Chuck Sanders, chief of the structural engineering section at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Norfolk District, speaks on the importance of routine maintenance of the Deep Creek bridge in Chesapeake, VA while the District proceeds with the nearby construction of a new bridge as part of the Deep Creek Bridge Replacement Project. The currently standing, 90-year old bridge will be closed to both waterway and road traffic on August 18th, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. for maintenance. This closure is necessary to address minor damage to the bridge's support beams due to accelerated corrosion while also ensuring public safety during and after the repair.

Every year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) harvests enormous amounts of dredged sediment from federal waterways while working to make them as safe as possible for navigating vessels. ON TOP OF THAT, the corps then routinely takes this material and uses it for beneficial purposes such as wetland habitat enhancement and beach nourishment. In this video, you will see Deputy Director for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources Becky Gwynn conduct bird tagging at Fort Wool as she explains how the collaborative efforts between her organization and USACE support the size and strength of special bird populations in the Chesapeake Bay area. For more background information about the location and project mentioned in this release, please refer to the video in the link below, which highlights the details of how it all began. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MiZ49iCgLs&t=1s Of the nearly 200 million cubic yards of dredged material pulled each year from the water, about 85% of it becomes available for beneficial use.

In this interview, Becky Gwenn, a Virginia Department Wildlife Resources Deputy Director explains bird tagging and the collaborative efforts between her organization and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Norfolk District to ensure a huge and diverse population of birds keeps its local breeding grounds despite increased construction in the Hampton Roads area surrounding their habitat. She further explains plans to use dredged material for the construction of an entirely new habit for them. The birds currently nesting at Fort Wool represent nearly half of the entire population of these species within the territory of Virginia and they nest in very few other places within the commonwealth. Currently, USACE and VDWR are also working together to find construct another suitable location for these birds made from dredged material removed from the Norfolk Harbor and Chesapeake bay. In this video, VDWR is conducting bird tagging in order to track the movement and growth of the laughing gull species.