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American Press
5 days ago
- Business
- American Press
Eligible homeowners urged to take part in elevation project
Eligible homeowners are being encouraged to take part in a state-managed property elevation project and raise their homes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held a public meeting on Thursday to update homeowners on the Southwest Coastal Home Elevation Project. The goal of the project is to reduce hurricane storm surge damage risks by elevating and/or floodproofing thousands of residential and business structures in Calcasieu, Cameron and Vermillion parishes while prioritizing environmental and ecosystem restoration. The pilot project, funded at the state and federal levels, is authorized to spend about $1.8 billion to raise about 3,000 properties, said Darrel M. Broussard, senior project manager, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District. On average, it costs about $250,000 to $300,000 to raise a home to the 100-year flood elevation on average. They are currently working with a pool of $455 million to elevate 800 to 1,000 structures to the 100-year base flood elevation and anticipate having these funds obligated by 2028. The initial investment is funded 65 percent through federal government grants; The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) provides a 35 percent cost share. The partnership between the USACE and the (CPRA) began as a flood control project to mitigate coastal storm flooding that involved levees. But, levees would not have been feasible for the area, he said. 'We looked at putting levees around this area. … It's so flat. It's so spread out. The cost to put a levee to surround everything was just not cost-effective.' By elevating individual homes, the project is non-structural, meaning utility infrastructure does not have to be installed. A total of 3,462 properties were identified as eligible structures through a 2016 feasibility study. Eligible structures were broken down into priority groups. Properties were prioritized based on how low the structure sits and the socioeconomic status of the area. A total of 300 people have signed up so far, and USACE has already begun to elevate eligible properties. One elevation has already been completed in Lake Charles. The first contract for home elevation construction was awarded to Wingate Engineers LLC of New Orleans last year for $4,997,880. Broussard said the second contract should be finalized by the end of the year for home elevations beginning in February 2026. The Southwest Coastal Home Elevation project is voluntary and covers the cost of raising homes three to 13 feet, depending on the property's initial elevation, and the utility and structural adjustments. Temporary relocation for property owners, upgrades and hazardous material remediation are not covered. Homeowners of eligible properties were sent letters by the project team, but eligibility can be confirmed online at
Newsweek
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
The Trump Administration Is Trying to Silence Us. It's Only Making Us Stronger
Hurricanes. Wildfires. Floods. As federal employees with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, we're often among the first on the ground when disaster strikes—and the last to leave. From the wildfires in Maui to the devastating floods in North Carolina, we're on the ground for as long as it takes, helping communities recover and rebuild. When we're not responding to crises, the workers at the Army Corps are performing other essential services to support the U.S. military, the public, and the economy. We design and build military bases and airfields for our troops; we clean up contaminated defense and superfund sites, and we maintain harbors and shipping channels to facilitate U.S. commerce. And while our work may not be as high-profile as other professions, it's vital for the prosperity of our communities and for reducing disaster risks. Given the importance of our work, it's concerning that President Donald Trump seems hell-bent on dismantling it. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contractors clear the remains of Lifeline Fellowship Christian Center, which burned to the ground in the Eaton Fire, on May 22, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contractors clear the remains of Lifeline Fellowship Christian Center, which burned to the ground in the Eaton Fire, on May 22, 2025, in Altadena, all started when President Trump took office and issued an executive order ripping away federal workers' collective bargaining rights. Through collective bargaining, workers can come together to negotiate improvements in their workplace, and perhaps most importantly, safe working conditions. For Army Corps workers, collective bargaining rights help to ensure that we have access to proper protective equipment on hazardous sites, and that rigorous safety systems are in place, even amid dangerous disaster relief missions. By negotiating these safety protocols into a binding contract, we have peace of mind knowing that proper safety precautions are being met, and that they can't be unreasonably taken away. If we weren't able to negotiate safe working conditions, our lives would be at risk, and our families would be forced to worry even more about whether we'd make it home safely. So it's hard to understand why the Trump administration is ignoring these basic rights, even after a federal judge ruled that the president's actions likely violated the law. What's worse, now the administration is refusing to honor the contracts that we've already negotiated, raising serious concerns about the safety of our worksites, and our ability to advocate for adequate protections. Under normal circumstances, Army Corps workers could appeal the president's actions to the agency tasked with safeguarding our collective bargaining rights, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). But the president created chaos at the agency when he fired the Chair, Susan Tsui Grundmann. Now the FLRA is refusing to hear our case challenging these decisions, which also means we have no access to federal courts to resolve our disagreement. This administration isn't just breaking the law—it's breaking the system that's supposed to uphold it. And this of course is by design. Trump's attacks on unions are part of a larger effort to weaken workers' rights across the country. But as it turns out, the opposite is happening. More Americans than ever approve of unions. And in Sacramento alone, hundreds of federal workers want to organize with our union. It appears that Trump and his allies are underestimating federal workers at the Army Corps. Every one of us takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That oath matters. And this administration is not going to stop us from honoring it. We're not just speaking out for ourselves. We're speaking out for the millions of Americans who rely on the services we provide, especially during times of crisis. Trump is trying to break the civil servants at the Army Corps. But we're still here. We're still uniting more workers. And we're not going anywhere. Colin Smalley is a geologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and president of Local 777 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers in Chicago. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or its components. This disclaimer is required by regulation.
