The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District opened three dredging bids today and announced that RLB Contracting, Inc., was the apparent low bidder in the amount of $33,988,050.00 for emergency dredging of the West Fork of the San Jacinto River.
This giant sandbar almost completely blocks the west fork of the San Jacinto River just downstream from River Grove Park. It is one of the shoals that the Corps will remove to restore channel capacity.
Scope and Duration of Project
“This emergency project funded by FEMA involves the removal of 1.8 million cubic yards of material within 270 days,” said Curtis Cole, a contracting official with the USACE Galveston District’s Contracting Division. Cole said there will be a bid and pre-award verification phase with the awardee prior to officially awarding the contract. ”
Pre-Award Verification Needed Due to Wide Variance in Dredging Bids
“Pre-award verification allows the Corps to exercise due diligence to verify awardees can meet the scheduling, production and resource requirements,” said Don Carelock, a USACE Galveston District Chief of Construction. “Once we perform our analysis, a recommendation will be announced to our contracting officials.” Carelock said this process is expected to take between 10-14 days.
During the public opening, three bids were received: CrowderGulf submitted a bid in the amount of $108,887,733.33 and Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company bid totaled $69,814,060. RLB Contracting, Inc. was announced as the apparent lowest bid of $33,988,050.00. Here is a breakdown of dredging bids.
Purchasing agents in many industries expect that if bidders work off the same specs and have comparable capabilities, bids should come in within 10-20% of each other. Often they come in much closer. In this case, the difference between the high and low bidder was more than 3X, a result that merits verification before awarding the contract.
Restoring to Pre-Harvey Conditions
Under provisions of the Stafford Disaster Relief Act of 1988, FEMA responded to a request from the State of Texas and directed the Corps to begin the initial assessment for the Emergency Project.
Corps officials have stated the FEMA funding scope of the project allows for debris and dredge activity that restores the area to it’s pre-Harvey flood conditions. The project is limited in scope and does not include operations beyond the west fork of the San Jacinto area.
Corps survey teams from the New Orleans District began collecting data in April to determine the level of shoaling and silt accumulation within the West Fork of the San Jacinto River. A six-phase value engineering study was completed in May.
Posted 6/22/2018 by Bob Rehak
297 Days from Hurricane Harvey
00adminadmin2018-06-22 17:29:362018-06-22 18:51:34U.S. Army Corps Opened Dredging Bids Today, but Award Delayed Due to Wide Variance
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers extended the bid deadline again for its West Fork Emergency Dredging Project. The new bid deadline is Friday, June 22, 2018.
Discussions with potential vendors caused the delay for the FEMA funded project as both vendors and the Corps tried to nail down the exact volume of sediment to be removed. The Corps emphasized that it is restoring a 2+ mile stretch of the West Fork to pre-Harvey conditions. The pre-Harvey requirement comes with FEMA dollars which can only be used to return an area to the condition it was in before the storm.
At River Grove Park, this sandbar blocks the drainage ditch that empties the western third of Kingwood. It grew a quarter mile in length and 12 feet in height during Hurricane Harvey. More than 650 homes flooded in areas north of this sandbar. The Corps’ emergency dredging project will start here and extend past the West Lake Houston Parkway Bridge.
Projected Volume More than Doubles
Forecasted dredging material calculations increased from 748,000 to 1.8 million cubic yards of material that has shoaled. Shoaling is an area of shallow water, especially one that is a navigational hazard. In this case, shoals blocked the main channel of the San Jacinto as well as drainage ditches, such as the one at River Grove Park.
Completion Date Extended 90 Days to Accommodate Extra Volume
Because the volume of sediment to be removed has more than doubled, the Corps has also extended the completion date of the project from 180 to 270 days.
“We’ve encouraged bidders to submit questions and this allowed us to revise dredging quantities,” said Gary Stangeland, Interim Chief of Emergency Management at USACE Galveston District. “We were able to recalculate the volume of material needed and therefore extended the bid deadline and project finish date.”
Extending the project 90 days should allow the winning contractor enough additional time to remove the increased volume of materials.
