Narrator: Shoalwater Washington, a community of approximately 4,000 people on the coast of Washington State and home to the Shoalwater Bay Tribe. For years, the local tribal land has been protected by two coastal barrier spits, fronting the tidal embayment. The heavy storms occurred in 2020 and 2021, which generated dune overtopping and overwash, causing severe erosion to the northern section of the dune.

This resulted in life safety concerns for the Shoalwater Tribe and a flood risk to millions of dollars of infrastructure in the area. Immediate call to action was needed to repair the northern damaged portion of the dune before the following storm season and the US Army Corps of Engineers answered. In a partnered effort between the Omaha and Seattle Districts, USACE got to work repairing over 4,000 linear feet of dune that was previously damaged.

Timothy Gouger: “Shoalwater tribal reservation is protected by a dune, a sand dune, and that dune is subject to tidal forces from the Pacific Ocean that goes into Willapa Bay. And every year they suffered various degrees of scour and degradation to a life safety protective measure. That’s the dune. And recently there’s been storms that have degraded to a critical component, the dune, and it requires restoration.”

Narrator: Projects of this magnitude generally involve many people in many different organizations. The dune restoration was a great opportunity to showcase the unique partnerships that can be created and fostered over the course of USACE project.

CPT Aurora Deangelis-Caban: “This project is, uh, a great example of the extensive collaboration that’s required on a project of this magnitude to work not only with the Seattle District and the Omaha District, but extending out to a significant number of federal organizations, specifically to include environmental ones, and then, of course, the Shoalwater Bay Tribe.”

Narrator: A particularly interesting feature of this project was not a part of the actual project itself, but more so a vital and essential feature to complete the dune repair.

Jeremy Ayala:  “On this project behind me, we, you know, we’ve got this culvert crossing. You know, that that was a, a task on its own. And it, and, and it has nothing to do with the dune, it’s just being able to get from one location to the next. You know, the, the team working together between the design, the guys doing the work, um, it, it came together. It’s probably the most difficult piece of the project, but in the end, it, it was needed in order to complete the actual dune that we’re here to do.”

Narrator: Although the project falls into the proximal realm of the Seattle District, the Omaha District’s technical center of expertise boasts an incredibly experienced and well-equipped rapid response program that is all too familiar with executing large-scale projects and expedited timeframes.

Timothy Gouger: “The rapid response technical center of expertise was authorized back in 1989 to provide time-sensitive execution for infrastructure repairs. Shoalwater dune restoration fits in that category. Seattle district solicited our help to bring our contract, our program, our expertise for time-sensitive execution for cost reimbursable risk management model, and we’re here as an integrated project delivery team to accomplish that goal.”

Narrator: This 40-million-dollar project was completed mid-November and took approximately nine months. Here at USACE, we value our ability to complete these projects of extreme magnitude in a way that many organizations could not. We prioritize our people, appreciate our partnerships, and take pride in our projects.

Reporting for the USACE Omaha District, I’m Samuel Weldon.