UPI
18-07-2025
- Politics
- UPI
Federal judge halts project in Chico, Calif., cites risk to 3 threatened species
1 of 3 | The Butte County meadowfoam is only found in Butte County, Calif. A federal judge stopped a project that would further endanger the flower. Photo by Rick Kuyper/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service July 18 (UPI) -- A federal judge overturned the approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of a mixed-use project in Chico, Calif., after environmentalists claimed it will destroy the natural habitat of threatened species. At issue was the Stonegate Development Project, a 314-acre development. It was to include 423 single-family residential lots, 13.4 acres of multi-family residential land uses, 36.6 acres of commercial land uses, 5.4 acres of storm water facilities, 3.5 acres of park and a 137-acre, open-space preserve, the ruling said. U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta gave summary judgment requested by the Center for Biological Diversity and AquAlliance and halted implementation of the project until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prepares a legally adequate biological opinion that the development wouldn't jeopardize protected species. Calabretta, a President Joe Biden appointee, wrote that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a Biological Opinion for the project in early 2020. That opinion "acknowledged there would be harm to some ESA-listed species, but that the project would not jeopardize the continued survival and recovery of the listed fairy shrimp, tadpole shrimp and meadowfoam." It also did not analyze impacts on the giant garter snake, he added. "The court finds that federal defendants' failure to consider potential effects on the ESA-listed giant garter snake was based on a faulty assumption that there have been no sightings of the snake within five miles of the project renders its Biological Opinion arbitrary and capricious," Calabretta said. According to the conservation groups, the project also would permanently destroy 9.14 acres of wetlands. But some meadowfoam habitat may be established through mitigation efforts. The Butte County meadowfoam is found nowhere in the world but Butte County, Calif., the Center for Biological Diversity said. The species has only 21 distinct populations remaining, and the project would destroy one population and further encroach on two others. According to the fish and wildlife service, the giant garter snake is one of the largest garter snakes, reaching 63.7 inches long. It has been listed as threatened since 1993 and now only exists in three counties in California. Only about 5% of its historical wetland habitat remains. Vernal pool fairy shrimp are restricted to vernal pools found in California and southern Oregon. They are found in 32 counties across California's Central Valley, central coast and southern California and in Jackson County in southern Oregon, the service said.
Chicago Tribune
13-07-2025
- Science
- Chicago Tribune
Can artificial reefs in Lake Michigan slow erosion and boost fish population? Researchers aim to find out.
