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NAO 2008 Year in Review

'Year of Military Construction' dominates lion's share of District execution

December 17, 2008
By Jerry Rogers
Norfolk District Public Affairs

NORFOLK, Va. — Employees of the Norfolk District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers embraced 2008 as the "Year of Military Construction," as $645 million in 2005 Base Realignment and Closure authorizations dominated the lion's share of mission execution.

This work came on the heels of last year's unprecedented $1.16 billion in military construction contracts, the majority of which were also 2005 BRAC authorizations.

Critical military construction realignment to Fort Lee, Va., included the construction start-up of the Army Ordnance Center and School, currently located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., and the Air Force Culinary and Transportation Management Schools, which are moving from San Antonio, Texas.

Additionally, the construction of the Joint-Use Intelligence Analysis Facility at Rivanna Station, Va. will collocate Defense Intelligence Agency analysts from Northern Virginia with the National Ground Intelligence Center at nearby Charlottesville, Va.

Finally, district employees have construction management of the $806.9 million Fort Belvoir Community Hospital project that is tracking well toward full operation in spring 2011. The hospital is one piece of a BRAC 2005 realignment that will become part of an integrated health care network providing world-class medical services to the nation's wounded warriors and their families.

"We began the year clearing and grubbing the site, and ended it with most of the structural steel erected on the four out-patient clinic buildings, as well as foundations completed for the start of structural steel in the main hospital in early January 2009," said Project Manager Philip Federle. "While 2008 was truly a monumental year in our design management and construction, we expect to surpass our efforts next year when all of our buildings become weather-tight and the first of the clinics are ready for medical equipment."

Global War on Terror/Emergency Response

Across other lines of operations, Norfolk District continued its record of service, with Lourdes S. Pastrana, Jaime Pastrana (mother and son) and Huong Huynh deployed to Afghanistan and Jerry Swean, Lt. Col. Michael R. Darrow and Antonio Bastidas deployed to Iraq. While serving overseas, district employees supported reconstruction efforts as part of the nation's global war on terror. Darrow, Norfolk District's deputy commander, who recently returned from his second tour in Iraq, said he has seen "real progress during the past five years."

Closer to home, 20 members of the district's Commodities Planning and Response Team deployed to Texas in support of Hurricane Ike response operations. The Norfolk team assisted Seattle District's commodities team with the reception and distribution of water and ice to the citizens of Texas — 21,906,000 liters of bottled water and 42,840,000 pounds of ice.

"The Corps' role during natural disasters and our commodities team participation with FEMA are extremely vital," said Col. Dionysios Anninos, Norfolk District commander. "I'm very proud of our people here who volunteer to help fellow citizens. Something tragic happened to our homeland, but we all came together to do what was necessary to take care of our citizens and get them back on their feet."

Centers of Standardization

As a center of standardization with programming, design and construction expertise for military dining facilities, Norfolk awarded more than $100 million in regional task order contracts for dining facilities at eight different military installations across the United States. Norfolk's dedicated architects and engineers remain fully engaged in its seven COS facilities types worldwide through cooperation with USACE geographic districts and other centers of standardization.

Regulatory

For the second consecutive year, Norfolk District regulators, stressing public service and customer focus, ranked amongst the top three USACE districts in the number of jurisdictional determinations issued, pre-application meetings held, and overall efficiency.

"New regulations, new guidance, and lots of new faces made 2008 another year of change for the regulatory office," said Bob Hume, Regulatory Office chief. "Executing our heavy workload was a big challenge for us, but our staff rose to it."

Real Estate

Norfolk's Residential Communities Initiatives team continued its vital support of the Army's multi-billion dollar Soldier and Family Housing privatization initiatives as the RCI team privatized two more projects (1,674 housing units) this year totaling 89,537 units. The team began the Unaccompanied Personnel Housing program by privatizing 538 apartment units for Soldiers, staff sergeant and above. The RCI team also supported the Privatizing of Army Lodging, an initiative that will include more than 4,400 new and renovated rooms at 11 installations in its first phase, set to close in 2009.

Recognized for outstanding public service this year, the RCI team garnered the USACE Real Estate Achievement Award. Just in, the Office of Personnel Management named the Army's Residential Communities Initiative program as one of four winners for the 2008 President's Quality Award. The Army RCI program and team, which includes Norfolk's Dillard Horton, Todd Waldman, Kathleen Germano, Phillip Hakey, Caroline McCown and Mary J. Davis, displayed innovative and exemplary performance in the area of Competitive Sourcing.

Operations and Maintenance

With a significant role in the economic prosperity of the Commonwealth's maritime industry, Norfolk District grew its highly successful maritime partnerships through the James River Partnership and Hampton Roads Summit. A number of initiatives to improve navigation were also successful, while Norfolk continued unrestricted navigation on all regularly maintained federal channels. The operations and maintenance team also designed and provided contract oversight for dredging at the Coast Guard Base at Chincoteague, Va., performed engineering and design for a Navy deepening project in Norfolk Harbor, and provided engineering and environmental support to the Virginia Port Authority for the Craney Island Eastward Expansion project.

Civil Works

In the civil works arena, Norfolk District successfully addressed a number of significant water resources challenges in the environmental, flood risk management and navigation business lines that led to the District's highest customer satisfaction surveys in its peer group. Of note were:

• Environmental: Constructed more than 50 acres of medium relief oyster reefs in the Eastern Branch, Broad Bay and Linkhorn Bay elements of the Lynnhaven River estuary, in Virginia Beach, Va. Monitoring of the restored oyster reefs in the Great Wicomico River also showed an increase in the native oyster population there by approximately 50-fold from a 1994 baseline. That increase exceeded the Chesapeake Bay program goal by a factor of five times (200 million oysters).
• Completed the draft Chesapeake Bay Oyster Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, including stakeholder coordination and public review and comment. The EIS is the basis for sound public policy decision-making within the nation's largest estuary, home to over 17 million residents.
• Norfolk District, in partnership with the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, completed the second phase of a submerged aquatic vegetation restoration project in the coastal embayment of Virginia's Eastern Shore. This project is the first in the nation under the Estuary Habitat Restoration Program and is part of the largest SAV restoration initiative in the world.
• Flood Risk Management: Provided technical assistance to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and project requirements for the Flood Map Modernization Program and the National Hurricane Program. Continued work on the Virginia Hurricane Evacuation Restudy.
• In collaboration with the National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Commonwealth of Virginia and seven localities within the Chowan River Basin, Norfolk initiated a non-structural evaluation of flood-risk management tools beginning with the identification of an effective systems-based network of rainfall, stream and water quality gauges for the Blackwater, Meherrin and Nottoway Rivers. This evaluation will provide the basis of an early warning system for a watershed that has experienced six of the top 10 historical high-water marks since 1998.
• Norfolk continued efforts to provide structural and non-structural improvements to protect historic Jamestown Island. USACE constructed the existing seawall between 1894 and 1901.
• Navigation: The $712 million eastward expansion of the Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area in Portsmouth, Va. would provide additional dredged material capacity, create land for a new port facility and enhance economic growth of national transportation infrastructure and the Hampton Roads region. The Virginia Port Authority is the non-federal sponsor of the 800-acre expansion.

Finally, Norfolk District's Small Business Program, under the nationally recognized leadership of Jack Beecher, achieved record-breaking results across the majority of its six USACE small business categories as the district awarded $229 million in small business contracts, including a Corps-leading $101 million to Service-Disabled Veteran Small Businesses.

"Our leadership here, in fact our entire organization is so committed to the success of small businesses," said Beecher, "that I come to work every day with a glad heart because of their commitment."

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