USACE Works to Maintain Safe Navigation

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District awarded a contract in the amount of $2.1 million to Affolter Contracting Company Inc., for containment dike raising at the Peggy Lake Dredged Material Placement Area in Harris County, Texas.

This work will increase the placement area’s capacity to hold more dredge material from the Houston Ship Channel, ensuring the critical waterway remains open for commercial navigation.

“Peggy Lake Dredged Material Placement Area is a key dredged material placement area that accommodates dredged material from the Houston Ship Channel,” said Tricia Campbell, a project operations manager with the USACE Galveston District’s Navigation Branch. “Without adequate capacity in our dredged material placement areas, the Corps would not be able to maintain the Houston Ship Channel to its authorized depth.”

According to Campbell, this work is a small part of the overall effort by USACE to maintain safe navigation in the Houston Ship Channel which serves the Port of Houston (ranked first in the United States in foreign waterborne tonnage; first in U.S. imports; first in U.S. export tonnage and second in the U.S. in total tonnage).

Work is scheduled to begin October 2014 with an anticipated completion date of September 2015.

The USACE Galveston District, established in 1880 as the first engineer district in Texas to oversee river and harbor improvements, is directly responsible for maintaining more than 1,000 miles of channel, including 270 miles of deep draft and 750 miles of shallow draft as well as the Colorado River Locks and Brazos River Floodgates.

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Press Release, September 22, 2014