18 Sep 2014

Safety drills prepare crews for “what if”

Crews performing a repair contract at Big Bend Dam recently held an exercise to practice safely rescuing a worker who has become incapacitated in their work area. Contractor J.F. Brennan is repairing the spillway gates at Big Bend Dam near Chamberlain, S.D. During the exercise, a mannequin, playing the part of an incapacitated worker who was overcome by paint fumes, needed to be rescued from an area 25 feet above the spillway concrete and 50 feet from the nearest mechanical lift. Once the team extracted the mannequin from the work area, they faced the additional challenge of moving it out of the spillway over the 20-foot-high wing wall using the lift and providing first aid while getting medical attention in a remote location.

10 Sep 2014

Corps employees take skills on the road to aid a developing country

Engineers from the Omaha and Philadelphia USACE Districts recently teamed up with a biologist from the Europe District and an environmental chief from Fort Benning, Ga., after being retained by the Millennium Challenge Corporation to provide technical assessments for prioritizing road projects in Africa. In support to the Government of Tanzania they executed inspection of more than 450 miles of roadway, determined overall road upgrade costs and planned road investment budgets for the next fiscal year.

2 Sep 2014

Corps Section 14 project facilitates Scribner’s promising future

In the spring of 2010, a major flood from the Elkhorn River caused the left river bank just upstream from County Road F and the Elkhorn River Bridge near Scribner, Neb. to erode back 200 feet and decimated an entire tree line several hundred feet long. The Corps' Section 14 Emergency Streambank and Shoreline Protection project will consist of a series of five spur dikes at various locations along the eroded bank. A construction contract was awarded in August 2014 to Iowa-based Niewohner Construction, Inc. for approximately $289,000. Once notice to proceed is given, the project is expected to take no more than six months to complete.

29 Aug 2014

FUDS: Then to now... still charging ahead

In 1982 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made the clean-up of Baird McGuire the one of its top priorities. Who did they call? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Omaha District and its Environmental Branch, which took the “Superfund” assignment, hit the ground running, and more than 30 years later is renowned for its comprehensive expertise and clean up capabilities relative to hazardous, toxic and radioactive waste sites.

26 Aug 2014

Omaha District employees volunteer for a better community

Twenty-six years ago, Brush Up Nebraska came to life as a community-based volunteer program that paints homes of qualified low-income elderly and low-income permanently disabled homeowners, in the Omaha Metropolitan Area. The upgrades to the home helps homeowners maintain their property, and beautify the community.