Latest news with #UnitedStatesArmyCorpsofEngineers
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Contract awarded for Conneaut dredging
CONNEAUT — The United States Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $4 million contract to Michigan-based Walsh Service Solutions to dredge of federal navigation channel in the city's harbor, according to a release from the agency. Dredging will begin in mid-August and end mid-September, and the contract stipulates a total of around 70,000 cubic yards of material will be removed from the channel, according to the release. 'Dredging of harbors like these ensures accessible depths for large vessels, the continued flow of commodities across the Great Lakes, and the economic viability of United States waterways,' the release said. Conneaut's harbor supports $132 million in business revenue and $41 million in income for transportation labor. The release said the harbor has handled 2.9 million tons of cargo in 2022, 98% of which was iron ore. Conneaut City Manager Nick Sanford said Walsh will work with Kurtz Brothers, the company that oversees the Conneaut Creek Dredge Reclamation Facility. The city will be paid a tipping fee for the dredged material placed in the facility, he said. Dredging operations in Conneaut are generally restricted to the federal shipping channel, Sanford said. Before 2024, the city's harbor was last dredged in 2019, Sanford said. A state ban on open-lake dumping of dredged material became effective July 1, 2020. Sanford said the city developed its own dredging plan in-line with state law. 'The Conneaut plan was designed for implementation in 2023; however unforeseen regulatory delays furrowed the agencies into 2024,' he said. Sanford said, from his understanding, the city's dredge reclamation facility had a great inaugural year. 'The facility performed exactly as designed, dewatering just over 77,000 cubic yards of dredged material from the floor of Conneaut harbor,' he said.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
North Georgia lakeside parks and beaches temporarily close ahead of Memorial Day weekend
Two sites on Lake Allatoona are set to close, and more could be shut down on Lake Lanier. Jill Williams Just ahead of the summer tourism season, the United States Army Corps of Engineers has announced the closure of lakeside parks, campgrounds and beaches across the southeast, with most in Georgia. In a statement, the Corps said there are not enough workers to staff the 31 parks across six lakes. 'This decision comes after careful consideration of the safety and security of all visitors,' the statement says. 'The well-being of our community is our top priority, and the current staffing levels do not allow us to maintain the necessary safety measures within our parks. This includes essential services such as park supervision, maintenance, and safety monitoring that ensure a secure and enjoyable environment for all visitors. We will be continually assessing and reassessing closures throughout the summer.' Lake Lanier in northeast Georgia was set to see the most closures with 20 set to close, according to the release, but Republican Congressman Rich McCormick said fewer sites will be shuttered. McCormick, whose district includes part of Lake Lanier, said he spoke with the Corps and the closures will be more limited than originally announced. 'I pushed hard for a better solution, and they listened,' he said. 'All boat ramps will remain open, and only 11 recreation sites will close temporarily, not the 21 originally planned.' Corps employees, like many federal workers, have faced layoffs and buyouts in an effort from the administration of President Donald Trump to shrink the government. Georgia Democrats like Sen. Sen. Raphael Warnock pointed their fingers at Trump and Elon Musk as the culprits for potential missed summer fun. 'After public outcry from myself and countless Georgians, we prevented more than half of the announced park closures from going into effect,' he said, referring to the Lanier closures. 'This is welcome news for Georgia families looking forward to enjoying summer days by the lake. But because of this administration's reckless cuts, parks are still slated to be indefinitely closed. We must continue to speak out: Enough is enough with these reckless cuts, Georgia families deserve better.' Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff also criticized the closures. 'The White House must take immediate action to reopen these beautiful parks at Lake Lanier for Georgia families. This is a direct and predictable result of the Administration's reckless and chaotic mismanagement.' Ossoff, who is up for re-election next year, is under pressure from his party to be seen as opposing Trump and supporting fired federal workers. The Corps pledged to reassess closures during the summer. See their announcement for a list of affected parks. It's not yet clear which sites will close and which will remain open after the revision. Lake Lanier has 76 recreational areas, including 37 Corps-operated parks and campgrounds, according to the Corps. In addition to the spots at Lake Lanier, two are set to close at Lake Allatoona in Cherokee and Bartow counties, a day use area and a campground. Three sites are set to close at Walter F. George Lake and Lake George W. Andrews along the Georgia-Alabama border, and the announcement also includes a public shoreline area in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River System, which runs through Georgia. Army Corps of Engineer employees are mostly civilians, and part of their mission is to maintain dams and waterways. All of Georgia's major lakes are man made, with many created and maintained by the Corps. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Business Insider
20-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Perpetua Resources issued permit for the Stibnite Gold Project