The Corps’ contracting officers reposted the bid deadline date to a site used by vendors to receive notice on government opportunities. The site is accessible to the public at: Federal Business Opportunities website: https://www.fbo.gov
New Opening Date: Friday at 10 a.m.
“Our process is equitable and efficient as it allows for Corps’ Engineers to interact with vendors that will help us to restore the area to pre-Harvey conditions and help reduce future flooding risks,” said Jeff Neill, USACE Galveston District Contracting Chief, “We’ve publicly posted responses to bidders’ questions to www.projnet.org.” Neill said bids will be opened on June 22, 2018 at 10:00 a.m., local time.
No New Placement Areas for Spoils Anticipated
The physical length of the emergency dredging did not change, just the estimates of the volume of materials within the original area of interest. No additional placement areas for the spoils should be needed, according to the Corps. Stangeland said the two placement areas already identified should be sufficient to store the recalculated increase in forecasted dredged material.
The opening was initially scheduled for May 29, 2018. Even with the delays, this project will be one of the first coming out of Hurricane Harvey that the Corps will complete.
Posted June 21, 2018, by Bob Rehak
296 Days since Hurricane Harvey
00adminadmin2018-06-20 19:51:102018-06-21 06:28:16Army Corps Extends Bid Deadline Again; Opening Now Expected June 22
For decades, weather services have forecasted flood warnings, watches and alerts for general areas, such as the Houston region. But what is the risk to your particular neighborhood? Web-based, interactive tools now make it possible to forecast flood risk near you. However, they require some “do-it-yourself” interpretation. Hence, this post.
YESTERDAY morning (TUESDAY 6/19), I woke up and saw standing water in my backyard. The sky was black. I heard thunder. I remembered the forecast from Monday night about storms training across the area. My heart started racing as I fired up my laptop.
Here is what I did. (NOTE: TODAY’S RAINFALL IS DIFFERENT; THE INFORMATION BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE ONLY TO ILLUSTRATE A PROCEDURE.)
I first went to Space City Weather to get a good feeling for the big picture and learn of any National Weather Service warnings or Harris County Flood Control District insights; it’s always a good idea to consult the professionals first. The threat appeared both east and west of Lake Houston; it seemed as though we might have threaded the needle with this storm. However, forecasters felt the storm over Beaumont at the time might move west during the day.
Houston threaded the needle overnight and avoided the major parts of the storm.
So next, I wanted to see how much capacity the San Jacinto river and Lake Houston had. To figure that out, I went to USGS to find the level of Lake Houston. The spillway is at 42.5 feet shown at the top of this graph. The blue line represents the actual water level.
USGS showed that Lake Houston was still well below the spillway at 42.5 feet, even though it had risen 3 or 4 inches overnight.
You can see from the widening gap between those two lines how the city lowered the lake to create extra capacity before the storm. However, you can also see how the blue line started to turn up at the far right.
Next, I wanted to see if a huge upstream rainfall was rushing toward Lake Houston. So I went to the SJRA site to check the level of Lake Conroe. I determined that the threat from the west was minimal. Lake Conroe was also below its normal level.
On Tuesday, Lake Conroe was about .4 feet below its normal level.
The lake level had only risen a few hundredths of an inch since the day before.
Next, I followed another link on the SJRA website to the Lake Operations and Rainfall Dashboard. It is located right below the information in #3 above. Montgomery County gages showed that not much rain had fallen to our north and west. Only one of 14 gages showed more than an inch of rain. Most showed less than a half inch. At this point, I felt that the threat was more in the future than the present.
Only one of 14 SJRA gages showed more than an inch of rain.
To see what was happening with that two inches that fell on Lake Creek, I went to the Harris County Flood Warning System. I could see from the home page that the gage at US59 had received 1.36 inches of rain and the one at West Lake Houston Parkway 1.44 inches. Not a huge threat! But rainfall doesn’t correlate perfectly with flood levels.
From the Harris County Flood Warning System home page, I was able to quickly locate the gages for the US59 and West Lake Houston Parkway bridges over the San Jacinto River.
