GALVESTON, Texas
(April 11, 2016) – The
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District awarded a $2,268,400 contract to
Midwest Construction Company for construction of a 3,000 feet extension of a
rock breakwater at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge Beneficial Use Site B
near Austwell, Texas.
According
to Project Manager Seth Jones, USACE Galveston District Navigation Branch, the beneficial
use site will eventually receive dredged material from the Gulf Intracoastal
Waterway, located in Calhoun County, Texas.
“The
end goal is to turn Beneficial Use Site B into productive marsh habitat that
will hopefully be used by the endangered whooping crane wintering at the refuge,”
said Jones.
The contractor is required to extend the existing rock breakwater
an additional 3,000 feet as part of a multi-year project to build the outer
perimeter protection prior to construction of the interior marsh cells. The
perimeter breakwater and interior marsh cells will be completed under future
contracts.
“The construction is one phase of a multiple-year project that
will eventually lead to the creation of approximately 500 acres of marsh
through the beneficial use of material dredged from the GIWW navigation channel
during future maintenance dredging cycles,” said Jones.
Work is scheduled to begin this May with and is estimated to be
completed by the end of September 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 270 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.