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The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that it would begin performing maintenance and emergency repairs on areas of the unfinished border wall with Mexico that runs along Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. — Construction Dive
Following President Biden’s executive order in January to halt the construction of the border wall, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the process of terminating the construction contracts for the projects. As part of this process, unfinished projects were handed over to the Department of... View full entry
The Great Lakes are often called the nation’s third coast, and the past five years in the region have been the wettest on record. While the lakes don’t exactly correlate to rising sea levels, Chicago now sits in just as precarious a position as oceanfront cities. Heavier rainfall and more frequent droughts are now causing extreme swings in the water levels of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River, wreaking havoc on the city and prompting urgent action to find a fix. — CNBC
Climate change is having an increasingly marked effect on Chicago, which sits right along Lake Michigan and is dissected by the Chicago River. CNBC highlights the growing risks the city faces as one that is so vulnerable to its surrounding water bodies. In the winter of 2020, Lake Michigan reached... View full entry
The $14.5 billion flood-protection system built around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina seems to have succeeded at keeping the city from going underwater again. — The New York Times
The abject failure of the levee system during Hurricane Katrina was the primary cause of the devastation that eventually cost the city a minimum of 1,800 lives and over $81 billion in property damage. Ida represents the first test of the system since it was completed in 2018. The levees were... View full entry
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is floating a $4.6 billion plan to protect the most vulnerable areas in Miami-Dade County, Florida, from future coastal flooding and storm surge damage. The plan is part of the $3 million, three-year Miami-Dade Back Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study, which is examining current and future storm management strategies. — Construction Dive
According to Construction Dive, "the proposed plan focuses on seven geographic areas and would include the construction of storm surge barriers with floodwalls and pump stations, as well as nonstructural measures like home elevations and flood-proofing. The plan also includes the... View full entry
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded BFBC LLC, a subsidiary of Bozeman, Montana-based Barnard Construction, a $569 million contract modification for the construction of approximately 17.2 miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border in California. This adds to the $141.7 million contract awarded to the company in May for work in California and Arizona. — Construction Dive
According to Construction Dive, the Army Corps said that the projects are being delivered in response to the Department of Homeland Security's request that the Defense Department assist in securing the southern border to block drug smuggling through the construction of roads, fences and... View full entry
The United States Army Corps of Engineers this week issued Southwest Valley Constructors a contract modification worth $524 million for design-build services on a barrier wall replacement project in Tucson, Arizona, at the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The change brings Southwest's contract amount for the project to almost $1.2 billion when combined with the May 2019 initial contract's award of $646 million for the same project. — Construction Dive
While construction of all non-essential projects in several US states has been ordered to stop to contain the spread of COVID-19, planning of fortification elements along the US-Mexican border near Tucson, Arizona is going ahead with full steam, as Construction Dive reports. View full entry
In the mad dash to make up for a decades-long decline in overall medical capacity in the United States that has come into full relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Army Corps of Engineers has had to step in and help create makeshift hospitals across the country so that people... View full entry
