Lawyers – and other useless creatures.
Creating the staging area.
Placing the armour stone
Expansion of the dike
Dredging conducted to generate draft for vessels. Dredge material used to expand dikes.
Collapsed Bunker: After releasing the report back to the guys in Afghanistan I wanted to use the event as a lessons learned for wider consumption. Being of the military mind it is obvious that this is not possible without security vetting and authorisation, so I put in the request and it all went ominously quiet. I eventually discovered that one of the Corps Lawyers has been delivering ethics training, citing an example of a British officer who divulged potential security threats to outside contractors! Furious doesn’t even come close. Having put the guy straight he has now circulated a formal apology to all who received the ‘training’. My co-workers are stunned that I managed to get an apology from the Office of Council – they have a history of getting everyone’s back up apparently. Good news is that we should be on track to release limited information for wider circulation soon.
Poplar Island: My investigations for subsequent cell construction has thrown up the fact that we will need to adapt the construction sequence to include a double coffer dam as opposed to a single one as has been historically used. Traditionally, a staging area is built and then extended out to form the outline of the dike (photos not available at this time – I need to post from work). Once completed, dredge material is pumped in and excess water siphoned off using a spillway until the interior of the island is useable. At this stage a coffer is built on the external portion and the inlet structure is installed. To use a dual purpose structure as proposed, we will need to place the structure before the inner section of the cell is complete, meaning a wet gap on both sides, so I need to come up with a suitable plan to execute this without affecting the ongoing cell wall construction.
Building 45 Renovation: Myself and my mentor have been called in to help come up with the designs for the renovation of an existing brick masonry bearing wall building with heavy timber roof trusses and solid wood decking supporting a slate tile roof . Apparently anything over 100 years old is a big deal around here – I sometimes forget how ‘young’ this country is! Either way we need to get in there to identify the original construction methods before we can get stuck into the juicy stuff. It’s a much wider project with involvement of pretty much all the disciplines, but Preston and I are to address seismic and structural issues.
Levee Screening Projects: These are killers. I sit in a panel of experts to appraise the condition of the levee structures in order to help prioritise funding for repairs. We have a hydrologist, a geologist, a civil works rep and myself acting as the structural engineer. Between us we pour through all of the technical data, reports and photographic evidence to grade the levees. It’s like applying the ‘so what’ in the 7 questions. Some elements of the existing structures do not conform to the guidance, but it is down to us to determine what the real implications are and what the severity is likely to be. Our results will determine if townships remain within the protection scheme, whether home owners will be affected by insurances and what the priorities will be for funding (or removal of funding). It’s long and tedious, but important.
Officer Professional Development: I have volunteered to organise the next quarter’s OPD for the USACE after forging links with Philadelphia district and the crew of one of their biggest dredge vessels. This will essentially turn into the equivalent of OPD. It’s early days yet and I have more to coordinate as the ship has been called up for emergency work. In the meantime I have also volunteered to present at this quarter’s OPD on the Corps of Royal Engineers and the exchange program itself to help our cousins understand why we have folks with funny uniforms and posh accents floating around.
Other News: Enjoyed a vacation with the boys home for Christmas – so we had a long weekend in New York. Amazing place – some great photos to show for it and my wallet took a huge kick in the nuts…..but it was worth it. Evidence has also started to materialise of my involvement with the christmas corrol service. I now appear to be a regular feature on the front page of the USACE intranet…..all positive!…promise! – and before you ask – yes I’m normally lunging!
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
Hi Mat,
Look forward to photos of Poplar Island and the venerable Building 45. OPD presentation on the RE and PET sounds like a good advertising space for joining the course here if they have candidates. I’m sure there’s a NATO fund that will allow additional students to be paid for, if not the godbless uncle Sam’s deep pockets. Anything that sees numbers in the classroom grow has to be good here! Particularly if it comes with alternative perspectives and experience.
Mat, who is the British officer with a posh accent that is working in your office?
Jim
Ben is the one with a posh accent….certainly not me!…although the Americans do think any hint of English means you’re posh.
Matt, I’m concerned by the lack of music trivia in this blog and thus am concerned for your sanity during your daily commute. Can you confirm that you have not slipped into a hypnotised state of civilianism and that you are still finding the so called normality still slightly eccentric!
Loving the fact that you are now working in a marine environment and all that it brings….be vary wary of anyone mentioning terms such as “trial and improvement (previously error)” when it comes to coffer dams and/or dewatering. This generally results (from the experience of Roy Serevena) in leaning more towards the error and potential failure!