WORLD BUILDERS

IT'S A SPRING DAY ON THE OHIO. The powerful river surges over the ancient reefs beside Louisville, Ky., where the Falls of the Ohio used to be the most hazardous stretch on the thousand miles from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi. In just two miles, the river dropped 26 feet as it raced through a deadly obstacle course of rocks, sandbars, islands and snags. 

The rapids and falls impeded the new nation’s development in the decades after the Revolutionary War, when pioneers floated down the Ohio to settle the continent. Fortunately for the young republic, the Army Corps of Engineers was there with a solution. It began surveying and mapping a way around the falls early in the 19th century, and boats were passing safely through a complicated canal and lock system by 1830. Later, the Corps turned the system into the world’s largest: 350 feet long and 80 feet wide.  

Two hundred years after engineers first mapped the falls, lockmaster Dewey Takacy and acting operations manager Brad Stout stand watchful beside the navigation locks. Called the McAlpine Locks and Dam, the complex includes two sets of locks, with one that is 1,200 feet long to accommodate the enormous barges doing the nation’s business around the clock. 

As the two men point out the complex’s parts and pieces, a quarter-mile-long barge tow glides down the river loaded with some of the 280 million tons of cargo transported on the Ohio and its tributaries every year – 50 million tons through McAlpine alone, and as many as 16 massive barge tows daily. 

“That’s 870 semi-truck loads of cargo,” Stout says. “Stealth navigation system,” he adds, noting that this gargantuan movement of freight usually goes unnoticed by most Americans. 

Today, the Army Corps of Engineers is still building solutions for the United States and the world. McAlpine and the other 19 locks and dams on the Ohio are just one example of the Corps’ global functions, which include hundreds of other water projects, military missions, post-disaster contingency operations and geospatial support, as well as a robust research and development arm. More than ever, the Corps is fulfilling its motto: “Essayons,” which is French for “Let us try.”

THE ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS traces its origins to June 16, 1775, when the Continental Congress approved the creation of an army that included engineers, who served important roles in critical Revolutionary War battles like Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown. But in other ways, the Corps is a product of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; both were established in 1802. With its strong emphasis on engineering, West Point instilled a martial rigor in the Corps, which has always been commanded by a military officer. That imprint continues. While most of the Corps’ 37,000 engineers and employees are civilians, many are military veterans.  

Col. Christopher Beck is commander of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Louisville District, which includes Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio. A professional engineer who has deployed six times to Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, Beck believes the military-led civilian organization is different than a standard military model – in a good way. “It makes a strong enterprise – the smartest,” he says.

Beck emphasizes the military attributes of compromise, partnership and the ability to shape a consensus – all of which were crucial in the violent battle space of Afghanistan’s Kandahar region, where a standard day could include a firefight, a meeting with the mayor and multiple oversight missions to development projects. “It was just dynamic all day long,” he says. 

Now Beck is using the same adaptive skill set to help the Louisville District’s 1,300 soldiers and civilians accomplish their various missions in the heart of America. “The civilian (workers) bring a new set of eyes and provide continuity,” he says. 

He speaks of the many relationships woven into the Corps’ work: Congress, state and municipal governments, and commercial operations – the river transport industry, for instance – that rely on Corps-stewarded locks and dams. “Partnering is key to everything we do,” Beck says.

The Corps mixed its military responsibilities with civil ones early on, developing critical coastal fortifications to protect young America from European attack while embarking on ambitious civil engineering projects, including riverine improvement, roads, canals, piers, jetties and lighthouses. During the Civil War, its West Point-honed military engineering skills were utilized on both sides. And thousands of Corps engineers served during the Great War, constructing bridges, railways, roads and harbors, as well as developing the Army’s first tank units and the Chemical Warfare Service.

After the war, the Corps embarked on great civil water projects that transformed the United States, including the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project in Maine, Fort Peck Dam on the Missouri and the legendary Bonneville Dam on the Columbia. As the Depression gripped the country, the Corps also took on flood-control projects, including levee systems that snaked along the Ohio, Mississippi and other major rivers. Empowered by the 1936 and 1944 Flood Control Acts, the Corps built huge dams and reservoirs. These provided additional flood protection and hydroelectric power, and thrust the engineers into the recreation business. Today the Corps can boast more than 370 million visits to its 422 lake and river projects in 43 states. 

During World War II, the Corps was tasked with domestic and overseas base construction, which remains one of its chief responsibilities. Since December 1941, the Corps has overseen real estate acquisition, construction and maintenance of Army training camps, air bases, depots and hospitals. Its combat engineers bridged rivers in Italy, France and Germany, and prepared beaches for assault landings on both fronts, including D-Day in Normandy. During the Battle of the Bulge, many U.S. soldiers survived because engineers blew up bridges to slow the advancing German forces. At home, the Corps built the Pentagon and supervised the Manhattan Project.

