fixes this year
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, April 28, 2015) -- The Army's chief of engineers said that the Hurricane Sandy operations and maintenance program is more than 70 percent finished and on schedule to be completed by the end of 2016.

In testimony on Capitol Hill before the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, April 22, Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick praised the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers', or USACE's, proficiency in the Sandy recovery work.

Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast, from Florida to Maine, with the greatest impact to New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut in October 2012.

"The flood control and coastal emergency program is over 95 percent complete," Bostick said. "And, I'm pleased to highlight that the Army submitted the North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study on schedule to Congress and the American people on Jan. 28."

The study, titled "Resilient Adaption to Increasing Risk," aims at reducing risk to vulnerable coastal populations and infrastructure while promoting a robust, resilient and sustainable coastal landscape system through the development of new tools and technology.

Bostick said reducing disaster risk was one of his campaign goals. "We must continue to develop improved strategies to reduce risks as well as respond to natural disasters when they occur," he said.

He said another goal USACE is working on was the transformation of civil works in four areas.

"Civil works transformation focuses on modernizing the project planning process and by enhancing the budget development process through a systems-oriented approach and collaboration," he said.

Bostick said that evaluation of the current inventory of projects and a review of the portfolio of proposed water resources projects would identify priorities and help develop better solutions to water resources problems. They would also identify better methods of management in the delivery of water resources.

Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) Jo-Ellen Darcy also testified, focusing on dams, levees, navigation and the restoration of eco-systems, and on investments that she said reflected the administration's priorities.

The fiscal 2016 budget proposal "supports a civil works program that relies on a foundation of strong relationships between the corps and our local communities," Darcy said. "Which allows us to work together to meet their water resources needs.

"The budget also helps us in our efforts to promote the resilience of communities to respond to the impacts of climate change," she said.

The Army is investing in research, planning, vulnerability assessments, as well as conducting pilot projects and evaluations of the value and performance of non-structural and natural measures, said Darcy, noting that the budget helps to maintain and improve efforts on sustainability through energy-savings performance contracts.

"We are reducing the Corps' carbon footprint by increasing renewable electricity consumption, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and by reducing non-tactical petroleum consumption," she said, adding that investments will provide funds to update the plans that govern how facilities are managed and to help combat invasive species.

"The budget provides $4.7 billion in gross discretionary appropriates for the Army Civil Works program focusing on investments that will yield high economic and environmental returns or address a significant risk to public safety," Darcy said.

The study highlighted targeted budget funding in three major mission areas - 41 percent will go to commercial navigation; 27 percent to flood and storm damage reduction projects and nine percent to aquatic eco-system restoration. Other investments include hydropower, regulatory activities and the clean-up of sites contaminated during the early years of the nuclear weapons program, she said.

The fiscal year 2016 budget will also fund 57 construction projects, nine of them to completion and covers 54 feasibility studies of which 13 will be to completion, and includes four new construction starts, two of which the corps will complete in one year, she said.

"We continue to contribute to the nation's environmental restoration of several large eco-systems that have been a focus of interagency collaboration including the California Bay, Chesapeake Bay, the Everglades, Great Lakes and the Gulf Coast," Darcy said. "Other funded corps restoration efforts include the Columbia River, some portions of Puget Sound and priority work in the upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers."

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