Perpetua Resources (PPTA) announced that the United States Army Corps of Engineers has issued Perpetua's Clean Water Act Section 404 permit for the Stibnite Gold Project. This decision comes after eight years of rigorous interagency federal permitting, and was the last federal permit required to progress towards construction. With receipt of this permit, Perpetua Resources is focused on finalizing the remaining state permits and securing project financing needed to begin construction. Confident Investing Starts Here:
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Yahoo
Natural State History: Duo executed in 1997 for killing marshal, park ranger
LOGAN COUNTY, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — Nearly 50 years ago, two men broke out of an Oklahoma prison to go on a crime spree that involved murdering a town marshal and a park ranger in Logan County. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Paul Ruiz and Earl Van Denton escaped from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. The two men were both serving life sentences. Ruiz for armed robbery. Van Denton for murder. On June 23, 1977, the pair were a part of a 20-member crew tasked with tearing down a brick factory near the prison when they decided to escape. They had been placed in an empty building during a lunch break. The door to the building was not guarded, which allowed Ruiz, Van Denton and Elmer Finin to escape. Two of the guards in charge of supervising the work crew were demoted and suspended after the incident. The three men fled from the prison into the city of McCalester. Shortly after the escape, Finin separated from Ruiz and Van Denton. Finin was arrested in Hot Springs on October 31, 1977, at a service station where he worked. He was returned to the prison he escaped from and died there on October 21, 1981. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says the first possible murder associated with Ruiz and Van Denton's crime spree happened on June 27, 1977, when Gerald Tiffee disappeared in Boswell, Oklahoma. However, the two were never charged with the disappearance. Natural State History: The powerful political 'family' that influenced Arkansas' early days and pre-Civil War US Ruiz and Van Denton headed southeast to Louisiana. Ruiz and Denton murdered Jimmy Cockrell near Colfax. Cockrell's body was found on June 28. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says it is suspected that on the same day, Ray Jones and Alton Wilson were killed near Franklinton, Louisiana. Their bodies were found in Tiffee's pickup truck, which had been submerged in a flooded gravel pit. The men headed north into Arkansas in a stolen car. When they got a flat tire near Magazine, they rolled the tire to town to have it repaired. Marvin Richie was Magazine's marshal. He was informed of the men's actions by citizens. Richie went to offer assistance. Ruiz and Van Denton ultimately kidnapped Richie in an attempt to take his car. They drove through Magazine and Blue Mountain, where they were spotted in the patrol car with Richie handcuffed in the rear seat. The men drove to Ashley Recreation Area on the shore of Blue Mountain Lake. They stopped a truck driven by two United States Army Corps of Engineers rangers, David Small and Opal James. The rangers were ordered into the patrol car, and Ruiz and Van Denton drove into a thickly wooded area. The two men handcuffed Small and Richie together. They forced them into the trunk of the patrol car. Meanwhile, they made James lie on the ground behind the car. Ruiz took Small's watch and one of the men took Richie's shirt. Before closing the trunk, they shot Small and Richie. Richie was killed. Small was hit in the chest and blacked out for a period, but eventually regained consciousness. Small was rescued five hours later by searchers. Ruiz and Van Denton took the James and rangers' truck south. They abandoned the truck about forty miles from Magazine. They killed James there and hiked to Oden in Montgomery County, where they stole another truck. The two men used the stolen truck to drive back into Oklahoma, where they stole a taxi cab in Purcell on July 1. They killed the driver of the cab, Melvin Short. His body was found in Grady County, Oklahoma. Using Short's car, the men drove to Portland, Oregon, where they were captured on July 8. They had contacted a family member in Oklahoma for financial assistance, but the family member contacted law enforcement. The men were waiting for a money transfer when they were captured. Natural State History: Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an Arkansas native that inspired Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash At the time of their arrest, Van Denton and Ruiz were with a third man, David Christofferson. The men had picked up Christofferson while he was hitchhiking in eastern Oregon. Christofferson was questioned and released. The men were eventually extradited to Arkansas. They were tried in Booneville on capital murder charges and convicted on April 27, 1978. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas said during the trial, Small identified the fugitives who kidnapped him and shot him along with Ritichie and James. The jury found them guilty and recommended the death penalty. The Arkansas Supreme Court overturned their convictions due to the pretrial publicity in Logan County, which was deemed prejudicial to their case. A second trial was held in Morrilton in 1983. They were convicted again and sentenced to death. The death sentences were overturned by the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1987, and that phase of the trial was held again. They were convicted again and sentenced to death. Another appeal was filed in 1989 to the Eighth Circuit. It was denied. A final appeal was made on January 3, 1997. It was also denied. Ruiz and Van Denton were executed at the Cummins Unit prison in Lincoln County on January 8, 1997, along with Kirt Wainwright, who was convicted of murder and robbery in Nevada County in 1988. Ruiz and Van Denton declined to give final statements. Small was present for the executions but was not allowed to view the proceedings. Van Denton was executed first and declared dead at 7:09 p.m. Ruiz was executed and declared dead at 8 p.m. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Recovery crews shift focus to remove submerged Helene debris in Lake Lure