Fought on tough terrain in bitter cold and steamy heat, the Korean War also challenged Corps engineers. To buy time for U.S.-led U.N. forces in the war’s early days, they slowed the enemy’s advance by destroying bridges and other facilities, and frequently fighting as infantry. The defensive line at Pusan they helped build permitted U.N. troops to survive in their embattled position. 

When U.N. forces later went on the attack, engineers were on the frontlines building roads, bridges and ports, as well as operating ferries and cargo terminals. After the Chinese forces joined the fight in November 1950, engineers rushed to build lateral roads and bridges behind defensive lines to allow U.N. forces to withdraw while sapping essential facilities to frustrate the enemy. 

For the massive search-and-destroy missions in Vietnam, Corps engineers developed the Rome plow – a military tractor with a protective cab and a special tree-cutting blade – to penetrate Viet Cong and North Vietnamese strongholds. 

It was also crucial to control the corrosive dust destroying the U.S. military’s 12,000 helicopters through abrasion and obscured visibility. The Corps’ research and development arm advised applying peneprime – a high-penetration, medium-cure, cutback asphalt product – to dust-proof landing zones, aiding the up-tempo helicopter war that defined its tactical operations.  

The Corps also brought modern infrastructure to Vietnam, building 900 miles of paved highways that connected the south’s major cities, and oversaw construction by private U.S. contractors of an additional 550 miles of roads.

In the past 50 years, the Corps’ multipurpose federal projects at home have grown exponentially, too, including major hydroelectric power systems on the Missouri, Arkansas, Columbia and Snake rivers. By 1975, Corps projects on the latter two rivers were producing 27 percent of total U.S. hydropower and 4.4 percent of all electrical energy output. In the postwar period, it also developed new navigation systems such as the McClellan-Kerr and Tennessee-Tombigbee waterways and the U.S. portion of the St. Lawrence Seaway, along with modernizing many outdated locks and dams on the upper Mississippi. 

Beyond water projects, the Corps has built post offices, U.S. Armed Forces recruiting stations, missile sites, NASA facilities (including vehicle assembly structures at Cape Kennedy), and VA hospitals to serve wounded and ill veterans.

Meanwhile, the Corps’ foreign aid commitments have multiplied in the 21st century, due to U.S. involvement in the volatile developing world – from the war-torn Middle East to insurgency-plagued Africa and Latin America. Post-9/11, engineers have also engaged in counterinsurgency “nation-building” development projects in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

THE CORPS BEGAN responding to natural disasters just after the Civil War, when engineers helped freed slaves survive massive flooding along the Mississippi. They assisted with relief missions during the 1882 Mississippi flood, the horrific 1889 Johnstown flood and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The Ohio and Mississippi river floods in 1937 led the Corps to require all engineer districts to develop flood emergency plans. Since the late 1970s, the Corps has worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on disaster relief efforts, including numerous earthquakes, hurricanes and floods, as well as oil spills in Alaska and along the Gulf Coast. 

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, leading to the Corps’ responsibilities in flood control, navigation and environmental projects. Informed by the city’s levee failures, the Corps engaged in an ambitious outreach to address levee systems across the waterways of America – even those along smaller rivers, such as the Wabash on the Indiana-Illinois border.  

Hunter Pinnell is levee supervisor for Vincennes, Ind., an historic town on the Wabash that suffered damaging floods until a floodwall and levees were built in the 1950s. In the aftermath of Katrina, the small city faced a quandary. The more stringent FEMA levee standards required Vincennes to come up with new solutions – so the Corps assisted. 

“We have a tremendous relationship with the Corps,” Pinnell says. “They have been a great help through the years. We talk to them as friends.” In conjunction with the city government, engineers undertook a major hydrology study and developed a plan. As a result, Vincennes confidently moved toward FEMA certification. 

IN THE YEARS AFTER 9/11, a fresh influx of wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan put additional pressure on VA hospitals, with Congress eventually calling on the Corps for help. Eager to replace aging facilities, VA initiated a flurry of construction projects, including new medical centers in Denver, Orlando, Fla., and New Orleans. After media investigations into the Denver center’s $1 billion cost overrun, Congress passed legislation in 2016 requiring VA to partner with the Corps on any project exceeding $100 million. 

“I’m glad we’re at this point now – that the Army Corps of Engineers is taking over the project,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., after the bill’s passage. “Construction is their day job.” 

According to Martin Traxler, director of the Robley Rex VA Medical Center in Louisville, Ky., the new relationship is working well. Together, VA and the Corps are developing the new Louisville VA Medical Center, a $975 million facility that will replace the current hospital complex, which dates to 1952. Currently in planning and environmental study stages, it is scheduled to break ground in fiscal 2018 and be completed in six years. 

A Marine Corps veteran and Legionnaire, Traxler says VA and the Corps share a vision of designing and building a medical center that will last at least 50 years. “Their core mission is construction,” he says. “Our core mission is medical care. This partnership makes sense.” 

