The race for protection

2008-10 boom years for work on New Orleans defenses

By Angelle Bergeron

As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers races to provide 100-year levels of hurricane protection to the Greater New Orleans area, contractors will see an abundance of awards and innovative contracting vehicles to help expedite the work.

We have already obligated $2 billion of a $14-billion-plus program,” says Karen Durham-Aguilera, director of Task Force Hope, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ coastal restoration program that aims to bring the system to a 100-year level by 2011.

“Obviously, the years of 2008, 2009 and 2010 will be real heavy in regards to construction awards. We have close to 40 contracts for $2 billion that will be let this year.”

advertisement

The corps has initiated a variety of efforts to maintain close ties with the construction community and better facilitate the work.

“We want to make sure the construction community knows the type of work that is coming over the next three to four years so they are able to bid successfully,” Durham-Aguilera says. A programmatic schedule is posted on the corps’ Web site, with lettings per quarter.

“We also have had industry workshops set up for complicated projects like the IHNC,” Durham-Aguilera says regarding the design-build contract for some sort of storm-surge structure at the eastern mouth of the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal that was scheduled to be let in March.

“That is a key project that will provide storm-damage reduction for several areas, including New Orleans East and St. Bernard, and will be a lynchpin toward delivering 100-year protection,” Durham-Aguilera adds. Estimated cost of the project is $500 million to $1 billion.

Task Force Hope represents the largest civil works project in the history of the corps, and considering that the agency’s entire national civil works program excluding Task Force Hope is about $4.7 billion, delivering the projects by 2011 is an incredible undertaking.

“Here you have a program already funded up front for $7.1 billion and an administration poised to deliver another $7.4 billion,” Durham-Aguilera says.

The key word in that statement is “poised.” Until an appropriations bill is passed, the details on amounts and cost sharing aren’t firm on the remaining $7.4 billion.

However, the corps has “90% confidence” that the “traceable, sustainable estimate” will be sufficient to bring the system to 100-year levels, Durham-Aguilera says. The issue of appropriations is in the hands of Congress and should be resolved by the end of this year.

“The corps doesn’t do a good job of defending themselves,” says Blake Andrews, vice president of B&K Construction of Mandeville, La. “People see on TV that a bill is passed, and they think we’ve got the money. If Congress doesn’t appropriate the funds, they can’t do the work.”

Andrews’ company was working on two SELA projects that dried up until Congress made available an additional $224.7 million for SELA when it approved the Supplemental IV emergency funding post-Katrina. Those funds were with no nonfederal cost share, says Lt. Col. Murray Starkel, deputy commander and district engineer for the New Orleans District.

“We also received $25.3 million for SELA that was cost shared at 75% federal and 25% nonfederal,” Starkel adds. In the proposed 2009 budget, $838 million is recommended for SELA projects at a 65% federal and 35% non-federal cost share.

Corps work represents about 80% of B&K’s business, so Andrews is hoping Congress approves the funds for hurricane and flood protection projects. Currently, B&K holds two contracts for canal improvements in Jefferson Parish under the SELA program.

Both the $24.5 million Soniat Canal and the $31.5 million Gardere Canal contracts involve lining dirt canals with concrete, Andrews says. “These jobs have been discussed since 2000, but the corps had lost the funding to proceed,” he says. “When the storm came, they received additional funding for SELA.”

Preparing bid packages takes longer than in the past because the corps is awarding best-value contracts, Andrews says. The corps also is using methods such as design-build, cost plus and reverse-bid auctions to allow flexibility to deliver technical projects in a briefer time frame.

“A lot of people’s view of the corps is that it’s conservative and stuck in the past,” Durham-Aguilera says. “It’s good to show people we can do things that are different.”

In August 2007 Babcock Construction of Petal, Miss., was awarded an $8.5 million contract for the first phase of the estimated $21 Harahan Pump to the River project. The SELA project is designed to prevent local flooding by providing stormwater drainage through three, side-by-side, 84-in pipes that are 9,000 ft long. Babcock’s portion of the project is about 700 ft long, which means the contractor is installing roughly 2,000 lin ft of the spiral-welded steel pipe.