LAKE LURE, N.C. (WSPA) — In the wake of Hurricane Helene, the town of Lake Lure has become the stage for one of the largest disaster recovery missions in the state. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) gave 7NEWS an inside look at the ongoing mission to remove debris from one of the region's most scenic and impacted waterways. It's been almost 200 days since Hurricane Helene tore through western North Carolina. Since then, the USACE has led a massive recovery effort across 16 counties, including Rutherford County, where Lake Lure and Chimney Rock are located. It's an area where scenic trails and calm waters once welcomed visitors. The aftermath of the storm left a much different scene. More than six months have passed, and tree limbs can still be found mangled in splintered docks, and shorelines are buried beneath layers of sand and sediment. 'The water that came down, 28-foot high water, pretty much wiping out Chimney Rock, North Carolina which ended up here in our lake in Lake Lure devastating the infrastructure. So, we were very much on our heels from day one,' said David DiOrio, Mayor Pro-Tem of Lake Lure. 'Right after that, we started seeing elements of the army show up to help.' USACE said they've completed nearly all of its assigned Right of Way mission clearing roads and surfaces. They've accounted for more than 1.99 million cubic yards of debris removal in that area alone – equivalent to nearly 46,000 shipping containers. After months of work clearing roads and surfaces, crews said they've now transitioned to a new phase of recovery — removing debris from beneath the deepest parts of Lake Lure. 'This is where we're doing a lot of the deeper water removal out here on the lake. A lot of the sand, silt, and sediment and stuff came in from off the Chimney Rock side,' said George Minges, lead debris subject matter expert with USACE. 'We'll be working throughout the lake as we do that over the next few months.' 'We have a few pieces of equipment out here. We have the dozers, we have these haul trucks that are being filled with sediment below the Flowering Bridge,' said Josh Tutt, Polk County & Lake Lure Quality Assurance Supervisor with USACE. 'Once they fill them with sediment, they haul all the dirt to the dry piles so they can be taken care of. We let it sit for 24 hours to dry out and then transport it out.' Tutt was part of an extensive, federally-funded mission involving the USACE in Rutherford County, along with other state and local partners. The cleanup tapped into national resources with heavy machinery deployed in remote and mountainous areas to access hard-to-reach debris fields. 'What we're doing here, under FEMA's authority, we're helping people. And we're not going anywhere,' said Maj. Gen. Jason Kelly, deputy commanding General for Civil and Emergency Operations with USACE. 'We've set some target dates for competition. One of my tasks from D.C. as the deputy commanding general for civil and emergency operations is to ensure that we stay on task.' Military leaders said they've removed more than 4 million cubic yards of hurricane-related debris across the named disaster areas in western North Carolina. It's an amount that operational leaders expect to climb. 'As a 31-year veteran, I am used to playing the away game. So often that I am forward in some other country doing it for those back home, but here, we're serving America in America,' said Maj. Gen. Kelly. Crews said the work will likely last for several more months to cleanup and rebuild an area that has been completely remapped by devastating floods, landslides, and widespread infrastructure damage following Hurricane Helene. 'There are some large logs and various other materials that have basically been impaled into the bottom of the lake. There are still areas that you can not safely traverse or use as a recreant here on the lake whether you are out on a canoe or whether you are in a boat,' said Col. Brad Morgan, USACE. 'We've got to get that stuff removed so that's no longer a hazard.' As recovery efforts continue, residents are urged to stay clear of cleanup zones and to follow local guidelines for debris sorting and placement. A recovery effort of this scale is a reminder of the coordination and resilience it takes to rebuild — one yard of debris at a time. 'There's so much to be proud of. To see the resilience, to witness the inspiration of others committed to recovery. I was able to see recreation here before the storm and to now see the work that needs to be done to be on track,' said Maj. Gen. Kelly. 'Our goal is to get the blood flowing back into our community and that is getting our Chimney Rock State Park opened, which is right up the road here and opening up the lake; getting Lake Lure healthy again,' said DiOrio. 'Safe water and navigable water open to recreational water sports is really the heartbeat of the community. So once we get that debris out, there is no longer a threat to having a potentially hazardous situation and then all the waters will be opened up again. We're hoping for the best.' Mayor DiOrio said officials are confident the lake will be ready for recreational use by next summer. In the meantime, local shops are open for business. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