Floating about 500 feet offshore of Illinois Beach State Park, Hillary Glandon tightened her scuba goggles, grabbed a small masonite plate from a nearby kayak and dove beneath the Lake Michigan surface. The masonite plate, called a Hester-Dendy sampler, helps biologists like Glandon scrape algae off underwater rocks. Just a few feet below the surface, she reached a huge underwater ridge made of limestone and other rocks piled into 750-foot rows parallel to the coast. On this dive in late June, a crew of four scuba divers ferried equipment back and forth between the kayaks and the underwater ridges, collecting sediment samples near the boulders and dropping off underwater cameras on the bottom of the lake. As the divers continued their work, a thick morning fog began to fade, giving way to clear blue waters. From the surface, schools of juvenile fish could be spotted drifting between patches of sunlight at the bottom of the ridges. These structures, called 'rubble ridges,' aren't just typical rocky reefs found on the bottom of the Great Lakes — they're entirely man-made. 'We just want to see, are these reefs impacting aquatic biodiversity as well as sediment retention?' Glandon said. 'We're trying to get the whole picture of the aquatic community, and in order to do that, we need to sample in a lot of different ways. It allows us to not only look at the sediment … but also the critters that are living in there.' Man-made reefs have become a popular way to provide a habitat for fish in coastal communities. The rubble ridges, however, are also designed as a cost-effective tool to prevent erosion. Each ridge sits about 3 to 5 feet beneath the lake's surface, which allows them to block some of the energy and sediments carried by waves during intense winter storms. When these waves reach the coast, they don't hit the shoreline as hard, which slows the process of erosion. And the gaps between each ridge help to retain some sediment without fully stopping the natural flow of sand. 'The designers call it passive sand management, just to slow erosion down when it's the worst,' said Steve Brown, the Illinois state geologist. 'That was part of the idea — a lower-cost offshore breakwater system. And we're trying to see, does it work like the designers thought it would work?' Glandon and her team of biologists and geologists at the Lake Michigan Biological Station, a research station in Zion run by the University of Illinois, are studying the rubble ridges as part of a federally funded pilot project through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The initiative is a collaborative effort that provides funding to over a dozen federal agencies to protect the Great Lakes through infrastructure and lake monitoring projects. Installed at Illinois Beach State Park in 2021 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the ridges are being monitored along with another artificial reef at Fort Sheridan in Highland Park, as well as two control sites, about 2 miles south of each respective reef. In this part of Lake Michigan, just 3 miles south of the Illinois-Wisconsin state line, the lake bottom consists of a flat layer of sand, which doesn't usually attract invertebrates and smaller fish. But as Glandon descended onto the rocky ridge, she saw hundreds of fish, from species that tend to stay near the reef year-round like the round goby, to schools of younger migratory species like alewife that were using the ridge as a nursery habitat. By analyzing both biodiversity and shoreline changes at the reef, researchers are hoping to see whether this new kind of infrastructure could be scaled up as a tool for cities across the Great Lakes. 'Lake Michigan is a very dynamic place. It is always changing, and it always wants to change, and it always will change,' said Philip Willink, a biologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey and an expert on natural reefs in Chicago. 'People don't like that change and are trying to hold the shoreline in stasis, when, in reality, nature wants to erode some shoreline … But how do we put that into city planning?' As Glandon and a crew of three other scuba divers and two kayakers ventured out to sample algae and sediments at the ridges, a few other researchers remained onshore to help handle equipment. It was the research team's first dive of the year, and biologist Scot Peterson could already spot the traces of erosion from the winter's storms. Where a wooden boardwalk had once extended out over the beach, only a small chunk of wood remained, poking out from under a sand dune on a nearby roadbed. Strong waves had gradually weakened the structure over the past few years, and last year, the state park decided to remove it altogether. Related Articles A dry, mild start to winter led to below-average ice cover on Lake Michigan and a big drop in water levels We don't know what's at the bottom of the Great Lakes. Climate change demands we find out. Just off Chicago in Lake Michigan sits an oasis of diversity — Morgan Shoal 'Every time I come back, it feels like something has changed,' Peterson said. Sights like these are common across the Great Lakes, and Lake Michigan in particular can be especially 'unpredictable,' said Liz Spitzer, a coastal geologist with the Illinois State Geological Survey. The lake's levels tend to fluctuate from low to high in 10- to 30-year cycles, with levels usually reaching their annual peak during the summer. However, climate change is speeding up these fluctuations, experts say. In January 2013, Lake Michigan was at a record low. Just 3 ½ years later, the lake had risen 4 feet and by July 2020, it nearly broke the record high. Lake levels have always fluctuated, but that has been over a period of decades. Now these shifts are happening within a few years. That variability is attributed to multiple factors, but increased precipitation from climate change is the driving force. Today, lake levels are hovering at about 579 feet, close to the lake's average. At Illinois Beach State Park, these fluctuations have taken a toll, causing extreme erosion along the coastline. Kellogg Creek, located just south of the rubble ridges, has flooded several times over the past few years, damaging one of the buildings that researchers at the Lake