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  • June

    Portland District natural resource management staff attends 2017 Natural Resources Management (NRM) Workshop.

    Rangers Join Colleagues to Ready for the Recreation Season

    In preparation for the recreation seasons, more than 350 park rangers, natural resource managers and environmental compliance coordinators gathered in Norman, Okl. For the first time in seven years, they had the opportunity to engage colleagues from across the Corps to strengthen and develop technical competencies, foster learning opportunities, and build strong communities of practice.

  • May

    Richard Benoit, Portland District dive team proponent and program manager, has been deployed for more than a year, first to Afghanistan and now to Iraq to inspect underwater tunnels and steel structures at Mosul Dam. (Corps of Engineers Photo)

    ISIS, potential dam collapse make deployment memorable

    Richard Benoit, Portland District dive team proponent and program manager, has been deployed for more than a year, first to Afghanistan and now to Iraq. This is his seventh overseas deployment, but his first to the Middle East, where he is serving as the Corps’ dive safety officer and dive safety inspector for the Mosul Dam rehabilitation and repair project.

  • February

    The Dredge Yaquina facing seaward in Vigor Shipyard’s dry dock.

    Maintaining the ships that maintain Western and Pacific shipping channels

    The Corps' dredges Essayons and Yaquina go into dry dock every winter for maintenance so they are ready when spring comes to dredge vital shipping channels in Oregon, California, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii.

  • June

    KGW-TV reporter Drew Carney "interviews" Bobber the Water Safety Dog about life jackets and water safety on May 19 as part of Carney's Out & About segment on KGW’s Sunrise program.

    Dramatic plunge helps Corps focus viewers on water safety

    Representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Portland District and Oregon State Marine Board appeared live on Portland's KGW-TV to talk about water safety, explain how life jackets save lives and demonstrate different life jacket styles. One heroic team member was pushed into the Willamette River to show the effects of cold water immersion and confirm the critical job of a life jacket.
  • Col. Jose Aguilar, Portland District commander, provided an overview of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers history and mission in the Pacific Northwest. Aguilar said it’s important for Corps project teams to meet with business representatives and exchange information in an environment that balances both parties’ needs while respecting the fair contracting opportunities.

    USACE experts share how to navigate federal contracting regulations

    Businesses interested in working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had two opportunities recently to learn about future projects and how to compete for them. The industry day events were designed to introduce businesses to the government acquisition process, provide information about the tools needed to do business with the Corps, and how to improve project proposals.

  • January

    Map of cascadia subduction zone

    Don't freak out: Dams generally do well in earthquakes

    Scientists tell us the Pacific Northwest is due for another very large earthquake a – from the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific coast. The historical performance of dams in seismic events has been exceptionally good. Only one concrete dam in modern history has ever failed as the result of a seismic event, mainly due to the fault running directly beneath it. Generally, concrete dams have sustained only minor damage.

  • March

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Operations and Maintenance Work Plan for fiscal year 2014 includes $1,262,000 to dredge the navigation channel used by mariners at the Port of Port Orford, Ore.

    Corps FY14 work plan provides funding for coastal dredging

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently released its Fiscal Year 2014 work plans for the Army Civil Works program. The Operation and Maintenance Plan includes nearly $15 million for maintenance dredging of the federal navigation channels used by Oregon’s small coastal ports. The plan also includes $1.2 million to dredge the Skipanon Channel, Ore., and $1.8 million to dredge the Chinook channel and Baker Bay, Wash.

  • September

    Through four cross-country mobilizations to MOTCO, the seven-person dive team utilized a surface-supplied SCUBA methodology to dive 95 times within nine weeks -- using 190 tanks of air to perform 285 hours of underwater work. The Portland District Office of Dive/ROV Operations and Safety led the Corps’ underwater execution of MOTCO’s pier inspections.

    Portland District dive office oversees critical inspections of Army piers in California

    The Portland District Office of Dive/ROV Operations and Safety led the Corps’ underwater execution of MOTCO’s pier inspections in California this summer.

  • August

    Rendering of The Dalles Dam Spillway, Columbia River, Oregon, 1954

    District takes Dam Safety exercises to community partners

    The District’s Dam Safety and Readiness sections are following an aggressive schedule of internal drills, but are also traveling to the Rogue and Willamette basins and the Columbia Gorge this summer to hold project familiarization sessions and tabletop exercises with local and county emergency managers and responders.
  • Overhead bridge cranes travel the interior length of Corps powerhouses, mounted on parallel rails above the huge generators. A hoist, the lifting component of a crane, travels across the width of the bridge crane carrying loads and suspending multi-ton parts for maintenance and installation projects. This is a smaller bridge crane, with a capacity of 300 tons; shown here as it “flies a load” in Detroit Dam’s powerhouse.

    Cranes take the loads off and up and over

    Omnipresent cranes do the heavy lifting around Corps projects, like strong workhorses on a pioneer farm. All Corps dams have one. The spillway gates at Bonneville Dam and other dams need them, and they slice the horizon of almost every Corps construction project.