I still needed to see how much the San Jacinto was below its banks. So I clicked on the gage at West Lake Houston Parkway for more information. That’s the gage nearest me. The link took me to a page that showed a breakdown of rainfall at that location. Right next to it was a tab called Stream Elevation. In the graph, I could see that the river was near 41 one feet. The banks were six feet higher! Better, there was no sharp rise in the river level. I let out a big “Whew!”
Difference between top of banks and water level
All of this took about 5 minutes. I could have waited for a weather report on TV or checked the weather app on my iPhone. However, they would have only told me what was happening in the region, but not at my exact location. Try it for yourself the next time you have a pitter patter panic.
Had the river been coming out of its banks, I could have accessed the new, near-real-time, inundation mapping system on the Harris County Flood Warning System home page. It is updated every 15 minutes. The map allows you to zoom into your neighborhood and see where flood waters are predicted to go based on the Flood Control District’s models and the river’s height.
U.S. Army Corps Opened Dredging Bids Today, but Award Delayed Due to Wide Variance
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District opened three dredging bids today and announced that RLB Contracting, Inc., was the apparent low bidder in the amount of $33,988,050.00 for emergency dredging of the West Fork of the San Jacinto River.
This giant sandbar almost completely blocks the west fork of the San Jacinto River just downstream from River Grove Park. It is one of the shoals that the Corps will remove to restore channel capacity.
Scope and Duration of Project
“This emergency project funded by FEMA involves the removal of 1.8 million cubic yards of material within 270 days,” said Curtis Cole, a contracting official with the USACE Galveston District’s Contracting Division. Cole said there will be a bid and pre-award verification phase with the awardee prior to officially awarding the contract. ”
Pre-Award Verification Needed Due to Wide Variance in Dredging Bids
“Pre-award verification allows the Corps to exercise due diligence to verify awardees can meet the scheduling, production and resource requirements,” said Don Carelock, a USACE Galveston District Chief of Construction. “Once we perform our analysis, a recommendation will be announced to our contracting officials.” Carelock said this process is expected to take between 10-14 days.
During the public opening, three bids were received: CrowderGulf submitted a bid in the amount of $108,887,733.33 and Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company bid totaled $69,814,060. RLB Contracting, Inc. was announced as the apparent lowest bid of $33,988,050.00. Here is a breakdown of dredging bids.
Purchasing agents in many industries expect that if bidders work off the same specs and have comparable capabilities, bids should come in within 10-20% of each other. Often they come in much closer. In this case, the difference between the high and low bidder was more than 3X, a result that merits verification before awarding the contract.
Restoring to Pre-Harvey Conditions
Under provisions of the Stafford Disaster Relief Act of 1988, FEMA responded to a request from the State of Texas and directed the Corps to begin the initial assessment for the Emergency Project.
Corps officials have stated the FEMA funding scope of the project allows for debris and dredge activity that restores the area to it’s pre-Harvey flood conditions. The project is limited in scope and does not include operations beyond the west fork of the San Jacinto area.
Corps survey teams from the New Orleans District began collecting data in April to determine the level of shoaling and silt accumulation within the West Fork of the San Jacinto River. A six-phase value engineering study was completed in May.
Posted 6/22/2018 by Bob Rehak
297 Days from Hurricane Harvey
Army Corps Extends Bid Deadline Again; Opening Now Expected June 22
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers extended the bid deadline again for its West Fork Emergency Dredging Project. The new bid deadline is Friday, June 22, 2018.
Discussions with potential vendors caused the delay for the FEMA funded project as both vendors and the Corps tried to nail down the exact volume of sediment to be removed. The Corps emphasized that it is restoring a 2+ mile stretch of the West Fork to pre-Harvey conditions. The pre-Harvey requirement comes with FEMA dollars which can only be used to return an area to the condition it was in before the storm.
At River Grove Park, this sandbar blocks the drainage ditch that empties the western third of Kingwood. It grew a quarter mile in length and 12 feet in height during Hurricane Harvey. More than 650 homes flooded in areas north of this sandbar. The Corps’ emergency dredging project will start here and extend past the West Lake Houston Parkway Bridge.