Elsewhere, the Corps is setting the bar high for “green” construction. At Fort Knox, Ky., the Louisville District recently oversaw the building of Kingsolver Elementary School, a $32.5 million project that meets the rigorous standards for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. 

“If it’s complex, the Army goes to the Corps,” says project engineer Nick Bibelhauser, who has worked for the Corps since 2003. 

With geothermal heating and cooling, LED lighting and solar tubes that bring sunlight in through holes in the roof, light-colored roofing to reflect the sun’s heat and solar collection panels that heat more than 75 percent of the building’s hot water, the school is estimated to have a 61 percent energy savings. 

Kingsolver is a Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) 21st Century School, using the building’s renewable energy technology for hands-on learning. It realigns traditional classrooms into 635 student stations that operate in conjunction with learning hubs or neighborhoods. There’s an emphasis on the interactive, so students are aware of the school building’s effects on the environment. For example, three “dashboards” track energy and water consumption for each neighborhood, to develop an appreciation for both. 

“It’s a very modern learning environment,” Bibelhauser says. 

AT THE FAR END OF THE OHIO, about 17 miles upstream from the confluence with the mighty Mississippi, the Corps is nearing completion of the largest and most expensive waterway project in U.S. history. Costing almost $3 billion, the Olmsted Locks and Dam complex is scheduled to open next year. Begun three decades ago, it’s a sprawling construction site, bustling with hundreds of workers intent on finishing what will be one of America’s great civil engineering works.  

The project has been hobbled for decades by on-again, off-again fiscal support by Congress. Then there were the engineering challenges. This is the busiest spot in the U.S. waterway system, literally the hub of the nation’s river traffic. With barge traffic so heavy here, about 90 million tons annually, cofferdams to block the river during construction weren’t feasible. Innovation was required. Engineers concluded the pyramid-scale structures had to be erected “in the wet,” in a rushing river so murky that divers installing the massive concrete dam components had to do it by touch, as underwater visibility is typically zero. 

Olmsted is also replacing two archaic lock-and-dam complexes, the much-maligned Dams 52 and 53. Built in the 1920s, they are literally falling apart – “in failure mode,” in engineering parlance. In short, the deteriorating infrastructure has become a high-risk situation. 

“We’re basically holding these together with the equivalent of Band-Aids and duct tape,” says Capt. Jeremy Nichols, the project’s executive officer. When these aging locks go down – and they regularly do – the traffic jams boggle the mind: days-long backlogs for barge tows to get through the locks. Not surprisingly, the Olmsted Locks and Dam are America’s No. 1 navigation priority.  

Years went into developing techniques for “in-the-wet” construction. “Nothing on this order of magnitude has ever been done,” says Michael Braden, the project’s division chief.

Following the site’s infrastructure development, workers began driving thousands of piles into the riverbed in 2004 – years of work that were invisible to an increasingly frustrated Congress. “When you’re spending a billion, people want to see something for the money,” Braden says. 

Naturally, congressional appropriations came in fits and starts. The decades-long funding impasse was finally broken in 2013, when an earmark dubbed “the Kentucky kickback” was inserted into the 2013 spending bill. It increased available funding for Olmsted by almost $2 billion, allowing the project to proceed full bore. 

The Olmsted site is in southern Illinois’ “Little Egypt” region of wetlands, cypress bogs and stalking herons. The wide river flows by full and brown. On the far side, passing barges look like children’s toys. 

The casting yard is equally epic in scale. The nation’s largest gantry crane looms over the site, ready to handle yet another enormous 5,000-ton concrete shell that has been pre-cast with perfect zero tolerance, laser surveyed at 250 different points. In the river, the world’s biggest catamaran barge waits to maneuver the shell out to its place on the river. 

“It’s like building with LEGOs on a gargantuan scale,” Nichols says. “It’s an engineer’s dream – and an accountant’s nightmare.”

Work goes on every day but Christmas. On Super Bowl Sunday, the workers set two shells. Safety is paramount; more than 11,000 dives have happened without injury. And with the funding resolved, the Corps is producing major results. The project looks to be completed years ahead of schedule, and Corps analysts calculate that replacing the aging infrastructure with the new Olmsted complex will annually yield the nation $640 million in economic benefits – a return on investment that will pay for itself in five years.  

As it has done since 1775, the Army Corps of Engineers continues to serve the United States and the world with vital expertise, innovative thinking and a deep commitment to quality. In wartime and peacetime, the Corps strengthens the nation’s security, boosts the economy, reduces risks from natural disasters and provides critical assistance when the worst happens. When America faces its toughest challenges, the Corps is there.  

Douglas Wissing has written for National Geographic Traveler, ForbesLife and Gray’s Sporting Journal. He is a frequent contributor to The American Legion Magazine.