Michigan Biological Station used to store samples. The lake bed at the northern part of the beach has eroded away, leaving grass roots exposed as windswept dunes pile up behind the shore. In response, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources approved a massive breakwater installation project in 2019 for the state park. The state spent $73 million to install 22 breakwaters along a 2.2-mile stretch of the state park's shoreline, making it the largest capital project in IDNR history. According to a 2023 release about the breakwaters, the state intended the structures to 'guide and direct the movement of the sand instead of simply trying to prevent its movement.' The breakwaters, made of stone, are angled slightly to the northwest to block storms that typically come from that direction. IDNR officials did not respond to requests for comment. The breakwaters, along with 430,000 cubic feet of sand that was added to bolster the beach, have helped rehabilitate the beach since construction finished in August 2024. The first chain of breakwaters ends just a few hundred feet north of the rubble ridges. With extreme erosion and other construction projects unfolding at the state park, Glandon said her team has had to deal with several 'confounding factors' at this reef site. 'The rubble was actually supposed to be built a little bit north of where it currently is, and that's because the large breakwater project was in the process of being designed when the rubble was being implemented,' Glandon said. 'They moved (the rubble) further south to accommodate those breakwaters.' The monitoring project at Illinois Beach State Park began in 2021 and is set to wrap up next year. The other artificial reef site at Fort Sheridan has been monitored since 2023 under a different project funded by the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. Researchers are comparing the results between the two sites, hoping to explain how reef systems function along different types of shorelines. The shoreline at Fort Sheridan consists mostly of rocky bluffs, and the lake bottom in that area is dotted with small boulders. Each spring, geologists have used drones to map the elevation of the bottom of the lake, allowing them to compare any changes in the lake's topography that happened during the winter storm season and see if the reefs are helping retain sediment. According to the research team's preliminary results, the Fort Sheridan reef has successfully helped to build up some sand. At Illinois Beach State Park, though, erosion has overall increased. Most of this erosion occurred between 2022 and 2024, with very little change happening at the site during the 2025 winter season. 'The sediment dynamics, that part of it is going to be very hard to make any conclusions without a huge asterisk, since they built these big breakwaters,' Glandon said. 'But what we're hoping to do is kind of zoom out with the geology story, and tell it from the perspective of before they built these big breakwaters and after. We're just trying to be nimble with the way we're sampling.' Illinois Beach State Park, which boasts the state's longest continuous stretch of natural shoreline, is somewhat of an anomaly. The park takes up 6.5 of Illinois' 63 miles of coastline along Lake Michigan, and the majority of this coastline consists of man-made structures, such as breakwaters or seawalls. This infrastructure is meant to help protect the urban coastline from eroding. However, it's not how the shoreline naturally functions, according to Spitzer. 'Along this stretch of the coast, the dominant current is generally coming from the north, going southward,' she said. 'Over the past couple thousand years, with the direction of the dominant current, we've been seeing the sand moving southward over time. And then human activity adds an extra layer of complexity to that, because that compartmentalizes where the sand can go.' The goal of most coastal protection structures, like seawalls, is to retain sand that's flowing through the lake. This helps build up extra sand along lakefront beaches and harbors, and lessens the impacts of erosion. Sand was already a scarce resource in southern Lake Michigan before humans began to build coastal infrastructure, according to a 2020 study conducted by Brown and other geological survey researchers, making sand retention in the area particularly vital. But man-made structures, which often run perpendicular to the shore, can also block the natural southward flow of sand. So while seawalls can build up sand in one location, a beach directly downstream of that seawall might face worse erosion as a result. 'Every time we create a structure, it stops the sand movement, and you get erosion downstream,' said Brown. 'And so the real question is that we haven't sorted out how to live along the lake.' The rubble ridges were designed to be an 'actively moving system,' Glandon said — as waves crash against the ridges over several years, researchers expect that some of the boulders will tumble to the bottom, flattening out over time. Since reef structures like the rubble ridges run parallel to the coast, they serve as somewhat of a middle ground — they retain some sand near the coastline but still allow most of it to pass through. So as the sand moves downstream, it leaves more for lakefront properties to the south to use as they build up their own shorelines, helping distribute sediments more evenly across the lake. That's part of the reasoning behind government investments in this project, Glandon said. Currently, most municipalities along the North Shore run their own coastal management programs and tend to build shoreline infrastructure like seawalls without consulting their neighbors. When one town builds a seawall, it creates a so-called domino effect — that can starve neighbors of sand directly to the south, and usually the only solution is to build their own seawalls. 'When we have private land ownership, it can be tricky to manage sediment movement that occurs outside of those human-created bounds,' Glandon said. Using infrastructure like artificial reefs, or other more natural designs, could help alleviate the need to build seawall after seawall. It also presents a relatively low-cost option — installing the rubble ridges cost just over $1.4 million. 