GALVESTON, Texas (Aug. 6, 2015) – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, awarded a small business contract in the amount of $2,655,000 to RLB Contracting Inc, for replacement of the drop-outlet structures at Spilman Island Placement Area.
“Spilman Island Placement Area provides capacity for maintenance material dredged from the Houston Ship Channel and Barbours Terminal Channel projects,” said Tricia Campbell, an operations manager in the USACE Galveston District’s Navigation Branch. “The drop-outlet structures control the flow of water, which drains out of the placement area into the surrounding water during maintenance activities.”
According to Campbell, dredged material placement areas are necessary for the USACE Galveston District to maintain navigation along federal channels.
Each year, the USACE Galveston District dredges approximately 30 to 40 million cubic yards of material from Texas channels to fulfill its mission of keeping waterways open for navigation and commerce (benefiting ports handling 500 million tons of commerce annually), explained Campbell.
Work is scheduled to begin August 2015 with an estimated completion date of February 2016.
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.
To learn more about dredging along the Texas coast, view our four-minute video, http://bit.ly/KLZQBM. For more 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.