District awards $8.2 million contract to dredge Houston Ship Channel

Published April 13, 2014

GALVESTON, Texas (April 13, 2014) – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District awarded a contract in the amount of $8,286,850 to RLB Contracting Inc., to perform maintenance dredging within the Houston Ship Channel, from Carpenters Bayou to Greens Bayou, as well as the deep-draft portion of Greens Bayou Channel. 

The contractor is required to remove approximately one million cubic yards of shoaled material from the channel reaches to provide sufficient channel depth for the transit of deep-draft vessels. The dredge material will be placed in Clinton and Lost Lake placement areas.
 
“Dredging allows the Corps to fulfill its mission of providing safe and navigable waterways for vessels importing and exporting goods to and from the Port of Houston and industries along the channel,” said Operations Manager Tricia Campbell, USACE Galveston District. “The Port of Houston is one of the world’s busiest ports, consistently ranking first in the nation in foreign waterborne tonnage; first in U.S. imports; first in U.S. export tonnage and second in the nation in total tonnage and is a vital component to the local, state and national economies.”

Work is scheduled to begin in May 2014 with an estimated completion date of January 2015.

The USACE Galveston District was established in 1880 as the first engineer district in Texas to oversee river and harbor improvements. The district is directly responsible for maintaining more than 1,000 miles of channel, including 250 miles of deep draft and 750 miles of shallow draft as well as the Colorado River Locks and Brazos River Floodgates.

Learn more about the Texas coast at http://www.swg.usace.army.mil/Missions/TexasCoastValuetotheNation.aspx. For news and information, visit www.swg.usace.army.mil. Find us on Facebook, www.facebook.com/GalvestonDistrict or follow us on Twitter, www.twitter.com/USACEgalveston.


Release no. 140408