'One of the hopes of our program is to try to provide this quantitative data on the effects of these structures … to give towns and local managers options for ways that they could potentially retain some sand in their areas without impacting their neighbors as much,' Glandon said. From the shores of Fort Sheridan and Illinois Beach State Park, the artificial reefs are invisible, hovering just beneath the surface. For aquatic creatures, though, these rocky reefs are a landmark, rising distinctly above the lake bottom. 'Most of the bottom of Lake Michigan is pretty flat. It's either sand or mud, with no real features,' Willink said. 'But every once in a while, there are natural reefs out there, and these can be in shallow water, in deeper water, they can be from a variety of sources as well.' Willink, the biologist who now works with the Illinois Natural History Survey at the University of Illinois, worked for many years at Chicago's Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium. There, he studied one of Chicago's most iconic underwater landmarks. Morgan Shoal, located just off the coast of Promontory Point by 53rd Street, is one of a handful of naturally occurring rocky reefs in Lake Michigan. This reef is actually a remnant of Chicago's ancient past, Willink said — about 425 million years ago, the modern-day Great Lakes region was located south of the equator, submerged in a tropical sea that was home to several coral reefs. Though the region's latitude has shifted, traces like the rocky reefs remain on the bottom of the lake, providing an ideal habitat for fish. Morgan Shoal features a wide variety of 'nooks and crannies,' Willink said, which provide habitats for a range of animals from large migratory fish to small invertebrates and worms. 'In the smaller spaces, that's where we found a lot of the aquatic insects and worms — things which may not sound super exciting, but that is the bottom of the food chain,' Willink said. 'This is the key, to have a variety of different habitats. When you do that, you create more of a larger variety of living spaces for a larger variety of species. And then ultimately, you end up with a higher biodiversity on the site.' While natural reefs often provide more appealing habitats for fish, artificial reefs are also widely used for the same purpose, and have been shown to boost biodiversity. This has been shown at the rubble ridges, too. Both the Illinois Beach State Park and Fort Sheridan reefs showed a significant increase in fish populations and biodiversity when compared against the control site for each reef, according to preliminary data from the Lake Michigan Biological Station research team. The team tracks fish diversity with a number of different measures. During the June dive at Illinois Beach State Park, kayakers carried large aluminum frames, each with an underwater camera mounted in the middle, out to the reefs. Scuba divers carried these frames down to the reefs, where they'll remain for the rest of the summer season. The cameras are programmed to take a picture every five minutes, which helps scientists track the density and mass of the fish living on the reef. 'We see at the control sites, biomass is high, but abundance is low, versus at the reef sites, we have much smaller fish,' Glandon said. 'We think it's because this is showing that the reefs are nursery habitats for these fish.' They also take samples of algae living on the underwater boulders that make up the reef, and collect sediments to see what types of invertebrates are living at the site. These invertebrates are the core of the food chain, attracting smaller fish in search of food sources. While fish and invertebrates do sometimes seek shelter around man-made breakwaters, Willink said they're most attracted to natural structures that don't totally stop the flow of sand. 'Part of the key is that it isn't a dam to the sand, it doesn't hold the sand there,' Willink said. 'If there's too much sediment, that would smother all these small places.' As the reef monitoring project continues, so does the constant movement of sand. Despite humans' best efforts to counter this, the currents of the lake are ever-changing and ever-powerful, scientists say. As lakefront communities have built containment structures along their waterfronts, this trend has remained the same — even at established places like Illinois Beach State Park, waves surge above boardwalks, benches sink beneath sand, roadways are left to crumble in the face of encroaching shorelines. 'A lot of what we're facing right now in the 21st century is, how do we deal with nature in urban areas? How do we live with nature next to us and allow nature to do its thing, and yet still maintain the infrastructure of a city?' Willink said. 'And I think that's sort of an emerging field, trying to figure out how to deal with this sort of struggle between the two. It's not just restricted to Lake Michigan — it's everywhere.'
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Flood Fight efforts paused in New Orleans for high-water season
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has paused its Phase 1 Flood Fight for the New Orleans district's high-water season after water levels fell below 11 feet high on Tuesday, July 8. Like Papa Noel, Grand Isle guy delivers by the bag full According to the Corp of Engineers, New Orleans District, for 106 days of 2025, Phase 1 has been active as a proactive measure because levels have remained at or above 11 feet at the Carrollton Gage. Now that river levels have dropped, and officials with the National Weather Service reportedly forecast that levels will continue to drop, subsurface work within 1,500 feet of levees will be allowed to resume. Officials say that any points of concern spotted along the levee system should be reported to the local levee district or the Corps of Engineers at by day with Super BUCK Moon by night for Thursday Judge Seeber bridge to fully close for repairs: DOTD Walmart recalls about 850,000 water bottles after 2 people blinded Three fall into water at Glacier National Park while taking photo: rangers Iconic cereal maker WK Kellogg selling to Ferrero for $3B Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