Projected Volume More than Doubles
Forecasted dredging material calculations increased from 748,000 to 1.8 million cubic yards of material that has shoaled. Shoaling is an area of shallow water, especially one that is a navigational hazard. In this case, shoals blocked the main channel of the San Jacinto as well as drainage ditches, such as the one at River Grove Park.
Completion Date Extended 90 Days to Accommodate Extra Volume
Because the volume of sediment to be removed has more than doubled, the Corps has also extended the completion date of the project from 180 to 270 days.
“We’ve encouraged bidders to submit questions and this allowed us to revise dredging quantities,” said Gary Stangeland, Interim Chief of Emergency Management at USACE Galveston District. “We were able to recalculate the volume of material needed and therefore extended the bid deadline and project finish date.”
Extending the project 90 days should allow the winning contractor enough additional time to remove the increased volume of materials.
The Corps’ contracting officers reposted the bid deadline date to a site used by vendors to receive notice on government opportunities. The site is accessible to the public at: Federal Business Opportunities website: https://www.fbo.gov
New Opening Date: Friday at 10 a.m.
“Our process is equitable and efficient as it allows for Corps’ Engineers to interact with vendors that will help us to restore the area to pre-Harvey conditions and help reduce future flooding risks,” said Jeff Neill, USACE Galveston District Contracting Chief, “We’ve publicly posted responses to bidders’ questions to www.projnet.org.” Neill said bids will be opened on June 22, 2018 at 10:00 a.m., local time.
No New Placement Areas for Spoils Anticipated
The physical length of the emergency dredging did not change, just the estimates of the volume of materials within the original area of interest. No additional placement areas for the spoils should be needed, according to the Corps. Stangeland said the two placement areas already identified should be sufficient to store the recalculated increase in forecasted dredged material.
The opening was initially scheduled for May 29, 2018. Even with the delays, this project will be one of the first coming out of Hurricane Harvey that the Corps will complete.
Posted June 21, 2018, by Bob Rehak
296 Days since Hurricane Harvey
A Quick Way to Assess Flood Risk In Your Neighborhood During Storms
For decades, weather services have forecasted flood warnings, watches and alerts for general areas, such as the Houston region. But what is the risk to your particular neighborhood? Web-based, interactive tools now make it possible to forecast flood risk near you. However, they require some “do-it-yourself” interpretation. Hence, this post.
YESTERDAY morning (TUESDAY 6/19), I woke up and saw standing water in my backyard. The sky was black. I heard thunder. I remembered the forecast from Monday night about storms training across the area. My heart started racing as I fired up my laptop.
Here is what I did. (NOTE: TODAY’S RAINFALL IS DIFFERENT; THE INFORMATION BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE ONLY TO ILLUSTRATE A PROCEDURE.)
Houston threaded the needle overnight and avoided the major parts of the storm.
USGS showed that Lake Houston was still well below the spillway at 42.5 feet, even though it had risen 3 or 4 inches overnight.
You can see from the widening gap between those two lines how the city lowered the lake to create extra capacity before the storm. However, you can also see how the blue line started to turn up at the far right.
On Tuesday, Lake Conroe was about .4 feet below its normal level.
The lake level had only risen a few hundredths of an inch since the day before.
Only one of 14 SJRA gages showed more than an inch of rain.
From the Harris County Flood Warning System home page, I was able to quickly locate the gages for the US59 and West Lake Houston Parkway bridges over the San Jacinto River.
Difference between top of banks and water level
All of this took about 5 minutes. I could have waited for a weather report on TV or checked the weather app on my iPhone. However, they would have only told me what was happening in the region, but not at my exact location. Try it for yourself the next time you have a pitter patter panic.
Had the river been coming out of its banks, I could have accessed the new, near-real-time, inundation mapping system on the Harris County Flood Warning System home page. It is updated every 15 minutes. The map allows you to zoom into your neighborhood and see where flood waters are predicted to go based on the Flood Control District’s models and the river’s height.
Diane Cooper, a Kingwood resident who has 20+ years of forecasting experience with the National Weather Service, also suggested this shortcut. It lets you look at upstream and downstream rainfall over the entire region all at once. My thanks to Diane.
Posted 6/20/2018 by Bob Rehak
295 Days Since Hurricane Harvey