Partners Josh Layton and Bobby Babcock formed the business after the executive order was signed in 2004 stipulating that all federal contracts must include a 3% set-aside for service-disabled-veteran-owned businesses, Layton says. “It’s like an 8a program, but for veterans who were wounded,” he adds.

Of the partners, Babcock is the veteran with heavy-equipment experience, and Layton is the civil engineer.

In addition to fitting the set-aside percentage for being a SDVOB, Babcock’s contract was a best-value award, Layton says. “We were not the low bid, but we had the best technical proposal with attention to detail and plans to finish on time,” he says.

To place the pipe, Babcock installed a cofferdam the length of the project (700 ft), 70 ft wide and 23 ft deep.

“There are 230,000-volt transition mains right above the worksite, so we can’t use a normal boom length on the crane,” Layton says.

In October 2007, energy provider Entergy elevated the 40-ft power lines on one side to 60 ft, so the contractor would have room to work. Using a 100-ton crane with a short boom, the contractor is tasked with placing about 50 lengths of pipe, about 23,000 lbs each, inside the cofferdam without coming within 20 ft of the lines. “We have to keep the boom 20 ft away from existing volts or it will arc,” Layton says.

Furthermore, because the coffer dam supports are placed 26 ft. apart, pipe placement requires turning the pipe one way to get into the dam and then another way. “It’s a very slow project,” Layton says. “We probably will only lay three joints of this per day.”

Although this particular project is so challenging that Babcock and Layton aren’t certain they will bid on another piece of it, the Corps has been a good client, says Layton, who has worked with other districts in the country. “They are taking advantage of every opportunity to move it along quickly, using things like set asides and MATOCs,” Layton says.

Multiple Award Task Order Contracts have been around for years, but not used much in the New Orleans District prior to Katrina, Starkel says. “MATOCs allow us to quickly turn around RFPs in a shorter duration. We can go out in 10 days, rather than the typical 45.”

Like an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contract, a MATOC allows multiple, preapproved contractors to bid on specific projects. The corps often takes a lot of heat when it awards contracts under such vehicles, instead of using open bids, because some contractors claim they are being excluded from the process, Starkel says.

“We can’t reach that 2011 goal doing business the normal way we do,” he adds.

Cajun Constructors of Baton Rouge won three healthy task orders under an IDIQ contract to provide flood protection for the West Bank of Jefferson Parish. The contractor has already completed a $14.7 million task order to provide flood protection for Bayou Segnette and Company Canal.

“The task order included fabrication and installation of a mechanical barge gate for navigable travel, and fabrication and installation of a mechanical lift gate at Bayou Segnette Pump Station,” says Euclid Michel, Cajun’s senior vice president of government and public works.

Cajun also holds a $55.8 million contract to construct 3,200 lin ft of reinforced concrete floodwall, with floodgates and drainage structures, that is scheduled for completion in the third quarter of 2008.

On February 1, the Corps awarded Cajun a $132 million contract to construct 8,300 linear ft. of floodwall to stretch south from the Harvey Canal sector gate a Lapalco Boulevard to Peters Road cutoff, Michel says.

“Cajun will place approximately 32,000 cu yds of concrete, will drive 4,200 steel H-piles and will install 8,200 lin ft of steel sheet piles,” he adds.

Cajun has also performed work for the USACE in the Memphis, Vicksburg, Fort Worth and Kansas City districts.

So, will New Orleanians be safe moving into the 2008 hurricane season?

“If you’re asking do we have 100-year levels for the system, the answer is no,” Durham-Aguilera says. “To have an entire system, we need to complete all of these projects.”

That being said, Durham-Aguilera called attention to the fact that the IHNC design-build contract includes advanced measures that will be in place by the 2009 hurricane season.

She adds that things are continually improving throughout the system as construction projects are advanced. Another sign of progress is the improved relations between the corps and the community through open, transparent communications and a sense of partnership.

“We’ve seen excellent progress in the way these levee authorities have been set up and are operating,” Durham-Aguilera says. “They are all experts in their various fields, and it’s a pleasure to be able to work with a professional levee authority.”