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  • September

    A rock structure coming out of the mouth of a river is pictured with a crane and a bulldozer on top.

    USACE completes South Jetty repairs, concludes decade-long Mouth of Columbia River project

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Portland District, has completed major rehabilitation to the South Jetty at the mouth of the Columbia River, marking the end of a decade-plus effort to restore the three jetties that protect one of the nation’s busiest trade corridors.

  • June

    The Essayons travelled north to the Corps’ Alaska District, to dredge the Cook Inlet Navigation Channel. A sudden surge of shoal material in the past two years reduced depths and affected navigation in the channel, which is the only Coast Guard marked route for all cargo and fuel ships supplying the Port of Anchorage.

    Big Bertha heads to Benson Beach, battles erosion

    Off the coast of Oregon, Big Bertha moves in the water, inching toward land. Bertha, as her government creators to refer to it, is the result of three years of inter-agency planning. Her architects; some of whom work for the Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; conscripted half of Portland District’s dredge fleet to scrape the river bottom and collect what was to become Bertha: a migrating mound of sand.

  • September

    U.S. Army Col. Michael Helton, Portland District commander, highlights details of the South Jetty rehabilitation at the Mouth of the Columbia River to Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici during a small commemoration event, Aug. 31. The Corps estimates that it will complete rehabilitation on South Jetty by 2024 and will use 400,000 tons of stone. The group, which included Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, was able to see some of the work as contractors placed rock in the background. So far, the Corps has placed more than 14,000 tons of stone at South Jetty. (U.S. Army photo by Jeremy Bell)

    Violent confluence of Columbia River and Pacific Ocean make jetty work … weighty

    During violent winter storms, waves taller than the length of six king-sized beds stacked end-to-end (40 feet) can meet the Columbia River as it makes its way out to the Pacific Ocean. This concentrated colliding of water makes crossing the bar incredibly dangerous, according to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. So precarious, in fact, that this channel had a nickname, “the graveyard of the Pacific,” at least until the U.S. government built critical infrastructure to reduce some of the risk.